[Tfug] CAT5 Cables, The Sequel

[Bexley Hall]

Hi, George,

--- George Cohn <gwcohn at simplybits.net> wrote:

> Bexley Hall wrote:
> 
> > IIRC, on pay telephones, ages ago, you could
> ground
> > one of the yel-blk pair to get a dial tone.  But,
> > that may just have been on the "out in the sticks"
> > exchanges where I lived (dunno, its been many
> years
> > since I did any phreaking)
> 
> Actually pay phones were central office trunks. 
> They were "ground 
> start" IE: you placed a ground on the ring side IIRC
> to initiate dial 

Ah, I thought it was one of the yel/blk pair.  :<

> tone.  Many of the old pay phones in the UA dorms
> had loose transmitter 
> caps because you could unscrew them, remove the
> transmitter capsule, and 
> ground it's contacts to get dial tone for a local
> call.

Ha!  We had a phone located in a "steam tunnel"
(underground passage through which steam is
conveyed from the "plant" to the campus) that
was an unrestricted line.  It was a fairly common
practice to gather up a bunch of guys and make
your long distance calls "on the school's dime"  :> 

> > Have a 50' length of 25 pair you can part with? 
> :>
> > (need to run all the pairs from one set of
> punch-down
> > blocks to another set on the other side of the
> house)
> 
> I'll look but I don't think so.  I don't work for my
> old employer any 
> more but I can ask the next time their voice
> engineer calls for a 
> "consultation," I'll make that my fee.  ;-)

Cool!  My uncle ran a CO back home (long since
retired).  He had been my source of wire for
many years.  :>
 
> >> loops.  Where I used to work, we had a dual
> >> redundant OC-48 (2.5 gig) 
> >> Sonet ring backbone between three facilities in
> >> Tucson.  Even that is 
> >> relatively slow now, especially when you are
> sending
> >> digital images all over the network.
> > 
> > All that free porn!  :>
> 
> Not me but a couple of IT guys got escorted to the
> door for getting caught doing it.

(sigh)  It is apparently quite common.  (I can't
imagine folks being foolish enough to expose their
actions to that sort of scrutiny)

> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OC-192
> >>
> >> Sorry to ramble on and get OT, my 3+ decades of
> >> working in the telco and IT industries made me
> >> do it!  ;-)
> > 
> > I think, nowadays, folks see everything as it was
> > ALWAYS that way.  I can recall arguing with
> friends
> > about the virtues of having to dial "1" to call
> > "out of town"  :<
> 
> Remember when in-state calls were 1 + number and it
> was only when you 
> needed to dial another state that the area code was
> required?

Yup.  And when you only needed one area code to
cover an entire state, etc.

My home town had *6* digit phone numbers -- the
second digit was just discarded (digit absorber
in a step-by-step switch?)

True nostalgia:  do you remember when TV shows
were *advertised* as "in color"?  :>

> About 20 years ago, they ran out of the 600 or so
> area codes and had to 
> go to the NNX format to get thousands more.  N = 2
> through 9. X = 0 
> through 9.  Before that it was N (0 or 1) X.
> 
> Trivia, the area codes with 0 as the middle digit
> were the first ones 
> issued.  Then they went to 1 as the middle digit for
> the second area 
> code within the same area.  That's also why the
> carriers now have 
> 1010XXX codes because they ran out of ones like
> 10288 (ATT long distance).

Hmmm... didn't realize that.  I had always hoped
there was some *scheme* to the numbering plan.
E.g., interstate highways are numbered from
east to west, south to north, odd vs. even, etc.

ZIP codes similarly structured.

Likewise, SSN's are issued based on location. 

Colorado license plates indicated the county
of origin in the plate number, etc.

But, then again, its easier just to let a machine
sort out all the details and not have to try to commit
them to memory.

(remember when "phone cards" had "check digits"
that were the sole authentication mechanism?
I.e. you could "make up" a "genuine" card number...

--don


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