old phone tricks

pishta said

I ran into a Bell Model 500 (standard rotary dial phone) a few years ago on a trouble call. Could not dial out. I called up the switch and told them to turn on pulse dial and it still worked. We turn that off by default for some reason. You could tap the hook switch and emulate the pulse dial just like you said. Sort of like dialing on a telegraph.

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In the 80's early 90's I did HVAC mostly service. No cell phones then, I had a "beeper." So sometimes I called the shop from the customer's phone. This of course was in the days after the "big bell breakup" and you could buy aftermarket phones. I used to laugh at the number of times I'd dial some dime store phone (with buttons) and then sit there and listen to the damn thing convert it to pulse dialing. So I'd flop the thing over and move the switch to "tone dialing" LOL