# Old-style telephone numbers and how to dial them **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 29, 2008, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-style-telephone-numbers-and-how-to-dial-them/458043 "2008-07-29T02:55:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![BobArrgh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobarrgh/32/2881_2.png) [@BobArrgh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobArrgh)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-style-telephone-numbers-and-how-to-dial-them/458043/101 "2011-04-28T16:14:42Z")
I’ll share an old memory from the pulse-dialing (rotary) era. I’m not a telecom engineer, so some of the terminology won’t be correct. When you dialed a number, the phone would “interrupt” the signal a number of times, corresponding to the number. So, if you dialed a 2, the signal would be interrupted twice (click-click) and if you dialed 3, it would be interrupted 3 times (click-click-click). If you did it right, you could actually simulate the clicks simply by pressing the “flash” button in the phone cradle. Back in the day, you could buy a dial lock for a phone. It fit into the 1 hole and thus would not let the user dial any number except for 1, supposedly rendering the phone unusable. When I was in college, one of my roommates didn’t want anyone to use his phone, and so he put a lock on his phone. He didn’t believe me when I told him that the lock wouldn’t work, so I demonstrated it for him. I dialed a local number simply by clicking the flash hook the proper number of times with the proper cadence. Good times, good times. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-style-telephone-numbers-and-how-to-dial-them/458043/102 "2011-04-28T16:28:37Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Incidentally, there is a reason for the four digit numbers. Originally, all male, had a 100 by 100 plugboard that occupied about 4 feet by 4 feet. I’m assuming you mean that the switchboard operators were all-male. This was true but only for a [very short time](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_operator). > [@](#): > > In January 1878 George Willard Croy became the world’s first telephone operator when he started working for the Boston Telephone Despatch company. > > Emma Nutt became the world’s first female telephone operator on 1st September 1878 when she started working for the Boston Telephone Despatch company, because the attitude and behaviour of the teenage boys previously employed as operators was unacceptable. Emma was hired by Alexander Graham Bell, and reportedly, could remember every number in the telephone directory of the New England Telephone Company. Except for a tiny stretch, telephone operators were predominately female almost everywhere and almost from the begining. They were even called [hello girls](http://books.google.com/books?id=QcoM7w3nKfcC&pg=PA223&lpg=PA223&dq=%22hello+girls%22+twain&source=bl&ots=s7rhNogBr2&sig=7UQdmrT2dwUirPKQ82p7q1UyLOE&hl=en&ei=hZS5TeK3JoS5twfZ2vDeBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22hello%20girls%22%20twain&f=false). ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-style-telephone-numbers-and-how-to-dial-them/458043/103 "2011-04-28T19:00:57Z")
> [@Rhubarb](#): > > It doesn’t seem like a big thing, but rotary dialing was S-L-O-W and any advantage was welcome. > > I hated numbers with lots of 0s or 9s because they took forever to dial. Yes, I tap my foot in front of the microwave. What of it? Watching _All the President’s Men_, I noticed how much time Redford and Hoffman spent looking for telephones and dialing. I seem to recall a scene in which someone keeps hanging up on Bernstein and it seems like Hoffman spends 15 solid minutes just dialing. ---
**Author:** ![thelabdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@thelabdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelabdude)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-style-telephone-numbers-and-how-to-dial-them/458043/104 "2011-04-28T23:46:24Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > I wonder what were the last communities in the United States to have REAL six-digit phone numbers. Growing up as a kid in the 1970s, the pre-printed phone number on the black Western Electric phone at home read TF-9796. Thing is, it also had the 716 area code printed on it too! Looked kind of like … > **Area > Code** 716 > TF-9796 > > The actual number was seven digits, but apparently the number on the dial was even older; a digit was added after the"TF" (83) sometime in the 1960s, according to the 'rents. > > Even into the 1990s, I would see a lot of business trucks that were relatively new with old-fashioned letter exchange numbers printed on them. Then again, Buffalo is in a time warp … I grew up in Grove City, Pennsylvania. Into the mid 60’s, to call my home, you picked the phone and when the operator asked ‘‘Number please?’’, you said 741-R21. Not sure of the mechanics, but then all the phones on the R half of the line rang 2 longs and a short ring. The people next door were 741-J11. You could yell at the neighbors to go in and pick up the phone and talk skipping the operator. When it ended, everybody in the Grove City exchange had dial phones and a 458-xxxx number. Maybe even DDD and area 412. Businesses and the filthy rich with private lines had 3 digit numbers. ---
**Author:** ![Cayuga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Cayuga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cayuga)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2011, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-style-telephone-numbers-and-how-to-dial-them/458043/105 "2011-04-29T11:17:07Z")
> [@Arnold\_Winkelried](#): > > Were there some phones that had every letter on the dial except Q? I remember reading an old Batman comic where a murdered man, with his last lucid moments, scribbles “-Q” on a piece of paper. Batman eventually apprehends the criminal, and when the Boy Wonder asks Batman how he solved the crime, Batman says “the victim wrote down -Q - he was obviously fingering Mr. Dial, his assassin - Dial as in telephone dial!” I remember that story, too. Seems to me the victim was painting a painting when attacked, and wrote his message where the signature would normally go. But I’m pretty sure that what he wrote was “QZ” (or, possibly, “–QZ”), thus identifying David Dial as his murderer. What I don’t remember is why, if he could write/paint/whatever two letters, Q - Z, he couldn’t w/p/w four letters, D - I - A - L. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2011, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-style-telephone-numbers-and-how-to-dial-them/458043/106 "2011-04-29T13:49:28Z")
> [@TelcomStudent](#): > > Back then all calls were completed by human operators so when you called “Clondike 1234” the operator would grab a plug attached to a long wire and plug it into a panel to complete the call. > Later as electronic switching replaced human operators, they added additional numbers to route the calls to the desired destination. Now that’s a great User Name/Zombie Thread Reviver Combo! Ringa Ding Diggie. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2011, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-style-telephone-numbers-and-how-to-dial-them/458043/107 "2011-04-29T19:32:34Z")
> [@Canadjun](#): > > The letter to number correspondence has changed with at least some newer phones. Z used to be on the 0 position; I see on my cordless phone that it has been put on the 9 button. I don’t think the others are quite the same either, but that one is obvious. A predecessor (at least in Canada) of 1-800 numbers were “Zenith” numbers. They had to be placed through the operator and the person making the call wasn’t charged for them. You couldn’t possibly dial them yourself, since the first digit (corresponding to the Z in Zenith) was 0. We had ZEnith numbers too, and they worked the same way. There was also RIchmond; although you could dial that, I think the technology worked in a similar way. IIRC it was always RIchmond 9-xxxx. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2011, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-style-telephone-numbers-and-how-to-dial-them/458043/108 "2011-04-29T19:57:52Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > your link didnt work. > Here’s another [link](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYnpfi2vdrI&feature=related) to the same song. > > one funny part is that the singer dares to suggest that disgruntled phone users take their business to a _different_ phone company. This idea was inconceivable in 1963, and the audience laughs out loud. That might be because the link was 3 years old. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2011, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-style-telephone-numbers-and-how-to-dial-them/458043/109 "2011-04-29T20:01:28Z")
> [@BobArrgh](#): > > I dialed a local number simply by clicking the flash hook the proper number of times with the proper cadence. > > Good times, good times. When I was in college MIT dorms had old rotary phones for the dorm to dorm system, and I often dialed that way. The dials were also major transmitters. When I was recording records to tape with my tape recorder I sometimes picked up the guy in the next room dialing his phone. I think I still have a tape of “A Day in the Life” with the last chord being interrupted by _click-click-click_ _click-click_ … [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-style-telephone-numbers-and-how-to-dial-them/458043.md?page=5)