Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!convex!killer!vector!nobody From: msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Time marches on... Message-ID: Date: 10 Jan 89 00:25:34 GMT Sender: chip@vector.UUCP Lines: 48 Approved: telecom-request@vector.uucp X-Submissions-To: telecom@bu-cs.bu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.uucp X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 12, message 4 Patrick Townson writes: > ... people with touch tone phones are still a > *minority* in the United States, let alone other countries. ... > Yet we look at an 'antique' rotary dial phone and say how quaint ... This, I think, has to do with television and the movies. If you watch a show from the era when "dialing" meant just that, you'll notice that they usually cut away after 2 or 3 digits have been dialed. There's just too much dead time waiting for the character to dial 7 digits (or so), unless the director is trying for (a) extra realism, (b) extra tension, or (c) comic effect. The widespread availability of Touch Tone phones meant that this little distortion could be done away with, and now Touch Tone is almost all that you see. And if you don't see one on TV or in the movies any more, it must be an antique, right? I still remember the scene in ACE IN THE HOLE (1951, a.k.a. THE BIG CARNIVAL) where reporter Kirk Douglas is phoning his editor. He asks the long distance operator for a New York number, say "New York 73204". And then he gives the number he's calling from: "Escadrilo 2"! When I first saw this scene it sounded wonderfully periodish. Then in 1983 I went to New Zealand. The user interface to the phone system there is generally very like the British one, except of course for the dials which are numbered the other way around. Well, my wife and I were with a friend (Robert Biddle) in Te Anau (a beautiful spot), and he placed a call to a hotel in Milford Sound (a still more beautiful spot ... but I digress). He was transferring the charge, so he couldn't direct-dial the call. After it, he reported to us: Robert: I'd like to make a transferred-charge call to Milford Sound. Please charge it to Spencerville 269. Operator: That's Spencerville 269, and you're calling Milford Sound 6. Robert: How did you know that?! Operator: It's the only telephone in Milford Sound. Robert: !! Operator: Except for the box outside the post office, and I didn't think you'd be calling that. As we drove THE road to Milford Sound the next day, we noticed poles alongside with exactly 2 wires on them. Robert noted, "That must be for THE telephone". Antique? What's antique? Mark Brader "That's what progress is for. Progress SoftQuad Inc., Toronto is for creating new forms of aggravation." utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com -- Keith Jackson