Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!wuarchive!swbatl!texbell!vector!telecom-gateway
From: portal!cup.portal.com!jxh@apple.com
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Dial 1-(NPA)-CONFUSE
Message-ID: <telecom-v09i0259m05@vector.dallas.tx.us>
Date: 27 Jul 89 06:57:01 GMT
Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US
Lines: 41
Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us
X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 259, message 5 of 10

Did anyone else spot this in comp.lang.postscript?:

[...body deleted...]

> >Call 1-88-83-FONTS to get a copy of the "Font and Function" catalog
> >for more details....

> Hmmm...  I only have digits on my telephone dial.  How do the letters
                       ^^^^^^
> map to digits?

> Jan Michael Rynning,			jmr@nada.kth.se
> Department of Numerical Analysis	If you can't fully handle domains:
> and Computing Science,		ARPA: jmr%nada.kth.se@uunet.uu.net
> Royal Institute of Technology,	UUCP: {uunet,mcvax,...}!nada.kth.se!jmr
> S-100 44 Stockholm,			BITNET: jmr@sekth
> Sweden.				Phone: +46-8-7906288

Surprise!  The world is not the same as the USA!  Personally, I find alphabetic
phone numbers vexing to dial, even when the DTMF pad is labelled so nicely,
as it is here in WE territory (read: WEstern hemisphere?)  My index finger
can't read.  I admit that I have an exceptional facility with 7-digit numbers,
(I memorized 50 digits of pi, 7 at a time.  See .sig if you don't believe me.)
so I suppose I can't say that they're generally easier to remember than names,
but I find this trend disturbing and was delighted to find a pin with which
to prick it, namely (apparently) lack of an international standard on a mapping
of letters to digits.  Just another way the rest of the world can find to
become annoyed with American arrogance?

BTW, I haven't read this group before, but I think I shall start.  Please
accept my apologies if this has all been hashed out recently.

-Jim Hickstein
jxh@cup.portal.com
 ...!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!jxh
Nothing to do with the bozos here that get all the publicity:  I'm a client,
not an employee.
PI to 50 digits:
3.14159 26535 8979323 84626 4338327 9502884 1971693 9937510
        ^^^^^         ^^^^^ well, nobody's perfect.  Has a nice metre.
 ^ "point" sounds like a digit