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Interstitial Ad - [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This time around, because it is almostthe Independence Day holiday weekend, I decided to save the best forfirst. Poor Lisa found all this incredible, but I assured her theywere *mostly* true stories. Read them for yourself. PAT]=============================I caught up with alt.folklore.computers the other day for the first timein about a month, and found a thread that included a few gems like this:Charles Richmond wrote: If you are careful and remember how fast the clicking went by when you dialed a phone, you could "dial" the entire number with the switch hook ...It still seems to work where I live.A friend of mine once lived in a place served by an ancient phoneswitch, maybe a first-generation Strowger. Being in a tiny hamlet andfascinated with electronics of all sorts, he made friends with thephone company repair guy. One day after being shown the switch withits arms swinging up and around with each pulsed digit entered, hewondered what might happen if 11 pulses were sent. He did this andvery quickly the phone company guy was at the door with a sternwarning to never do that again. The switch's arm thingy fell off itstrack and wound up knocking out phone service for some time.David Griffith--- ------ ----------Joe Morris wrote: At least in the old annunciator boards I've seen, the flap was *above* the jack, not covering it.I believe you -- I never saw the board up close. I'm not sure what issue it appeared in, but perhaps 3-4 years ago _Smithsonian_ magazine had an hilarious article titled "Two Longs and a Short" about (one of?) the last manual party-line exchanges,I could not find the article on the Smithsonian Website, but I did findit on the author's own site, from where I have lifted it witoutpermission; however, I think that by leaving in the sales pitch at theend, he will likely be recompensated by this crowd!http://www.pipeline.com/~richardpence/twolongs.htmTwo Longs and a ShortBy Dick Pence Copyright 1997.The title story from Two Longs and a Short has been adapted to fitvarious changing events and has appeared in more than 150 newspapersand magazines since it was first written about 1984. The followingversion appeared in The Washington Post in 1991, shortly after acomputer glitch caused a "long-distance blackout" on the East Coast.Those big phone outages of the past couple of weeks have had mefeeling a bit guilty over what's been happening. You see, I rememberexactly how all this started.Back in 1950 I was a novice seahand aboard a cruiser based inPhiladelphia, barely six months out of high school and fresh from theplains of South Dakota. One Friday night in November, we were grantedshore leave at the end of a two-week training cruise. Homesick andseasick, I headed immediately for the row of pay phones that lined thedock.Depositing a carefully preserved nickel (remember?), I dialed "O." Thefollowing is a roughly verbatim account of what transpired after thePhiladelphia operator answered."I'd like to place a station-to-station collect call to the Bob Penceresidence in Columbia, South Dakota," I said in my best telephone voice.The Philadelphia operator was sure she had heard wrong."You mean Columbia, South Carolina, don't you?""No, I mean Columbia, South Dakota." I had tried to call home once beforeand I was ready for that one."Certainly. What is the number, please?" I could tell she still didn'tbelieve me."They don't have a number," I mumbled. Like I said, I'd tried to call homebefore and I knew what was coming.She was incredulous. "They don't have a number?""I don't think so.""I can't complete the call without a number. Do you have it?" shedemanded.I didn't relish being even more of a bumpkin, but I was in the Navyand I knew authority when I heard it."Well ... the only thing I know is ... TWO LONGS AND A SHORT."I think that's the first time she snorted. "Never mind. I'll get thenumber for you. One moment please."There followed an audi
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