It's like remembering the screeeeee-krrsssssh-bdang!bdang!bdang!-krrrssssh-click of a dialup modem. It fairly neatly bifurcates generations of nerds.
Rotary phones were quite elegant. As the dial returns to 0, it sends pulses down the line. The pulses actuate series of stepping switches to form the final phone circuit.
> Rotary phones were quite elegant. As the dial returns to 0, it sends pulses down the line. The pulses actuate series of stepping switches to form the final phone circuit.
Back when I was poor and didn't have a place to live, I would go into a hotel lobby where they had a phone for guests to receive, but not make, calls -- the phone didn't have a dial. I would pick up the handset, wait for a dial tone, then press one of the buttons beneath the handset, ten time really fast. Then I would say, "Hello, operator? I'm handicapped, can you dial a number for me?"
Ah, but with a little practice (& patience!) you can dial complete numbers using this system. I used to call the 113 number (clock/time information) here in Argentina in this way just for fun.
It makes me wonder how many have re-mapped their phone buttons to whatever the Dvorak equivalent of the numeric keypad would be. With blank keys, of course.
I remember, as a kid, wondering whether the clicking of the rotary dial could be simulated by clicking the hook button rapidly. It worked! I could dial the phone by simply tapping the hook button.
At one point I tried connecting a simple speaker (from a little transistor radio I had taken apart) directly to the phone line. I got a dial tone. By connecting one wire to the speaker terminal, and tapping the other wire on the other terminal, I could dial a phone number. Those old phones were really very simple things.
No idea if the phone network still supports pulse dialing. I'd guess it does, but haven't tried it.
I stayed in a hotel in Hiroshima in 2011, and my room had a rotary phone (the room generally looked like nothing had changed changed since about 1971)! :]
[The actual hotel: "アレーホテル広島並木通". It was actually a very nice hotel—clean and neat, friendly service, free (if simple) breakfast, crazy-low prices, and an incredible location—just a bit out-of-date. I highly recommend it for anyone wanting a budget hotel in Hiroshima. They also have slightly more expensive rooms that look a bit more modern (maybe even rocking a touch-tone! :).]
Haha I had the hardest time guessing what 外来語 「アレー」 came from. I thought it was the French "allez" at first, but it turns out it's "alley"? That's usually written 「アレイ」.
I have. I don't recall where I first saw it, but I do recall thinking to myself, "What's wrong with this thing? It must be broken -- it is making clicking sounds instead of a proper beep."
Shortly after ward, the purpose of those pulse/tone switches on more modern touch-tone telephones dawned on me: they existed for backwards compatibility with especially old phone networks which didn't support touch-tone devices, only rotary-dial ones. That such networks actually existed and were still in operation didn't seem such like such a crazy idea, considering the museum piece I was holding in my hands.
Probably more than those who used the letter prefixes. I remember our 527-xxxx was JA7-xxxx. I don't remember ever telling anyone the "JA7" version of our home number, but it was the way we remembered our doctor's number. I feel old.
I'm 31 and my family home had nothing but a rotary phone until ~1995. We didn't get a TV with a remote until around the same time, and it only got 3 channels. My parents still only have 3 channels living there.
