Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!haven!udel!ee.udel.edu From: new@ee.udel.edu (Darren New) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: HAM-E Message-ID: <31075@nigel.ee.udel.edu> Date: 20 Sep 90 14:16:32 GMT References: Sender: usenet@ee.udel.edu Organization: University of Delaware Lines: 20 Nntp-Posting-Host: estelle.ee.udel.edu In article akk@trantor.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Andreas K. Klingler) writes: >Can some gentle American explain to a guy on the Old Continent how to dail >such a 'number'? Sure. Start lettering by threes, starting with the digit 2. Skip Q and Z. Hence: ABC=2 DEF=3 GHI=4 JKL=5 MNO=6 PRS=7 TUV=8 WXY=9 Thus, AFAX is 2329. These letters have been on American phones at least for thirty years. It used to be that the first two letters would indicate the "switch" to which you were connected: My home number was EL6-5784. The "EL" was said to stand for "Elgin." I suspect it made it easier for operators to understand where you were calling? I think this started going away about 30 years ago, because when a new switch was added to my old neighborhood at about that time, we has "EL6" numbers and "353" numbers; note that "EL" == "35". Anyway, good luck on your call. -- Darren -- --- Darren New --- Grad Student --- CIS --- Univ. of Delaware --- ----- Network Protocols, Graphics, Programming Languages, Formal Description Techniques (esp. Estelle), Coffee -----