01-26-15 06:56 TOM WALKER wrote to ED VANCE about Re: Time Zones Was: Older

 TW> {at}MSGID: 
 EV>I remember the time where I dialed 6 numbers to call a phone in my city
 EV>and I remember the change over to 7 digits but I could still call a lot
 EV>of the numbers using 6 digits even after the supposed ending of the
 EV>period where either way the numbers could be dialed.

 TW> I rembember when I was in high School up in Great Falls Montana
 TW> their phone numbers were 4 digits.

Howdy! Tom,

Before there was a telephone in our house, if we needed a Cab to take
someone in the house somewhere, sometimes I would be asked to go next
door and ask the neighbor to use their telephone.

The first time I ever used their phone, I heard a voice saying:
"Number Please?", and all I could say was the name of the Cab Company
that I was told to call.

When we got telephone service it was a Dial Telephone.

It was the old bakelite(sp?) model that was used before the plastic 500
Series came out.

 TW> There was a lot of grumbiling when they went to 5 digits

Just like I am grumbling over this Ten Digit Dialing.

I don't mind dialing Eleven Numbers to make a Long Distance call,
although the Cell Phone Users just dial Ten Digits for any calls that
they make.

I still fell that the Area Code for my area wouldn't have had a
shortage of available numbers to issue if the Cell Phone Users were
all switched over to the new Area Code.

But that's my opinion, others have theirs.

 TW> Several years later I got a job with the Phone company and
 TW> hepled double the size of their Switch Room.
 TW> Being junior man I spent a lot of time crawling up on the cable
 TW> trays lacing down the cables with waxed cord.

A friend let me visit him at the Exchange where he worked, so I can
understand what You went through.

One place where I worked at, the Operator Switchboard and Switch Room
was along side of the room I was at.

The telephone numbers for the building next to our building could be
dialed just by dialing the number 8 and then the 4 numbers for the
offices in that other building.

On a midnight shift sometimes I would hear one of the Step By Step
Relays (iirc that is what they're called) Start making a clicking sound
because someone from the other building wanted to make a call on a
outside line but all of the outside lines on their Telephone System
were in use, so they would dial 8 and then 9 to get a Dial Tone so they
could make their call.

Some of the time after they finished their call the Relay would hang
up in a intermitten position and some piece of equipment that would
start up whenever one of the Relays in the Switch Room was activated
would continue to make a Tick Tock noise that would continue all night
long until the Lady Operators came to work in the morning.

The Operator showed me that I could touch the bottom of the Relay that
was in the intermediate position, and it would let the rotating part
drop down, which would turn off the Tick Tock noise which I heard all
night long.

That was a blessing just learning how to stop that noise when it wasn't
needed for the Switch Room equipment to be making.

Not that it was driving me crazy, I am already crazy, in my own way.
Of course You and the Others who read my messages know that.
73

... This is a home for lost taglines.
--- MultiMail/MS-DOS v0.49
--- SBBSecho 2.12-Linux