Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request
From: Amitabh Shah <shah@cs.cornell.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Can This Be True?
Message-ID: <5285@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 17 Mar 90 10:04:43 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 180, Message 5 of 9


In article <5130@accuvax.nwu.edu> rp@xn.ll.mit.edu (Richard Pavelle) writes:
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?

I have done similar things in my childhood too ;-).

The public phones in India (at least in Bombay, where I lived) were
designed so that one made a call and only after hearing the called
party come on line, you put in the coins. We used to do two things:

1. On some sets, it was possible to communicate using ONLY THE
EARPIECE, not the mouthpiece, without using any coins. So you first
instruct your mom to speak slowly, and not immediately. Then you
alternate between hearing thru' the earpiece, and then speaking thru'
it. It really worked. It was easy to get caught doing this, and I was
indeed caught once by our school principal's wife.

2. Some very old Indian coins were doughnut-shaped (well, flat
doughnuts) - with a hole in the middle. If you had such a coin, then
you could tie a string to it and drop it in to complete the
connection. Pull it out later when you're done.

Ah, those were the days!!


Amitabh Shah                                    shah@cs.cornell.edu--(INTERNET)
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