7 ms·

Wow, that must've taken forever to dial on a rotary phone.

by bostonpete 9y ago

kalleboo 9y ago
On Swedish rotary phones the 0 was on the other side (one pulse)
- freestockoption 9y ago
  0 indexed! :)
- waqf 9y ago
  What?! What happened when you made an international call, did you have to subtract 1 from all the digits?
  - gpvos 9y ago
    In 1965 there wasn't much international direct dialling yet; mainly to neighbouring countries. The rest was done via an operator. International exchanges tended to buffer the entire called phone number anyway, even back in electromechanical times, which meant they could also translate the pulses if that would have been necessary.
trendia 9y ago
Still better than 0118 999 881 999 119 7253 https://youtube.com/watch?v=ab8GtuPdrUQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=ab8GtuPdrUQ
- bdamm 9y ago
  And better than a cell phone, where dialing 911 results in the phone locking, then crashing. I've actually had this happen in an emergency. I can't tell you how dismayed I was that my phone crashed when I called 911.
  - jxramos 9y ago
    goodness, what a thought ><. Not too far back we called 911 on a cell phone that we didn't know had the microphone shorted when it had gotten wet earlier in the day but otherwise was completely operational. Took several minutes to figure out what was going on. I think we wound up texting a friend that we'd call them and to verify they could hear us or not. We wound up having a headset handy luckily enough.
  - nunez 9y ago
    were you running cyanogenmod? i remember one version of that ROM having e911 issues
    - bdamm 9y ago
      No. It was a basically stock Verizon edition of Android. After that experience I switched to iPhone. However, since then, I've experienced the iPhone iCloud Phone.app crash, which also denied me 911 service (although fortunately I noticed the problem and resolved it before needing 911.)
- satsuma 9y ago
  Sometimes I have a hard time watching IT Crowd because I see too much of myself/my coworkers in the characters.

Wow, that must've taken forever to dial on a rotary phone.

kalleboo 9y ago

On Swedish rotary phones the 0 was on the other side (one pulse)

freestockoption 9y ago
0 indexed! :)
waqf 9y ago
What?! What happened when you made an international call, did you have to subtract 1 from all the digits?
- gpvos 9y ago
  In 1965 there wasn't much international direct dialling yet; mainly to neighbouring countries. The rest was done via an operator. International exchanges tended to buffer the entire called phone number anyway, even back in electromechanical times, which meant they could also translate the pulses if that would have been necessary.

trendia 9y ago

Still better than 0118 999 881 999 119 7253 https://youtube.com/watch?v=ab8GtuPdrUQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=ab8GtuPdrUQ

bdamm 9y ago
And better than a cell phone, where dialing 911 results in the phone locking, then crashing. I've actually had this happen in an emergency. I can't tell you how dismayed I was that my phone crashed when I called 911.
- jxramos 9y ago
  goodness, what a thought ><. Not too far back we called 911 on a cell phone that we didn't know had the microphone shorted when it had gotten wet earlier in the day but otherwise was completely operational. Took several minutes to figure out what was going on. I think we wound up texting a friend that we'd call them and to verify they could hear us or not. We wound up having a headset handy luckily enough.
- nunez 9y ago
  were you running cyanogenmod? i remember one version of that ROM having e911 issues
  - bdamm 9y ago
    No. It was a basically stock Verizon edition of Android. After that experience I switched to iPhone. However, since then, I've experienced the iPhone iCloud Phone.app crash, which also denied me 911 service (although fortunately I noticed the problem and resolved it before needing 911.)
satsuma 9y ago
Sometimes I have a hard time watching IT Crowd because I see too much of myself/my coworkers in the characters.