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From: rp@xn.ll.mit.edu (Richard Pavelle)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Can This Be True?
Message-ID: <5130@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 14 Mar 90 00:39:29 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 169, Message 10 of 10


I trust all of you readers can keep a secret: My 15 year old son told
me that he and his friends can place calls from pay phones using a
paper clip instead of coins. In addition they can place long-distance
calls the same way instead of using calling cards.  I did not believe
the claim until I saw the kids in action. They use the paper clip to
complete a circuit and it requires about five seconds.

Now I ask you readers how can this be? Is telephone technology so poor
that a simple paper clip can allow one to dial around the world?

P.S. I took away his paper clips and scolded him!!!!!!!!!!


Richard Pavelle         UUCP: ...ll-xn!rp
                        ARPANET: rp@XN.LL.MIT.EDU


[Moderator's Note: Describe the payphone. Is this the older type where
you put the money in and then get a dial tone, typically without an
armored handset cable?  On those older-style payphones, yes, you could
use a safety-pin or similar to momentarily connect the tip to ground
(same as what happened when the coin hit a little 'seesaw' on the
inside of the box which briefly touched two wires together). When I
was ten years old, sometime around 1950, we always made free payphone
calls. The handset cords were made of straight (not curled) cloth, the
phone had three slots on the top for 5/10/25 cent coins, and the coin
return did not have a trap door as now. We were quite proficient at
getting a stiff wire up that return slot and tripping the collection
table in our favor before the operator could get to it and trip it the
other way, collecting the coins.  PT]