PureBasic Forums - English

I was born in 1954 to a military family in Canada. The first phone I can remember my family using had a hook and a receiver and nothing else. No dial and certainly no keypad. If you wanted to make a call you picked up the receiver, which raised the hook, put the receiver to your ear and waited. Within a few seconds a female voice said, "Number, please" and you spoke the number of the person to whom you wished to connect. As a young child, until I reached the lofty age of eleven, my telephone number was ..wait for it... One Two Six. Yes, three whole digits. It's now the year 2017. With me starting life with a 3-digit phone number and nobody's jealous husband has killed me yet, there is something seriously wrong. I don't belong here. I'm a throwback. I come from a time when ignition points and dwell angles were things that were understood by the average guy and nobody ever heard of an ECM. For those of you not mechanically inclined, Engine Control Module. It's in your car. A modern, though ultimately evil, thing imho. Coders make it work. At least I'm not conflicted at all...

It was a five-digit number with a rotary-dial analog phone. We placed our own calls, although international ones were operator-assisted, had to be pre-booked, and featured that lovely delay echo.

I was born in the early 80s. Ones like in TI-994A's post were still everywhere. Newer ones were the same form but with dial-pad.

Late 80s the big multi-line units with built in tape-recorder came along but were expensive.

That was in the US. In Estonia people who had phones had the same line-powered types up till the 90s sometime.

Call mom at work. USSR, 1970s.



The author was not specified (

0.02₽ unlimited

netmaestro wrote:... No dial and certainly no keypad.

Pretty much the same... consisted of 2 soup cans and a string.

netmaestro wrote:... I come from a time when ignition points and dwell angles were things that were understood by the average guy.

Dwell angles... hell, we just raced the engine a little and adjusted the timing by ear...you kids!

blueb wrote:

netmaestro wrote:...I come from a time when ignition points and dwell angles were things that were understood by the average guy.

Dwell angles... hell, we just raced the engine a little and adjusted the timing by ear...you kids!

Forget about dwell angles and ignition timing; today's average guy probably hasn't even seen a distributor.

TI-994A wrote:

blueb wrote:

netmaestro wrote:...I come from a time when ignition points and dwell angles were things that were understood by the average guy.

Dwell angles... hell, we just raced the engine a little and adjusted the timing by ear...you kids!

Forget about dwell angles and ignition timing; today's average guy probably hasn't even seen a distributor.

I've seen magnetos, cam distributors, coil packs, sterling engines, turbo fan coils, nuclear control rods, diesel glow plugs.. I couldn't afford mechanics for a long time. The rest are from jets and other stuff..

I've had enough electrical problems in big harnesses put against engines by engineers that I'm a big fan of carburetors and cam distributors actually.. To the point I'll pay 8MPG..

netmaestro wrote:One Two Six. Yes, three whole digits. It's now the year 2017. With me starting life with a 3-digit phone number and nobody's jealous husband has killed me yet, there is something seriously wrong. I don't belong here. I'm a throwback. I come from a time when ignition points and dwell angles were things that were understood by the average guy and nobody ever heard of an ECM.

Well I'm from much more modern times, but some paradox is that on my time [and in my location] average guy never ever though about something like phone ^_^
I'm quite a savage who didn't listen a music or watched TV and lot of such things up to some age :) When I've got my 8-bit NES for example, it was a rare thing around, when I've finally got my first PC, it was still just extremely rare, not saying about Internet. So my leap from "that time" into modern was maybe even higher than yours or someone else in this topic, just much shorter in time.

Anyway now there is almost nothing from such old simple analogue life remains, with modern level of science and technologies world changes faster and faster, the difference between 2007 year and 2017 looks close to one between 10 years ago and 50.

Technological singularity becomes reality and often it looks just like "too many ppl making too many problem". It's definitely possible that good old nuclear cleanup might become a nice solution, if compare it to several other [and more realistic] possible scenarios of near future

They were 'the good old days'
In the early 1970's many of my university friends were from 'the bush' and this was before direct dialing long distance.
One time I called the long distance operator and asked for "Boondooma, near Proston"
I heard the city operator ask the Proston operator "Do you have a Boondooma up there?"
"Certainty do" was the reply so the City operator asked for the number I had requested.
"Brian's not home" was the reply from the country operator.
I asked when he would be back and the city operator gave up and let me talk to the country operator.
"He's on holidays in Maroochydore, do you want the number?"
"Yes thanks"
I told the operator who I was and she remembered me from the last bush dance I had attended so we had a long chat, all without paying any long distance charges.

When one friend bought his first farm, there was a party line where 4 farms all shared the one overhead phone line. The operator had to give a special ring (Morse code) so they knew who was being called. Not much privacy in those days.

Jim