From: hourglas!erikr@wisdom.bubble.org (Erik Rauch)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Telephone Keypad Question
Date: 24 Jul 92 01:27:19 GMT
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 582, Message 3 of 13

Erik Rauch (erikr@hourglas.UUCP):
 
> When did the phone company use three digits? And when was this
> practice officially abolished?
 
Pat Townson:
 
> The old familiar names were kept when possible and when there would be
> no conflict in dialing (certain old exchange names collided
> numerically with other exchange names, ie. [Union Stock] Yards and
> Warren [Boulevard]
> -- we kept YARds (now 927) and Warren became Haymarket [riots, meeting
> place of strikers] (now 421).
 
So you're saying that the words used to identify CO's originally had
no number associated with them? When did they start being associated
with numbers? I bet this was around the time when letters started
appearing on rotary dials.
 
> After about 1960 it was dueces wild; no attempt was made to match
> numbers with names; any number combination unused at the time was
> considered with some universal exceptions: First and second digits
> always 2-9 (never 0 or 1) and third digit 1-9 (never a zero).
 
What were the xx0 exchanges being kept for?


[Moderator's Note: From the beginning until the early 1920's when
dialing began there was no real concern in the matter. The operators
understood the different words; that was all that mattered. To their
credit, Chicago Telephone Company made a point of skipping names which
would be 'numerically ambiguous' beginning sometime in the 1920's in
anticipation of it making a difference several years later. But those
which were in use stayed that way until the first of the two (I do not
know of any instance where there were three) converted to dial. It
then got a new name which would not be ambiguous to the equipment. In
the beginning, people who wanted to know the weather outside lifted
the receiver and asked the operator what the temperature and
conditions were. Eventually this became a specialized task, but the
subscribers still asked the operator for WEATHER and were plugged in
to the place where it was recited continuously. Among the first
conversions to dial in 1939 was W-E-A-T-H-E-R, but that was short-lived 
for some reason with a change to WEather-4-(anything, with 1212 the
official number) and a new CO called WEbster-9 showing up downtown.
WEather-4 went away in favor of 934, then 936, and finally (free) 976
followed by (pay) 976.  Webster could have become WEBster but for some
reason it became WEbster-9 instead. I can't divine their thinking from
that long ago. 

Instead of happening overnight as in a small town, the conversion from
manual to dial service went on for years here, and led to lots of
confusion by subscribers. Dial customers dialed each other; manual
customers asked the operator for connections to each other or the dial
customers; dial customers calling manual exchanges sometimes could
dial them (!) but other times had to dial 911 and wait for an operator
to answer and pass the request. When I was a child I stayed up late
the night our CO converted to dial, making a manual call at about 1:59
AM, and a dial call a minute or two later. My friend's phone did not
convert for another year; I dialed 911, waited for an operator to
answer and gave his number; to call me he just gave the operator my
number. 911 (?) ... I see your eyebrows raise ... the police were
called via POLice-1313; a fire was reported at FIRe-1313.  Emergency
use of 911 started in the late 1970's here.  During the manual to dial
conversion 511, 711, and 911 were dialed to reach operators in
unconverted manual exchanges around the city. The '0' operator was not
to be contacted for those calls. 511, 711 and 911 just 'dropped into'
the manual offices and showed up on the operators switchboards. Each
time you gave your number to anyone they'd always ask "Are you getting
converted soon? Get to keep the same number? ..."  PAT]