The table arcade cabinets were so awesome.
I remember that “Eight Ball Deluxe” talked in a deep baritone, rugged, manly voice.
I imagined, as a young teenager, that one day I’d have a job and a house and I’d buy a Cray to keep in my basement.
Oh oh, and those big cabinets with the two big rolls of film.
Dude, is there a way I could make a mockup and put that in front of my closet doors? Hmmmmm.
I still remember the phone numbers from 3 of my high school friends.
Speaking of phone numbers, remember when you didn’t have to dial the area code? :D
My first phone number (that I remember) was Cherry 3-7255
I bet a lot of you young-uns thought that the little letters on the phone dial (or button pad) were put there so companies could make silly wordlets from their phone number.
Cherry. That sounds like one of those sexy robo 80s movies.
I built one about 15 years ago and still love it. In fact, I’m in the middle of an upgrade of computer and controls. A very rewarding project to undertake.
Ok I googled this and I can’t find any other reason for them, so please enlighten me?
I’m not young but I am pretty young for this forum, lol
Now you made me google
CHerry looks like 2, 4.
According to this: http://mentalfloss.com/article/61116/why-did-old-phone-numbers-start-letters
the CH would have been the exchange. At some point the format was 2 letters 5 numbers.
I do remember a number like 212 555 2344, the 555 was the “exchange” so I guess they first used exchanges and when those ran out they added area codes.
edit: wait no, it is more complicated than that. my head hurts.
The answer was in my post:
So you dialed out Cherry? Or was Cherry just an easy way to remember some numbers? If it’s the latter, in what way did it differ from
Genuinely curious.
I need to go read that article. The exchange idea is neat in that I hadn’t thought about it before. When I was a kid pretty much everyone in my neighborhood had numbers that started with the same few sets of three digits but I hadn’t connected that with the idea of exchanges. Sort of like URLs then. .com is the country code, the server address would be the first two to three numbers, and the subdomain is like the last 4?
But you old* people should talk about party lines and talking to operators to connect you. That’s some crazy fun shit.
* this part is supposed to be a joke :)
My old number was GEdney 5- 5919. Weird. It bothers me that I remember that.
I don’t know about party lines, but I had a friend that would call the operator and claim an emergency to break onto my phone line if he called me and it was busy. I actually thought that was funny and not a dick move at the time.
Weird that they thought anyone would remember GEdney, but maybe it meant something where you lived.
The letters/word was just a mnemonic device. I guess they figured people couldn’t memorize 7 digits in a row. My number was in a pretty built up area (Santa Clara). I understand that folks in smaller places could dial another number on the same exchange by just dialing the 5 digits.
Up through most of the 70s, all area codes had either 0 or 1 as the middle number, and no local prefixes did. You didn’t dial ‘1’ to access the long distance network - the switching equipment just knew to switch over based on the 2nd number.
I used an operator several times when I was younger, but it’s really weird to think about now.
Heh. I used to do that. My second wife was always on the phone. She got furious when I’d cut in.
Remember pay phones? The sound of the coins hitting a bell in the box. The operator would count the dings and when you put enough change in she’d connect you long distance. Hackers would build boxes that mimicked the dings and call for free. Stone age shit.
Ebinger’s Bakery (Brooklyn) - their chocolate chip cookie was the best. I still remember the taste!
Subway Tokens
Two Dollar Bill
Susan B Anthony Coin (size the same as a quarter)