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Sprint converted their telephone network from analog to digital in the 1980's and 1990's. They heavily advertised this, as "being able to hear a pin drop over

by csense 3y ago

Sprint converted their telephone network from analog to digital in the 1980's and 1990's. They heavily advertised this, as "being able to hear a pin drop over the phone." A quick Youtube search gives this commercial [1] from 1987. In another commercial [2] from 1998 the outro still shows a pin dropping, and now the phone number is 1-800-PIN-DROP [3] [4]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4dIDl8sjJk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4dIDl8sjJk [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O816Z42NSts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O816Z42NSts [3] Some younger readers may be confused about what is being advertised. For a long time, the first three digits of a 10-digit phone number were an "area code", they literally divided up the country into chunks by population. Calling people in the same chunk was free and unlimited, but calling someone in another chunk would cost money. If you were calling someone in the US but more than a hundred miles or so away, you'd literally get a bill for every minute you spent on the phone. The 1998 advertisement is informing customers that Sprint only charges $0.10 per minute, and you get 200 minutes free. [4] Some younger readers may also be confused about 1-800-PIN-DROP. It's a phone number, but it expects people to know that a classic phone keypad or dial has letters for each number (2=ABC, 3=DEF, 4=GHI, 5=JKL, 6=MNO, 7=PQRS, 8=TUV, 9=WXYZ). So you'd change the letters PIN-DROP to 746-3767.

Clamchop 3y ago
On the topic of 800 numbers with words, there used to be a satellite TV service called Primestar and they advertised their number as 1-800-PRIMESTAR, which is too long, man. I think I've seen this elsewhere since but the memory of this particular one sticks out. Excess numbers are ignored, so it's the same as dialing 1-800-PRIMEST. Confusing!
devilbunny 3y ago
> If you were calling someone in the US but more than a hundred miles or so away, you'd literally get a bill for every minute you spent on the phone. Far less distance than that. I grew up in the central city of a small metropolitan area, and in the 80s and 90s, calls from one suburb to another (depending on the exact pair) were sometimes long-distance. As little as 15 miles. All within one area code. OTOH, you could make local calls from close-in parts of Northern Virginia to DC even though they had different area codes.

by csense 3y ago

Clamchop 3y ago

On the topic of 800 numbers with words, there used to be a satellite TV service called Primestar and they advertised their number as 1-800-PRIMESTAR, which is too long, man. I think I've seen this elsewhere since but the memory of this particular one sticks out. Excess numbers are ignored, so it's the same as dialing 1-800-PRIMEST. Confusing!

devilbunny 3y ago

> If you were calling someone in the US but more than a hundred miles or so away, you'd literally get a bill for every minute you spent on the phone. Far less distance than that. I grew up in the central city of a small metropolitan area, and in the 80s and 90s, calls from one suburb to another (depending on the exact pair) were sometimes long-distance. As little as 15 miles. All within one area code. OTOH, you could make local calls from close-in parts of Northern Virginia to DC even though they had different area codes.