Mastodawn

Troed Sångberg 10h ago

@neil hah

/actual way back when #PhonePhreak checking in

Dialing from one floor to another routing the call via Japan gave a nice two second delay.

Large Format Projectionist 8h ago

@troed @neil

We removed the single-button-press bar on our radio station’s five line phones. We could patch calls together. Legend has it a DJ got 2 on air talk DJs talking to each other.

J4ck 7h ago

@troed @neil Hey, I understand this message!

Exactly. Had to route across the ocean and it was just terrible.

Richard 10h ago

@neil
all yes, does this make me old?

@Yorkshiregeek No older than I am :)

Greem (Graeme. Not Graham!)10h ago

@neil Yep. Every one of them.

Snaprails 10h ago

@neil I've done all of those though there's an obvious reason for that 🙂

Paul Richards 10h ago

@neil I grew up in a house with a rotary phone long after most people already had button phones. It confused the heck out of my friends when they tried to use it. :D

ʙᴇɴ ᴄᴏᴛᴛᴇяɪʟʟ 4h ago

@pauldoo @neil Still got a rotary phone in the house. Going to carry on using it until the analog PTSN is switched off.

Andrew Deacon 10h ago

@neil yes to 1,4,5 and 7 but i am 75 (nearly 76 ) so i grew up with these things.

@aadeacon I am not 75, and have done all of those things!

חנן כהן • Hanan Cohen 10h ago

@neil my mother was a (human) telephone operator. so, although I didn't speak to her as a telephone operator, we talked.

ARGVMI~1.PIF 10h ago

New Mastodon Poll Reveals 87% of Mastodonians Are Old AF

Galactic Stone 10h ago

@argv_minus_one @neil Mastodon is a just a seperate interwebs for elder Millennials, Gen-X'ers, and Boomers. Sometimes we let the kids hang out with us because we're cool like that. And oh yeah, rumor has it that John Mastodon is like 68 or something.

Tuchowski 9h ago

@argv_minus_one Sure! We also need a place to be. 😁
@neil

Miakoda

8h ago

@argv_minus_one @neil What is with this never ending trend of calling everybody old? Okay, so I used a phone book. Oooh no, call AARP! HA, so fucking funny I forgot to laugh.

@hellomiakoda @argv_minus_one @neil

The Turtle 4h ago

AARP sucks ass, it's mostly a marketing scam and while you can SIGN UP online, just fuckin' try to CANCEL online! It might as well be a big dispenser of Val-Pak coupons.

ARGVMI~1.PIF 4h ago

@the_turtle is old AF confirmed.

@hellomiakoda @neil

@hellomiakoda @argv_minus_one @neil

The Turtle 4h ago

AARP sucks ass, it's mostly a marketing scam and while you can SIGN UP online, just fuckin' try to CANCEL online! It might as well be a big dispenser of Val-Pak coupons.

RantingCanuck 5h ago

@argv_minus_one @neil

I'm not old... the kids (and their children too) these days are just too young

McRocker 🇨🇦🍁5h ago

@argv_minus_one @neil

What does AF mean????? HAHAHAHAHA

rk: it’s hyphen-minus actually 10h ago

What I’m learning is that I am likely to crumble to dust soon.

k8quinn 🇺🇦 🇨🇦 🇲🇽 🇪🇺10h ago

I not only spoke to a telephone operator, I WAS one (at a car dealership). So was my wife - that's where we met.

Graham Sutherland / Polynomial 10h ago

@neil all but the phone card and exchange

Graham Sutherland / Polynomial 10h ago

@neil wait does the phone card one mean the type for payphones, or does it include cards used to top up PAYG mobile phones? cos I definitely used the latter.

@gsuberland Ooh, good clarification. I was meaning in the context of a payphone here.

(hic/haec/hoc)10h ago

@neil @gsuberland the standard prepaid magnetic cards or the international cards with a secret number to input?

Dubious Blur 6h ago

@_hic_haec_hoc @neil @gsuberland I read it as the former (though I’ve used both)

Chris Fox 5h ago

@_hic_haec_hoc @neil @gsuberland What about those 'orrible green BT ones from the 80s, with 'invisible' index marks that were literally burnt off as you used up your credit, and which invariably stopped working prematurely, with no way of getting a refund?

Emily Vale, Gendermancer 8h ago

@neil @gsuberland I used calling cards for long distance calls from home (in America) to my German girlfriend. 😁 (This wasn't pre-Internet, but I met her in person as an exchange student.)

David Nash 10h ago

@gsuberland @neil I’m not sure if there’s a UK vs elsewhere distinction here but: in the US a “phone card” often meant something kind of like a phone company-account specific access card. It was also called a “calling card”. You’d dial a number (with an extra code/digit string to enable “calling card” mode), wait for the phone to make a “ka-BONG” sound, then dial the phone card ID number, and your call would go through and be billed to the account associated with the card. My parents gave me the phone card number for their account when I was in college in the 1990s so I wouldn’t have to worry about phone charges calling them.

David Nash 10h ago

@gsuberland @neil Being entrusted with the parents’ phone card in the 1990s naturally replaced the previous “emergency call home” system in the 1980s, which was reverse charges (“collect calls” here in the US).

Aaron 9h ago

@dpnash I answered "yes" to "phone card" because I remember my parents giving me a physical card with numbers on it, and teaching me how to do exactly this, before I ever saw a cell phone.

Seeing "ka-BONG" written out triggered a memory of that exact sound!

@gsuberland @neil

contranym 9h ago

@dpnash @gsuberland @neil i just used prepaid phone cards for long distance on a landline and then for a cell phone when i finally got one here in the us. this would have been in the early 00s, tho.

Derick Rethans 10h ago

@neil You could just have asked how old we are 😂

I am PJ🇵🇹

10h ago

@neil I did all, Am I so old 🤔😱🤪😂😂

Dr Ro Smith 10h ago

@neil Most of these. Not sure about the phone card. I don't *think* so, but I'm not entirely sure.

I've talked to operators but I don't think been routed from one system to another, unless this includes dialling 9 to dial out, or being forwarded by a receptionist?

Never received a phone call in a phone booth, but used to use them regularly to call parents as a child and teenager.

Sarah Jamie Lewis 10h ago

@neil all of the above

@sarahjamielewis Well there's a surprise :)

Paul_IPv6 10h ago

@sarahjamielewis @neil

i missed one (the exchange to exchange one)...

int%rmitt]nt sig^al. ...~!...)10h ago

@neil
My auntie was a switchboard operator on a joint operations air base during The War, she had to speak English AND American.

Bradley 10h ago

@neil ha unfortunately I still remember my ATT phone card number

Colin the Mathmo 10h ago

@neil I have also used a pay phone on a train.

Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK 10h ago

@ColinTheMathmo @neil 100% on all of them. I also remember the loud "cuckoo" tone on inbound calls to a payphone (to prevent reverse charge calls being made via the operator), also during late 1980a if you tried some calls on level 1 such as 16 (Dial a disc) and another one (it was some number like 159) you would just hear a loud cuckoo sound from *inside* the phone box and the call would be abruptly cleared down (presumably this is because a metering pulse had come down the line but you hadn't put any money in)

Damien 10h ago

@neil used a telephone book for which purpose?

Stephen Paulger 10h ago

@neil I am curious what it means to dial from one exchange to another.

I probably only called local numbers as a kid and dialing other areas when I was older was always just preceding the number with a 4 or 5 digit area code, did it work differently before?

Cecilia Bell 10h ago

@neil Yes to all, plus for a summer I actually was a (human) telephone operator. Those overnight shifts were something else.

Laurent Bercot 10h ago

@neil this is just an age test. No need to be cruel.

Paul_IPv6 10h ago

if you said yes to more than two of these, you're overdue to schedule your next colonoscopy... :)

(which reminds me...)

VoidZeroOne

10h ago

@neil are you under 46?

@TheOneDoc Yes

@neil no I meant that should be a question but thanks for answering 😀

Neil Brown 9h ago

@TheOneDoc Oh, ha!

Extreme Electronics 10h ago

@neil and made free international calls, by a number of methods.

Jessamyn 10h ago

@neil Most I'm not sure what "Dialled from one exchange to another" means specifically, maybe a UK thing?

I did buy this bad boy new in box from my local thrift store last week. I have a Bluetooth dongle in my house so that I can make calls with it. Fake dialtone and everything!

Slættaratindur 🌅10h ago

@neil "Were you alive 40 years ago?" :)

Court Cantrell does not comply 10h ago

@neil I've done all but two (reversed charges & dialed from one exchange to another).

I am an old.

Milcom Miasma 10h ago