[GreenKeys] Re: [Off Topic] Looking for WECO keypad

Sellam Ismail sellam at vintagetech.com
Mon Mar 20 15:20:00 EST 2006


On Wed, 8 Mar 2006, Roy Morgan wrote:

> Though I don't know the history of the development of long distance 
> dialing, I assume the following story from MIT tells of a time much 
> earlier than the "blue box":
> 
> Early in the development of long distance tone-enabled dialing, an 
> article about it was published in the Bell System Journal.  My memory of 
> "the Journal" was that most articles were esoteric, usually high level 
> engineering, and very technical.
> 
> An electrical engineering undergraduate at MIT read the article and 
> preceded to build a working tone generator in his room.  The folks at 
> the phone company noticed some unusual traffic on their experimental 
> circuits and traced the source to his dorm phone.  They approached the 
> young fellow and cautiously asked him about what he'd done to allow him 
> to dial his buddies at Cal Tech and elsewhere.
> 
> Instead of charging him for the calls, they offered him a nice job once 
> he graduated.  I'd guess that his reputation preceded him and he had a 
> fine time at Bell Labs.

Hi Roy.

How times have changed.  These days in our current climate this kind of 
activity is tantamount to a one-way ticket to Guantanamo :)

-- 

Sellam Ismail                                        Vintage Computer Festival
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