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I always thought it was particularly cruel that all emergency services (police, fire, ambulance) in my country were reached by dialing 000. It doesn't doesn't m

• darkwater 5y ago
  I think in (most?) Europe is 112 since forever exactly because rotary phones. (checking wikipedia [1] ...) TIL It was also to permit physically blocking all the other numbers in public access rotary phones while leaving emergency calls enabled. Smart. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/112_(emergency_telephone_number) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/112_(emergency_telephone_numbe...
  • visiblink 5y ago
    In British Columbia, 112 was once the prefix for making long-distance calls. That changed in 1985 to bring us into conformity with the rest of North America. Edit: also, you could call for free on rotary pay phones by tapping out the number on the "hangup" switch.
    • genewitch 5y ago
      In the late 80s I was messing with a rotary phone hook switch and dialed 117 accidentally, which was the proctor test set. It was an automated phone testing platform, and it would let you test things like the coin receiver and touchtone tones, among other things. I never had the coin sound maker, but I did have a small transcription digital recorder years later that could trick the proctor test set into thinking a nickel had been inserted. I don't remember all the other tests, hopefully there's a webpage somewhere about it.
  • hyakosm 5y ago
    In France main numbers for emergencies are still 15, 17 and 18. The 112 redirects on these.