Remember When

Quote: TigerWu

There's that scene in War Games where Matthew Broderick shorts out a payphone or something to get a free phone call. They show it pretty clearly on screen how he does it, so I wonder if it ever actually worked.

The trick from back then (may or may not have been in that movie) was that the coins dropped with a distinctive tone associated to each denomination.

That overlapped some development-wise with hand-held recorders. So you'd pay for a call, but record the handset earpiece as you paid.

Once you had the sounds, you could go to a phone, hold the recording to the speaker part of the handset, and play it. The phone thought you deposited money, and put the call through.

Quote: beachbumbabs

The trick from back then (may or may not have been in that movie) was that the coins dropped with a distinctive tone associated to each denomination.

That overlapped some development-wise with hand-held recorders. So you'd pay for a call, but record the handset earpiece as you paid.

Once you had the sounds, you could go to a phone, hold the recording to the speaker part of the handset, and play it. The phone thought you deposited money, and put the call through.

We had tone generators made from parts from Radio Shack. You could do lots of fun stuff including getting free calls.

Quote: beachbumbabs

Once you had the sounds, you could go to a phone, hold the recording to the speaker part of the handset, and play it. The phone thought you deposited money, and put the call through.

yeah, something similar to that was called "phreaking" - the earliest tech hackers - I read the book about it - pretty good book too


"Phreaking is a slang term coined to describe the activity of a culture of people who study, experiment with, or explore telecommunication systems, such as equipment and systems connected to public telephone networks. The term phreak is a sensational spelling of the word freak with the ph- from phone, and may also refer to the use of various audio frequencies to manipulate a phone system. Phreak, phreaker, or phone phreak are names used for and by individuals who participate in phreaking.

The term first referred to groups who had reverse engineered the system of tones used to route long-distance calls. By re-creating these tones, phreaks could switch calls from the phone handset, allowing free calls to be made around the world. To ease the creation of these tones, electronic tone generators known as blue boxes became a staple of the phreaker community, a group of people that included future Apple Inc. cofounders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak."




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phreaking

For a few years when I was a kid, our phone was on a Party Line, a single line which included the phones from the rest of our block.

Pick up the phone to call someone, and two women in the neighborhood would be gabbing. Had to wait until they were done and try again when the line was open. It was a real nightmare if you had gossipers in the area.

Quote: Calder

For a few years when I was a kid, our phone was on a Party Line, a single line which included the phones from the rest of our block.

Two of the biggest tech thrills of
my life were the first color TV
in 1970, and our first private
line in 69. Took me years to
get over the thrill of color TV,
every day was like Dorothy
opening the door to Technicolor
OZ. Never enjoyed TV as much
as I did in the early 70's. Who
knew Superman, filmed in
the 50's, was in color.

Remember when you could watch TV
and never see an ad from Big Pharm
for one of it's miracle drugs? Now
you can't not see them. And most
of the time they don't tell what
it's even for. Half the commercial
is usually a list of all the ways the
drug can kill you.

Quote: EvenBob

Two of the biggest tech thrills of
my life were the first color TV
in 1970, and our first private
line in 69. Took me years to
get over the thrill of color TV,
every day was like Dorothy
opening the door to Technicolor
OZ. Never enjoyed TV as much
as I did in the early 70's. Who
knew Superman, filmed in
the 50's, was in color.

In 1965 we only had a black and white TV set. There was only Chanels 2,4,5,7,9,11,13 and an additional uhf station which never had anything any good on it. If you wanted to change the channel you had to get up and go over to the TV and turn the knob.

Me and my brother used to go over to our neighbors house on Sunday nights and watch “Walt Disney’s wonderful world of color.” The program started out in black-and-white and when the Peacock arrived on the screen and fanned its tail programming would continue in color. Or was it when Tinker Bell came out with her magic wand and made it go to color. That might’ve been a different show. But anyway, it was “Disney’s wonderful world of color” which is what I remember being the first television show in color. And I think color TVs back then were about $500. That would be what, about $4000 in today’s money.

Now about half of what you watch on TV is commercials.

Quote: Greasyjohn

Quote: EvenBob

Two of the biggest tech thrills of
my life were the first color TV
in 1970, and our first private
line in 69. Took me years to
get over the thrill of color TV,
every day was like Dorothy
opening the door to Technicolor
OZ. Never enjoyed TV as much
as I did in the early 70's. Who
knew Superman, filmed in
the 50's, was in color.

In 1965 we only had a black and white TV set. There was only Chanels 2,4,5,7,9,11,13 and an additional uhf station which never had anything any good on it.

Sounds like Northern Jersey to me!

Southern California.

Quote: Greasyjohn

In 1965 we only had a black and white TV set. There was only Chanels 2,4,5,7,9,11,13 and an additional uhf station which never had anything any good on it.

I had 2, 4, a very fuzzy 7, and 17 (PBS). Party line? You bet. We had to get up to change the channel; you ever have to get up to "dial in the aerial"? Was a big lighted box with one big knob. Crank it and... "Ka-CHUNK...Ka-CHUNK...Ka-CHUNK" the big antennae clunked around its base on the roof. This wasn't '65, this continued through all 4 Bill's Superbowls! lol My peers were on AOL Instant Messenger talking to "totally real girls from California" while I was still waiting for Maude to catch Blanche up with the weekly specials at the fete. A clear night allowing the CBC to waft 'cross the lake was an event worthy of suspending the bed time.