4 ms·

For someone not familiar with morse or pulse dialing, how does one do that?

rsync 7y ago
You click the handset down, like you are hanging up the phone, but just very briefly. So think of the cradle switches - what "hangs up" the phone - as a button, and you just click that button (quickly) for '1' and then you pause and hit it twice in very rapid succession for '2' ... You need to be on a POTS line to do this, of course, but it will work even today. Even if you have no dialing mechanism, you can dial the phone this way ...
- ObscureScience 7y ago
  It's been awhile since I tried it, but isn't it n+1 presses to dial n? So you can dial 0 with one click.
  - __void 7y ago
    "0" was coded with 10 pulses
  - AKrumbach 7y ago
    No; if you look at an old rotary phone, you're counting the number of finger holes in order to determine pulses. To dial a 0, pulse the line 10 times.
    - pomatic 7y ago
      Unless you are in New Zealand - the dial is numbered "backwards" there so 0 is 1 pulse etc.
      - toby 7y ago
        Oh wow, thank you for the memories :) I grew up in New Zealand when everything was pulse dialing and had an American modem that my father got us, so in order to dial any phone number I had to rewrite it by subtracting every digit from 10.
  - wiml 7y ago
    No, 0 is ten pulses.
    - ObscureScience 7y ago
      As I said, not in Sweden.
  - ObscureScience 7y ago
    It seems I remembered correctly. I'm from Sweden and we use the system I recalled. All of you correcting me are right with regards to most other countries.
- tkmunzwa 7y ago
  > You click the handset down, like you are hanging up the phone, but just very briefly. This brings back memories, this is a trick people my age group mastered as teenagers in a 3rd world country. All calls were billed - including local ones, so parents would commonly get lockable cages that would cover the buttons/rotary dial to prevent unauthorised calls in their absence. The cages would leave the receiver accessible even when locked in order to be able to receive calls, so we would use the hook to do pulse tone dialing; dialing a number with many zeroes was always a challenge since it required 10 rapid taps as part of a longer sequence, but I built up muscle memory. The practice was colloquially named 'tap-dialing' and it was handed down from generation to generation. Sadly it came to an end in the smartphone world.
  - C1sc0cat 7y ago
    It was also an old school way of phreaking and getting free calls in a phone box.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - dublin 7y ago
    The old GTE payphones up in Georgetown, Tx (suburb of Austin, now) when I was a kid would let you dial with the switchhook - no coins required. Agreed, zeroes were a pain, but this was partially compensated for by the fact that 5-digit dialing worked for any local number, e.g. 3-1234 got you 863-1234. Interestingly, most VoIP adapters support the pulse dialing of an old phone, but very few have the cojones to actually ring one that has a physical bell rather than an electronic ringer...
    - pomatic 7y ago
      Er, I'm not sure where you got this information from, but I can tell you categorically that ATAs that support pulse dialing are few and far between. Source: I have a vintage phone collection and wish bitterly the reality were different. (I use a Avaya PBX as a bridge to asterisk/IP telephony as a practical alternative)
- kragen 7y ago
  I was very surprised a couple of weeks ago, making a call on a fixed-wireless 4G modem with a phone jack on it, that it supported pulse dialing. (The handset plugged into it happened to be set for pulse, you see.)
  - maxerickson 7y ago
    I wonder if something like that would get implemented to address a historical regulatory requirement.
- TrickyRick 7y ago
  Ah, thanks! I grew up using a rotary dial phone but of course was too young to think that much about how it actually works. Learned something new today!
i_am_proteus 7y ago
Tangent: many old Western Electric touch tone phones have a switch between "pulse" and "dial" for backwards compatibility.
- bityard 7y ago
  Many digital cordless phones in the 2000's would still allow you to select between pulse and tone dialing. Pulse was fun to use just for kicks, except it added several seconds to the start of your call and most phones were not smart enough to switch the keypad back to tone dialing once the call was established (e.g. to operate an IVR).
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

You click the handset down, like you are hanging up the phone, but just very briefly. So think of the cradle switches - what "hangs up" the phone - as a button, and you just click that button (quickly) for '1' and then you pause and hit it twice in very rapid succession for '2' ... You need to be on a POTS line to do this, of course, but it will work even today. Even if you have no dialing mechanism, you can dial the phone this way ...

ObscureScience 7y ago
It's been awhile since I tried it, but isn't it n+1 presses to dial n? So you can dial 0 with one click.
- __void 7y ago
  "0" was coded with 10 pulses
- AKrumbach 7y ago
  No; if you look at an old rotary phone, you're counting the number of finger holes in order to determine pulses. To dial a 0, pulse the line 10 times.
  - pomatic 7y ago
    Unless you are in New Zealand - the dial is numbered "backwards" there so 0 is 1 pulse etc.
    - toby 7y ago
      Oh wow, thank you for the memories :) I grew up in New Zealand when everything was pulse dialing and had an American modem that my father got us, so in order to dial any phone number I had to rewrite it by subtracting every digit from 10.
- wiml 7y ago
  No, 0 is ten pulses.
  - ObscureScience 7y ago
    As I said, not in Sweden.
- ObscureScience 7y ago
  It seems I remembered correctly. I'm from Sweden and we use the system I recalled. All of you correcting me are right with regards to most other countries.
tkmunzwa 7y ago
> You click the handset down, like you are hanging up the phone, but just very briefly. This brings back memories, this is a trick people my age group mastered as teenagers in a 3rd world country. All calls were billed - including local ones, so parents would commonly get lockable cages that would cover the buttons/rotary dial to prevent unauthorised calls in their absence. The cages would leave the receiver accessible even when locked in order to be able to receive calls, so we would use the hook to do pulse tone dialing; dialing a number with many zeroes was always a challenge since it required 10 rapid taps as part of a longer sequence, but I built up muscle memory. The practice was colloquially named 'tap-dialing' and it was handed down from generation to generation. Sadly it came to an end in the smartphone world.
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  It was also an old school way of phreaking and getting free calls in a phone box.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- dublin 7y ago
  The old GTE payphones up in Georgetown, Tx (suburb of Austin, now) when I was a kid would let you dial with the switchhook - no coins required. Agreed, zeroes were a pain, but this was partially compensated for by the fact that 5-digit dialing worked for any local number, e.g. 3-1234 got you 863-1234. Interestingly, most VoIP adapters support the pulse dialing of an old phone, but very few have the cojones to actually ring one that has a physical bell rather than an electronic ringer...
  - pomatic 7y ago
    Er, I'm not sure where you got this information from, but I can tell you categorically that ATAs that support pulse dialing are few and far between. Source: I have a vintage phone collection and wish bitterly the reality were different. (I use a Avaya PBX as a bridge to asterisk/IP telephony as a practical alternative)
kragen 7y ago
I was very surprised a couple of weeks ago, making a call on a fixed-wireless 4G modem with a phone jack on it, that it supported pulse dialing. (The handset plugged into it happened to be set for pulse, you see.)
- maxerickson 7y ago
  I wonder if something like that would get implemented to address a historical regulatory requirement.
TrickyRick 7y ago
Ah, thanks! I grew up using a rotary dial phone but of course was too young to think that much about how it actually works. Learned something new today!

i_am_proteus 7y ago

Tangent: many old Western Electric touch tone phones have a switch between "pulse" and "dial" for backwards compatibility.

bityard 7y ago
Many digital cordless phones in the 2000's would still allow you to select between pulse and tone dialing. Pulse was fun to use just for kicks, except it added several seconds to the start of your call and most phones were not smart enough to switch the keypad back to tone dialing once the call was established (e.g. to operate an IVR).

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]