You call the operator (0) and ask them to dial it for you.
The operator has a database of ZEnith numbers listed by area, and uses that to find the corresponding toll-free number to dial for you.
I was an operator for two years, 03-05, and I got one request to dial a ZEnith number in that time. I was so excited! I’m glad I remembered how.
There are still signs in my neighborhood on some power poles telling you to call a ZEnith number to reach the power company before you do any digging in the area. As of 2005, this was still a valid ZEnith number for the Twin Cities area, and reached the modern Gopher State One-Call number.
The city I grew up in was also a latecomer to seven digit phone numbers. There were seven digit numbers when I was a kid in the 1970s, but the insert on our black Western Electric 500 read
AREA CODE 716
TF-9796
I’m wondering if it was possible to dial such numbers directly from outside the area code, when equipment might be expecting someone to dial ten digits, not nine.
My hometown also seemed to have more inertia when it came to abandoning exchange letters. They were commonly seen in classified ads, and in advertising and promotional materials for small local businesses int the 1980s.
I also hear people complain about numbers that are less associated with geography. When I was a kid, any number that started with an 8 was in the city and inner suburbs, 6 in more remote 'burbs, and 7 and 9 in the country. My parents were excited to get a number starting with 68 when they moved out of the city, because it had a bit of cachet in the area. Now, with an area code split and cell phones, all rules are off.
Are you sure it was TF? That seems odd, since it doesn’t spell anything. Perhaps it was just a designation for a rural co-op or independent telco that wasn’t yet fully connected.
In that case, you wouldn’t be dialed directly. Your relatives would ask their local operator to connect them to Tonawanda, New York, number 9796, or whatever.
Two things to remember about the phones of oldendays:
the sound quality was often terrible. You had to speak loudly and enunciate and would still often be misunderstood.
phone numbers have been around for decades longer than the dials to dial them with. In the days before automated switching equipment, you picked up the phone and* told the operator what number you were trying to call*.
So, to avoid miscommunication, you wouldn’t say “Four Two Three”, but rather “Harrison Three”.
And the operator didn’t have to guess what that last word was if she didn’t hear it clearly, since they didn’t reuse the words for adjacent exchanges: “Four Two Nine” was “Garfield Nine” not “Harrison Nine”.
The dialing process has become standardized, but communicating phone numbers still varies from place to place. If you ask a local in this town what his/her landline number is, you are likely to get a four-digit response. Every phone number in this town started 446 since the town’s first PBX. It’s only been recently that they started giving out landline numbers with a different prefix, but with the explosion in cell phone usage the number of landlines in town is decreasing rather than increasing, so we’re pretty much back to every number starting with the same three digits.
(The population of the town is under 2,500, so I don’t know why they had to add another landline prefix.)
Even with cellphones, there are only two providers selling phones here, and they only use two prefixes each in this area. We only have one area code and five prefixes to memorize.
My phone number, of course, is still a “WOmbat” exchange
In Orange County, NY, someone had an advertisment on top of their barn. They used a telephone number in the KL5-1234 style. However, when their area code changed to 845, they simply repainted the area code. So now the ad reads (845) KL5-1234, even though it is an anachronism.
I thought telephoning was black magic; I would listen as my mother turned a crank and said something, “Marge, this is Roxa (my mother’s real name) I want to talk to June” and it somehow worked. When we got dial telephones, they were all four digits; ours was 4941. I don’t remember what our prefix was when we finally became sophisticated enough to need them. I’ll be up all night trying to remember it.
That’s also how it is here in the 805 which covers a chunk of Coastal California. Of course I mostly just push a button on my cell phone and say something like, “Call June” and somehow it works.
Here in Pinellas County a few years ago it was decided that everyone had to use the full number, including area code for any local call. Such an uproar you can’t imagine in protest.
It seems all the old farts living here could not remember all those numbers. And so we went back to seven digits for local calls. Supposedly we will run out of possible numbers in a few years and 10 digit calling will be necessary.
And Pinellas county (west of Tampa) will just have to cope somehow.
It’s simple logic. If the first number dialed is 3 (for example), then the system expects 4 digits to follow. Of course, that eliminates use of numbers like 3XX-XXXX.
I’ll bet your Honolulu system had six digit numbers beginning with reserved numbers, and the five digit ones began with other numbers.
When area codes were first introduced, the system didn’t know if you were dialing long distance or local until the 2nd digit. If it was a 0 or 1, that meant it was the 2nd digit of the area code and 8 more digits would follow. If the 2nd digit was NOT 0 or 1, then 5 digits would follow and it was a local number.
It was to get around some of these limitations that the “dial 1 first” plan was implemented.
It always seemed somewhat miraculous that seemingly complex logic could be implemented, given the mechanical switches they used in those days. Today, with all the logic computerized, we can do all sorts of amazing things (witness all the automated phone menu and data entry systems today) that wouldn’t have been imaginable then.
I lived in Livermore (Ca.) in the mid-1970’s, just when this transition was going on in that area. The phone company just couldn’t make up their mind. Over a period of several months (I forget how many “several” means), they kept changing their mind: For a long-distance call, the initial 1 was either required, or not used, or optional, but they kept going back-and-forth for quite some time.
That sounds like a transitional period, typically a year or more, with what they called “permissive dialing.” It was possible to use the 1 or omit it. They followed that with a period where they still accepted the number without the 1 prefix, but played a voice message reminding you to do it right next time. After that, it became an error if you didn’t toe the line.
There was an even more confusing arrangement for many years in my area. Local numbers were 7 digits, long distance ones were “1”+10 digits, but inbetween were LATA numbers in the same area code, but 7 digits long. You had to dial “1” plus the 7 digits. The telephone company would give you an error message if you dialed the “1” when you shouldn’t have, and also gave an error if you didn’t dial when you should have.
The only problem was you didn’t know when to dial the “1” or not. TPC (The Phone Company) wouldn’t give you a list of which were which. You either had to make your own list by trial and error, guess or memorize them.
When I was a kid, I could send a letter to “Grandma” XXXXX, Tx. & I guess the post office could tell which one to give it to by the cancelling stamp. She always got them.
Paternal Grandparents phone was a party line, their ring was a long & two shorts. It was still a turn the crank phone. This lasted well into the 50’s.
I can still say my first phone number that I had to memorize as a kid. My military ID#, ( frontwards & backwards due to a tricky company commander’s idea of fun during inspections. The # of windows in the bay, the # of eyelets in my boots & low quarters, etc. SS# of course, my Dads office # from the 50’s, etc.
