"I know which button it is!"

[Former ATS tech]

This wasn't my call but I got to witness it in progress and hear it from two cubicles away.

A friend got a really irate customer who could not get his new phone programmed. He was the fourth tech the guy had spoken to and by then the customer was screaming. Myself and a couple other techs could hear this guy over the headset of the coworker who actually took this call. He had to pull the earpiece away from his head because he couldn't turn the volume down enough.

Now, to program a phone is a fairly simple process. You enter in ##, a six digit code, and maybe another #. The code is the master subsidy lock (MSL) or the one time lock or simply 000000. You need to verify at least one of the esn numbers, either the DEC or the HEX, or both by pulling the battery and looking under it at the back of the phone. This customer had been through all this at least once with every tech he spoke to and nothing worked. The phone just sat there.

Finally my friend had to ask the magic words "Sir, are you hitting the pound key or the star key?" This is what set this guy off so we all could hear him over the calls we were on. "I know what button the pound key is! Its the one I hit whenever I dial star 2!" After this the customer continued to spew forth a profanity laden tirade for a couple of minutes until he must've realized what he just said and hung up.

A true classic call. I've had other callers make the same mistake and just laugh and tell them it is the other pound key.

[EricKei]

If only the guy had been holding the 'new' phone up near the one on which he was speaking...Each key does make a distinct tone/note, tho they would be hard to differentiate, anyway.

==========================================

PS totally not recommended and of course you didn't hear it from me ^_^ -- If you have an old-school push-button standard phone (no, not rotary, not THAT old school), you can pick up the receiver and hear the tones that make up each keytone if you like (just hang up after each "press" so you don't actually call someone). Press and hold 123 all at once to hear the tone for that row. Press and hold 147* all at once to hear the column's tone. The tone for the button where they "meet" (in this case, 1) should he halfway between the two tones that make it up. This applies to all of the keys/rows/columns.

I wanna say I got this from Mr Wizard or something (RIP, Mr Hebert ), it's been awhile.

[mikoyan29]

You can also dial on an old school phone by repeatedly hitting the hangup button the number of times of the number you are dialing....

[Willis]

Should've asked him if he's played tic tac toe. Of course you have? Well hit that key, that's the pound key. If he knew which button it was he wouldn't be hitting the star key.

[AccountingDrone]

You can also dial on an old school phone by repeatedly hitting the hangup button the number of times of the number you are dialing....

called a hook flash =)

I used to be able to do it quite well, I had a phone that the dial was messed up on and learned to do it because i was too cheap to buy a new phone.

[C. Cecil Ivanish]

Ach, what a disappointment!
I hope you had finally managed to identify the "any" key!

[mhkohne]

called a hook flash =)

I used to be able to do it quite well, I had a phone that the dial was messed up on and learned to do it because i was too cheap to buy a new phone.

A rotary phone does nothing different - it just does it mechanicly so you don't have to work so hard. Unfortunately some US telcos are dropping rotary support of late.

[Andara Bledin]

The tone for the button where they "meet" (in this case, 1) should he halfway between the two tones that make it up. This applies to all of the keys/rows/columns.

It's not halfway between, but the two tones overlaid one over the other.

Here's a page that mentions both tone and pulse dialing - with pulse dialing being phased out in much of the world, so that trick probably won't work these days. The wiki page.

I seem to recall some tale that they went with the two-tone sounds to prevent people from stealing services by whistling the tones into the line, but since you can dial by using a device to replicate the tones anyway, that sounds far-fetched.

^-.-^

[Moirae]

rofl. Wow.

[sirwired]

It's not halfway between, but the two tones overlaid one over the other.

Here's a page that mentions both tone and pulse dialing - with pulse dialing being phased out in much of the world, so that trick probably won't work these days. The wiki page.

I seem to recall some tale that they went with the two-tone sounds to prevent people from stealing services by whistling the tones into the line, but since you can dial by using a device to replicate the tones anyway, that sounds far-fetched.

^-.-^

The two-tone sounds exist so you can just use one tone generator for each row and one for each column. That's makes for seven tone generators vs. twelve (and for that matter, fewer bandpass filters on the other end to distinguish between the tones.)

[lineswine]

DTMF (Dual Tone, Multiple Frequency) vs. pulse (rotary dial).
I'd say that rotary dialling something with several of the higher nos in would take longer than hitting buttons, so, in all, push button (DTMF) is going to take less time & generally be more accurate than rotary & that rotary would take more effort than hitting a few buttons. (/my 2 cents)

[Wembley]

DTMF (Dual Tone, Multiple Frequency) vs. pulse (rotary dial).
I'd say that rotary dialling something with several of the higher nos in would take longer than hitting buttons, so, in all, push button (DTMF) is going to take less time & generally be more accurate than rotary & that rotary would take more effort than hitting a few buttons. (/my 2 cents)

You're absolutely right! A lil tidbit from Bell System history... the designers took into account the time it took to dial a call when they laid out the area codes. For example, NY has the area code 212 - and lil 'ole NH (where I'm from) has area code 603. The designers realized that there would be far more calls going to New York, as opposed to New Hampshire so they used the "faster" area code for NY. In fact, the "fast" area codes (212, 312, 313, 412, etc) were assigned based on the engineers' estimates of how many calls were going to be placed to the each location. Chicago, for example, has 312, and at one time, 412 was assigned to Western PA.

The dial speed on a rotary phone is about 10 pulses per second, so, it may not seem like much of a difference to the individual caller, but remember, at the time, the telephone switching equipment in use was all mechanical, so, even saving one second per call could save hundreds or even thousands of hours in call set-up time.

Now you know waaaay too much about rotary phones!
-Wembley
(Yeah, I'm a geek!)