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I see, so it's not like in the old mobile phones where you have to press a bunch of times to get a letter, just once. It's a clever custom.
by iagovar 6y ago
I see, so it's not like in the old mobile phones where you have to press a bunch of times to get a letter, just once. It's a clever custom.
- Arnavion 6y agoIt's not a "custom". The reason keypads have letters is precisely because the letters are mnemonics for the real number. This usage predates mobile phones, and is not US-specific. They were originally used for area codes (Wikipedia lists a UK example of 0AY6, ie 0296, for Aylesbury), then later for mnemonic numbers like the one from the article. Mobile phones inherited the lettered keypad from landlines and also started using it for typing text messages.
- gpvos 6y agoIt is definitely a custom limited to some particular countries. Wikipedia: The use of alphanumeric codes for exchanges was abandoned in Europe when international direct dialing was introduced in the 1960s, because, for example, dialing VIC 8900 on a Danish telephone would result in a different number to dialling it on a British telephone. At the same time letters were no longer placed on the dials of new telephones.
- Arnavion 6y ago(The very next paragraph after the one you quoted talks about how letters for European mobile phones were reintroduced some time later, now standardized so as to not have that problem.) At any rate, the presence of lettered keypads doesn't mean people * had * to make mnemonic phone numbers with them, and it does look like (in Europe) only the UK had such numbers. Apart from the US and UK, they might be popular in some Commonwealth countries too. I grew up in one and remember having them.
- gpvos 6y agoYes, but only for SMS messages. They are not commonly used to write phone numbers (very occasionally you can see them now, but the numbers are also written below or next to them). In the early automatic telephone years, letters were also used in the Netherlands, France, Denmark and other countries, but they fell out of use way before most people here were born, and also they were mostly (only?) used for area codes and exchange names/numbers, not subscriber numbers.
- fastball 6y agoSure, but the keypad for the phone app on your iPhone or Android has letters on it.
- gpvos 6y agoDuh. Who ever denied that?
- fastball 6y agoWell, the OC was confused as to how letters can be translated into an actual phone number. This should be obvious to anyone that has ever dialed a number on their mobile phone, i.e. OC.
- gpvos 6y agoThey were specifically asking about landlines. And referring to the method of pressing a number several times to get the correct letter on a mobile phone (i.e., when texting). So they explicitly mentioned that they have seen the letters. However, when dialling a number, they used the numbers, not the letters.
- fastball 6y agoRight. The point is... landlines have nothing to do with it. Letters are associated with numbers on a phone keypad. This is not a US-only thing. It is not a mobile only thing. It is not a land-line only thing. Keypads, all over the world, have letters on them. Letters (in the same way they are on phone keypads) can be seen on other numerical entry devices, like a keypad for a secure door. As to pressing a number multiple times when texting, a half-second of thought would make it clear that this wasn't the case. Are you telling me it would be reasonable for OC (or anyone) to think that the NYT's phone number translated from > 844-NYTNEWS to > 844-669998663397777 ??
- iagovar 6y agoWell, I've never seen this in Spain or any other country I've been in continental europe. It could just be that I didn't pay attention though.
- ScottBurson 6y ago> This usage predates mobile phones Indeed -- it dates back to the 1920s. At that time, phone numbers in the US started to be formed from a 2-letter exchange code followed by 5 (or sometimes 4) digits. For instance, "PEnnsylvania 6-5000" (dialled 736-5000) was the number of the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City, and also the title of a 1940 hit song. Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_number https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_number
- psim1 6y ago> was the number of the Hotel Pennsylvania Still is!
- stouset 6y agoMobile phones took this cue from telephones, which have had this kind of notion of an associated set of alphabetic characters since at least the eighties or nineties.
- Arnavion 6y agoSince the 1920s actually, for the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_number#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_number#United_States >In the most areas of North America, telephone numbers in metropolitan communities consisted of a combination of digits and letters, starting in the 1920s until the 1960s. Letters were translated to dialed digits, a mapping that was displayed directly on the telephone dial.
- gpvos 6y agoMuch earlier. Except that in most of the world they fell out of use before telephones became a common household item, so for people who grew up between, very roughly, the 60s and early 90s, mobile phones were the first phones with letters on them. We had heard about those strange phone "numbers" with letters in them via American television shows, of course.
- stouset 6y agoYep, apologies if I wasn't clear. I said "at least" since the late eighties and nineties since that's around when I first became coherent enough of a human to notice. I didn't intend it to be interpreted as "around" the eighties and nineties.
- beaner 6y agoYou're thinking of T9, which is for typing text. When you dial 800-AAAAAAA, you're not typing, you're dialing. The "A" character is just on the same button as the "2". So when you press "A" seven times you're really pressing "2" seven times. You end up dialing 800-2222222. There's nothing funny happening, "A" is just another symbol printed on the "2" button.
- StavrosK 6y agoI think your example would be better if you used B, as A only takes a single press in T9.