Here's a random question that I was thinking about because of this thread:
On your rotary dial, did you take your finger out of the hole after every number you dialed, or let it "ride"?
I always let my finger ride for the lower numbers, but took it out for dialing a higher number - I just couldn't hang on when dialing "0"...
walrus
I have been known to try and force the dial to turn faster because it was SUCH a long wait.
BTW, the way the dial worked, at least on the later revs (don't know about earlier) was that it was a pulse system. You could simulate using a dial on a push-button phone by using the hangup-switch (hook). You can see in old movies where they would pick up the receiver and tap the hook to get the operator. Well, if you tap the hook five times, it was the same as dialing the number five. You could actually dial the phone using this method.
When pushbutton phones because the norm, you had to pay more for DTMF (dual-tone multi-frequency) service, so the phones came with a pulse/DTMF switch so you could use them on the cheaper service. If you pressed the number 5, it would simulate hitting the hook five times.
BTW, young people don't know this, but phone service used to sound GOOD. The introduction of VoIP, digitalization, and compression has absolutely ruined call quality. People have now become accustom to crappy phone service as the norm. Between distortion, latency, crosstalk, and echo, using the phone has become an absolute nightmare for me because in the old days I could complain about any of that stuff and there would be a truck on my street in no time. Now it's all just part of the experience.
It's just like young people not knowing how music really sounds because they listen to streamed MP3s through crappy Apple ear-pods. You should have seen my daughter's face when I let her listen to her favorite music via FLAC through my Grace 903 and Senheisser HD580s. She now has the HD580s and listens through her Apogee Duet. I got a pair of HD650s.