4 ms·

> website with a list of payphone numbers ... my home phone number was one of them Did you find out how this came to be, or just random typo? Curious what the

by nomilk 1y ago

> website with a list of payphone numbers ... my home phone number was one of them Did you find out how this came to be, or just random typo? Curious what the purpose of calling a pay phone is? (wasn't possible in my country)

fletchowns 1y ago
> Curious what the purpose of calling a pay phone is? (wasn't possible in my country) If you want to let somebody know you can't talk right now but you will call them back in 10 minutes, this makes it possible without having them use another quarter (coin currency in US) to call you back in 10 minutes, or requiring them to feed quarters in while you wait on hold for 10 minutes. Also plenty of other reasons that we've all seen in spy movies :)
- vivekv 1y ago
  If you haven't seen this movie. An old one but good one https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0183649/plotsummary/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0183649/plotsummary/
  - kleiba 1y ago
    Also: Die Hard 3
  - JadeNB 1y ago
    Definitely one of the downsides of aging is the shock of realizing that movies that you vaguely remember as being fairly new are now old. (I was expecting a movie from the '40s, not 2003.) Also, to save a click, the movie is Phone Booth.
- andy99 1y ago
  Also in Neuromancer when Wintermute wants to talk to Case and is ringing all the pay phones. I’ve read that book a dozen times and never thought twice about it. It was recently pointed out to me how incongruous it is to be in the future with AI and cyberspace and orbital colonies but there are still pay phones.
  - trashb 1y ago
    I think at the time of writing payphones where still so common that it was hard to imagine a world without them. The payphones are also quite fundamental to hacking culture due to the roots in "phone phreaking" which is used in the story. So perhaps it was included due to association with those elements as it will give the reader some context of at that time the current day in this futuristic world and ground them in the fictional universe.
    - Razengan 1y ago
      This is actually something I was thinking about lately: How science fiction (and future-predictors) mostly only extrapolates from our current ways of doing things. Like those Victorian era drawings of people in posh dresses walking across lakes by having hot-air balloons tied to their bodies.. Even sci-fi games involving space ships and aliens have people using floppy disks, printouts, and faxes.. in years long after those things went out of common use. Before the iPhone very little sci-fi predicted something like smartphones being so prevalent throughout global society. Today even some of the poorest people in the poorest countries have some form of personal mobile phone. And even now, the best we can imagine is that people will still be using phones and laptops in 2060.
      - ghaff 1y ago
        There are tons of examples of course, but one that jumps to mind is Oath of Fealty by Jerry Pournelle where one of the plot points is an implant that gives the chosen few access to an encyclopedic database. Of course, today, a smartphone with cell access provides that (or at least a more chaotic version of same) to more or less everyone. You could also reasonably argue that the encyclopedia in Asimov's Foundation trilogy makes somewhat similar assumptions. I do think some sort of AR interface is somewhere in the future but it's almost certainly a long way off for mainstream adoption.
        PopAlongKid 1y ago
        >Oath of Fealty by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven!
- schwartzworld 1y ago
  That’s one example. For me, I think I mostly used it to have conversations that would extend past the number of quarters I was carrying.
- ghaff 1y ago
  Somewhat different thing but it was also very common in college to make a person to person call through an operator and the person (typically parents) on the other end would refuse the call and call you back because it could be much cheaper for them.
  - doubled112 1y ago
    I've never heard of anybody using a collect call for any other purpose.
    - ghaff 1y ago
      I think collect calls were relatively common when people simply didn't have the coins and needed to call someone.
dan_linder 1y ago
> Curious what the purpose of calling a pay phone is? (wasn't possible in my country) Mostly for the humor value for an on-air radio show. I’m sure were pre-arranged just to make sure they got something usable, but I can see the occasion where a random person walking by and hearing the pay phone RINGING would cause them to pause. As a teenager I would have picked it up in a heartbeat (even not having heard the radio shows). As for other “purposes” I’ve seen some crime/drama shows where the bad guy tells someone to go to the corner pay phone and answer it when it rings at a specific time. Horrible idea now as the phone systems would easily record the number that called it, but up until the early 2000’s it would be one option. Today I would guess dropping a burner phone in an envelope for the “victim” would be a more likely movie trope… (Source: I’m from the US and remember a few radio stations doing this in the 1980’s and 1990’s.)
- toast0 1y ago
  > Horrible idea now as the phone systems would easily record the number that called it, but up until the early 2000’s it would be one option. Sure, but you would presumably also be at a payphone, and not use the same ones over and over. Short calls and leave quickly.
- miki123211 1y ago
  > Horrible idea now as the phone systems would easily record the number that called it I think the idea was that you'd be calling from another pay phone, probably a different one each time so the number didn't matter. You could do the same with pagers. Your drug dealer would own a pager, you'd call the pager from a random pay phone and send that pay phone's number as a message. The dealer would then use a different pay phone to call you back. Unlike cellphones, pagers were often one-way, receive-only devices, so you couldn't use them to track somebody's location.
- oniony 1y ago
  In the 1990s I picked up a payphone outside East Croydon station (UK) and it turned out to be "Amy from Penge". I wish there was more to this story but we just chatted for a little bit and hung up.
ncruces 1y ago
I don't have any more money, if it runs out, call me back at this number.
- PyWoody 1y ago
  I'd like to make a collect call, please. First name "Bob"; last name is... "Wehadababyitsaboy".
  - yard2010 1y ago
    My childhood equivalent is first name your son last name MomComeTakeMeFromThePool!
roygbiv2 1y ago
There was once an application, long gone and probably short lived, that let you ring payphones for free over the internet. Me and my mates had a great time phoning up times square, a pub in Australia and other places chatting to randoms.
- ant6n 1y ago
  It was once possible to call us phone numbers for free via Gmail.
ChipopLeMoral 1y ago
As a kid on school trips I would call my parents with one token (in my country that's what was used) and asked them to call me back. Sometimes at the end of the call your friend might ask your parents to call their parents and asked them to call the pay phone, and so on.
waltbosz 1y ago
I'm not sure how it came to be. My guess is typo. The restaurant in question was down the street from me and it did have a payphone outside of it. I can't recall if I ever went to check the phone number of the payphone. They actually just demolished the building that formally housed the restaurant (a Friendly's if anyone is familiar). The building sat empty for years.

by nomilk 1y ago

fletchowns 1y ago

> Curious what the purpose of calling a pay phone is? (wasn't possible in my country) If you want to let somebody know you can't talk right now but you will call them back in 10 minutes, this makes it possible without having them use another quarter (coin currency in US) to call you back in 10 minutes, or requiring them to feed quarters in while you wait on hold for 10 minutes. Also plenty of other reasons that we've all seen in spy movies :)

vivekv 1y ago
If you haven't seen this movie. An old one but good one https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0183649/plotsummary/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0183649/plotsummary/
- kleiba 1y ago
  Also: Die Hard 3
- JadeNB 1y ago
  Definitely one of the downsides of aging is the shock of realizing that movies that you vaguely remember as being fairly new are now old. (I was expecting a movie from the '40s, not 2003.) Also, to save a click, the movie is Phone Booth.
andy99 1y ago
Also in Neuromancer when Wintermute wants to talk to Case and is ringing all the pay phones. I’ve read that book a dozen times and never thought twice about it. It was recently pointed out to me how incongruous it is to be in the future with AI and cyberspace and orbital colonies but there are still pay phones.
- trashb 1y ago
  I think at the time of writing payphones where still so common that it was hard to imagine a world without them. The payphones are also quite fundamental to hacking culture due to the roots in "phone phreaking" which is used in the story. So perhaps it was included due to association with those elements as it will give the reader some context of at that time the current day in this futuristic world and ground them in the fictional universe.
  - Razengan 1y ago
    This is actually something I was thinking about lately: How science fiction (and future-predictors) mostly only extrapolates from our current ways of doing things. Like those Victorian era drawings of people in posh dresses walking across lakes by having hot-air balloons tied to their bodies.. Even sci-fi games involving space ships and aliens have people using floppy disks, printouts, and faxes.. in years long after those things went out of common use. Before the iPhone very little sci-fi predicted something like smartphones being so prevalent throughout global society. Today even some of the poorest people in the poorest countries have some form of personal mobile phone. And even now, the best we can imagine is that people will still be using phones and laptops in 2060.
    - ghaff 1y ago
      There are tons of examples of course, but one that jumps to mind is Oath of Fealty by Jerry Pournelle where one of the plot points is an implant that gives the chosen few access to an encyclopedic database. Of course, today, a smartphone with cell access provides that (or at least a more chaotic version of same) to more or less everyone. You could also reasonably argue that the encyclopedia in Asimov's Foundation trilogy makes somewhat similar assumptions. I do think some sort of AR interface is somewhere in the future but it's almost certainly a long way off for mainstream adoption.
      - PopAlongKid 1y ago
        >Oath of Fealty by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven!
schwartzworld 1y ago
That’s one example. For me, I think I mostly used it to have conversations that would extend past the number of quarters I was carrying.
ghaff 1y ago
Somewhat different thing but it was also very common in college to make a person to person call through an operator and the person (typically parents) on the other end would refuse the call and call you back because it could be much cheaper for them.
- doubled112 1y ago
  I've never heard of anybody using a collect call for any other purpose.
  - ghaff 1y ago
    I think collect calls were relatively common when people simply didn't have the coins and needed to call someone.

dan_linder 1y ago

> Curious what the purpose of calling a pay phone is? (wasn't possible in my country) Mostly for the humor value for an on-air radio show. I’m sure were pre-arranged just to make sure they got something usable, but I can see the occasion where a random person walking by and hearing the pay phone RINGING would cause them to pause. As a teenager I would have picked it up in a heartbeat (even not having heard the radio shows). As for other “purposes” I’ve seen some crime/drama shows where the bad guy tells someone to go to the corner pay phone and answer it when it rings at a specific time. Horrible idea now as the phone systems would easily record the number that called it, but up until the early 2000’s it would be one option. Today I would guess dropping a burner phone in an envelope for the “victim” would be a more likely movie trope… (Source: I’m from the US and remember a few radio stations doing this in the 1980’s and 1990’s.)

toast0 1y ago
> Horrible idea now as the phone systems would easily record the number that called it, but up until the early 2000’s it would be one option. Sure, but you would presumably also be at a payphone, and not use the same ones over and over. Short calls and leave quickly.
miki123211 1y ago
> Horrible idea now as the phone systems would easily record the number that called it I think the idea was that you'd be calling from another pay phone, probably a different one each time so the number didn't matter. You could do the same with pagers. Your drug dealer would own a pager, you'd call the pager from a random pay phone and send that pay phone's number as a message. The dealer would then use a different pay phone to call you back. Unlike cellphones, pagers were often one-way, receive-only devices, so you couldn't use them to track somebody's location.
oniony 1y ago
In the 1990s I picked up a payphone outside East Croydon station (UK) and it turned out to be "Amy from Penge". I wish there was more to this story but we just chatted for a little bit and hung up.

ncruces 1y ago

I don't have any more money, if it runs out, call me back at this number.

PyWoody 1y ago
I'd like to make a collect call, please. First name "Bob"; last name is... "Wehadababyitsaboy".
- yard2010 1y ago
  My childhood equivalent is first name your son last name MomComeTakeMeFromThePool!

roygbiv2 1y ago

There was once an application, long gone and probably short lived, that let you ring payphones for free over the internet. Me and my mates had a great time phoning up times square, a pub in Australia and other places chatting to randoms.

ant6n 1y ago
It was once possible to call us phone numbers for free via Gmail.

ChipopLeMoral 1y ago

As a kid on school trips I would call my parents with one token (in my country that's what was used) and asked them to call me back. Sometimes at the end of the call your friend might ask your parents to call their parents and asked them to call the pay phone, and so on.

waltbosz 1y ago

I'm not sure how it came to be. My guess is typo. The restaurant in question was down the street from me and it did have a payphone outside of it. I can't recall if I ever went to check the phone number of the payphone. They actually just demolished the building that formally housed the restaurant (a Friendly's if anyone is familiar). The building sat empty for years.