I thought I’d start out today with a vintage promo video from General Tire, “Car Tires, The Loaded Gun”.
You can skip over the last four or so minutes of this (it is only eight minutes long) but I wanted to highlight it here because…that first minute and 30 seconds. Wow. That was…unexpected.
For something completely different from “The 8-Bit Guy”, going out to the young folks in my audience: “How Telephone Phreaking Worked”. I’ve set the embed to start at about the 4:15 mark to skip over all the introductory material (videos of vintage computers, videos of the presenter signing things, etc.)
And for something else, also completely different: “How To Make Potato Vodka”. This is more for informational purposes than “how-to” purposes, though if you do happen to have a still just lying around in your garage…or, I guess, the skills to improvise one out of parts without poisoning yourself with lead…
Bonus #3: “How to Taste Whisky with Richard Paterson” part 1:
And part 2:
“Mangled Screaming Death” is a good name for a rock band.
Back in the early `80’s I worked for a small telecom company that had no amenities for working on the road. I had a few phone gags that worked WITHOUT any external devices. This was back before the digital central offices, nationwide 911, caller ID, etc. They do not work anymore.
1). I did this for long distance calls only. Local calls were no time limit for a dime, and you still had to use the dime just to get dial tone. Find at least 2 payphones mounted side by side. From the first one, drop the dime, get dial tone, and dial “0” then the number. When the operator came on and asked for billing, say “third party billing….” lean over, look and get the phone number of the other phone and give it to the operator. She would ask your name and say “hold for billing verification” and ring the other pay phone. I would answer the other phone and she would say “Operator calling for 3rd party billing, is it OK if XXXXX makes a call and bills to this number?” To which I would answer “of course” and the call got put through.
2). I knew where there were a lot of payphones you could drive up to. Instead of tones for coins like the video (those were newer style), on the older ones, the coin completed a momentary connection between earth ground and one side of the phone line. This was kind of eluded to in the movie “War Games” but Matthew Broderick does it through the handset which would not be accurate. One particular phone booth I frequented was bumped by a car breaking the light fixture at the top. Inside that same compartment were the connections for the phone to the pole. By plugging on my lineman’s test set, and momentarily grounding one side of the line, I got dial tone and made tons of free local calls and toll free calls.
3). In 1982 when I was dating my wife, she went on a cross country RV trip with her family. Their tow vehicle blew the transmission somewhere in Kentucky where they would be stuck in a campground for a few days. The first night they were there she called me collect and I had her give me the phone number for the payphone. For the next few nights I called her collect at 8 PM whee she was waiting at the payphone for my call. We would talk for hours. The last time I called, a guy answered. The operator says “Collect call from XXXXX, will you accept the charges?” He starts laughing and in a southern drawl says, “Lady, this is a payphone!” I hung and and figured they must have gotten on their way. They did.
I found the entire (short) General Tire video pretty interesting, but that’s me. It reminds me I need to get me some Dual 90s for the Rambler.