[Tfug] CAT5 Cables, The Sequel

[George Cohn]

Bexley Hall wrote:

> 
> 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"  :> 

The phones in the dorms back in the '60's didn't have dials but because 
the switches were mechanical steppers, if you were good, you could go 
off hook and tap the hook switch the proper number of times to dial a 
number.  The standard was 10 pps so if you "had rhythm," you could 
actually dial a 7 digit number.

>>> 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)

Yep, several techs were caught with downloaded porn on their pc's.  I 
can't imagine being that stupid, especially when your employer is a 
Catholic health care organization.

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

I grew up in Morenci AZ and the prefixes were 865 for Morenci and 864 
for Clifton.  You only had to dial 5 digits for anyone in the local 
dialing area.  One time Mountain Bell tried to sell Phelps Dodge a new 
switch with the argument that you only had to dial 4 digits.  The deal 
fell through.

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

Yep, have some DVD's of old TV shows and they start with "In color" as 
it was so rare.

> Hmmm... didn't realize that.  I had always hoped
> there was some *scheme* to the numbering plan.

Go to http://www.nanpa.com for information on every area code and 
central office prefix in America.  It's the administrator since the 
phone company supposedly got broken up by the DOJ.  In reality, most of 
the 7 original Regional Bell Operating Companies have been bought up and 
I think there is really only three now.  Almost the same monopoly as for 
the first hundred years.

Another bit of trivia, Nortel Networks was originally Northern Electric, 
the manufacturing and supply arm for Bell Canada.  Since Alexander 
Graham Bell was from Canada, he gave his family the rights to build Bell 
Canada.  The American division was Western Electric, run by one Elias 
Gray, the person Bell beat to the patent office by four hours for the 
telephone patent.  Later, Elias Gray partnered with a guy named Barton 
to form a company called GrayBar.  Ever heard of them?  Until 1979, 
Northern Electric was 25% owned by ATT/Bell.  Most of the pay phones in 
the US were actually made by Northern Electric and just branded ATT.

I used to take a lot of crap from old Bell guys because I was a Nortel 
expert until I explained to them that Nortel was once part of ATT.  In 
1979, ATT sold Nortel to Bell Canada.  Nortel had developed the first 
digital PBX and they asked ATT if they wanted to keep the rights.  The 
folks at ATT said, "Everyone knows phones are analog, keep your digital 
crap."  It took ATT another 10 years to develop their Dimension digital 
PBX.  By that time, Nortel had a lions share of the private PBX market.  ;-)

George Cohn