Questions about how phones used to work

[Steven Howard]

Okay, for the purposes of this scenario, it's sometime before, say, 1980. There's no caller ID, voice mail, call waiting, three-way calling, or anything fancy like that.

Person A calls Person B, but B doesn't pick up. While B's phone is ringing, Person C also tries to call B. These are both direct-dialed local calls within the same city.

My questions are:

1.) Am I correct in thinking that C will get a busy signal, and that it's the same busy signal she'd get if B were actually on the phone?


2.) Would there be any way to tell from A, B, or C's phone records that this did or didn't happen?

Suppose B is missing or dead, and C tells the police "I tried to call him at such-and-such a time, and the line was busy." Can they look at B's phone records and see whether he made or received any calls around that time? Or, if A says "I tried to call him and there was no answer," could they look at A's phone records and confirm that?


3.) Suppose A knows that B isn't going to pick up the phone, knows that C is going to call, and wants C to think that B is on the phone with someone else. If A doesn't know exactly when C's going to call, could he just call B and let the phone ring for a couple of hours? (Assume B lives alone and doesn't have any neighbors close enough to hear his phone ringing all night.)

 

[LibraryLady]

Oh, God, I'm so old.

 

[sthomson]

I might be totally in left field here, but I think that if B doesn't pick up the phone, both lines would just ring (ie, C would not hear a busy signal).

Edited to add: Damn, that's how phones work now. I must be too young to remember how phones worked before answering machines and call-waiting.

 

[Fnord]

1. Yes.
2. Yes and yes.
3. Yes.

One could call the operator, declare an emergency, and the operator will break in on the call. They've had this capability since the first "Numbah, Plee-uz" switchboards went into use.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

1. Yes.
2. Yes and yes.
3. Yes.

One could call the operator, declare an emergency, and the operator will break in on the call. They've had this capability since the first "Numbah, Plee-uz" switchboards went into use.

I question your response to question 2:
"2.) Would there be any way to tell from A, B, or C's phone records that this did or didn't happen?"

What phone records? My memories of diagrams of "crossbar exhanges" do not include any method of recording calls; certainly not for local calls.

 

[Steven Howard]

Thanks for the answers so far. #2 is the one I'm the most unsure about. I included the others to make sure I wasn't making any incorrect assumptions.

I know that they kept records of completed outgoing calls, because that's how billing used to work before "unlimited local calls." I don't know if they kept records of incoming calls, or of calls that didn't go through.

C could ask the operator to break in, and then the operator would hear that B's phone was ringing rather than engaged. Luckily for A, C doesn't have any reason to do that. She just assumes B's on the phone to somebody else.

 

[PrincessIneffabelle]

Well, caller A would have to make sure his tin can was clean, then caller B would check to see if the string was tight ...

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Thanks for the answers so far. #2 is the one I'm the most unsure about. I included the others to make sure I wasn't making any incorrect assumptions.

I know that they kept records of completed outgoing calls, because that's how billing used to work before "unlimited local calls." I don't know if they kept records of incoming calls, or of calls that didn't go through.

I think there may well have had means of counting the number of calls made. I'm visualizing something like a mechanical odometer.

My brother once had the responsibility of making up the bills at a large hotel in TO some decades ago. He used to have to go and copy the count of calls from a room onto the bill, multiply by 10-cents and re-set the counter. He also says that at night they very often could not be bothered to get up and go into the room where the telephone equipment was and just made up a number instead -- he also says that no one every complained.

 

[fuelair]

Okay, for the purposes of this scenario, it's sometime before, say, 1980. There's no caller ID, voice mail, call waiting, three-way calling, or anything fancy like that.

Person A calls Person B, but B doesn't pick up. While B's phone is ringing, Person C also tries to call B. These are both direct-dialed local calls within the same city.

My questions are:

1.) Am I correct in thinking that C will get a busy signal, and that it's the same busy signal she'd get if B were actually on the phone?


2.) Would there be any way to tell from A, B, or C's phone records that this did or didn't happen?

Suppose B is missing or dead, and C tells the police "I tried to call him at such-and-such a time, and the line was busy." Can they look at B's phone records and see whether he made or received any calls around that time? Or, if A says "I tried to call him and there was no answer," could they look at A's phone records and confirm that?


3.) Suppose A knows that B isn't going to pick up the phone, knows that C is going to call, and wants C to think that B is on the phone with someone else. If A doesn't know exactly when C's going to call, could he just call B and let the phone ring for a couple of hours? (Assume B lives alone and doesn't have any neighbors close enough to hear his phone ringing all night.)

!1) yes. 2) not if none of the calls were long distance, probably if both were. 3) possibly - I believe there were areas where a call was closed off after a certain number of rings/time but, if not, yes. Here though a long distance call would be cut off.

 

[Michael Redman]

Oh, God, I'm so old.

That was my reaction as well.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

1) They might have received a fast busy signal instead, which indicates the call couldn't go through for some reason or another. A regular busy signal is to indicate the called phone is in use.

2) I'd think there would only be a record if there is a charge associated with it and no call is completed in that scenario. In addition, I'd bet even with a trace on the line, a call would have to be completed.

3) I'd certainly think that after awhile A's call to B would be reset. When the call is placed to B a rather high voltage is sent and I could see the phone company putting a timer on that so they don't end up wasting that electricity. Also, at the time, they used batteries which might make it even more necessary to limit.

Those are all guesses. I just missed out on pre-ESS phones when I was, ah, interested in that sort of thing. If you need more information, "crossbar" might be the term you're looking for.

 

[Fnord]

I question your response to question 2:
"2.) Would there be any way to tell from A, B, or C's phone records that this did or didn't happen?"

What phone records? My memories of diagrams of "crossbar exhanges" do not include any method of recording calls; certainly not for local calls.

D'OH! Local calls! I had assumed toll calls ... local connections were almost never recorded, unless one or the other station was already being monitored.

 

[This Guy]

Not an answer to any of the questions raised. Just a bit of reminiscence.

With the old switches, back in the rotary only days, you could dial your own number, and hang up real quick, and the call would go through, and your phone would ring. If you had two phones in the house, you could get two people on line, and talk to each other when you did that. No, it served no practical purpose (in our small house), but it was fun

I also remember having a party line in our house, when I was young. That made for some interesting events.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Calling yourself probably still works -- the way rotary works is to basically hang up the phone each tick. (Dial 3 and as it returns to the starting point, it would flash hang up the phone 3 times.) If your phone number ends in, say, 5, after 5 ticks and you quickly hang up, it'll take a moment before it 'realizes' you aren't dialing 6 and then place the call.

More fun was a loop. Used for testing the lines (and usually found around nnn-99xx, also called "99 scanning") a pair of phone numbers were connected to one another. You could call one end of the loop and you'd hear a tone. Someone else could call the other end of the loop, the tone would disappear, and the two parties could talk to one another. Pirate radio stations often used them for people to call in.

 

[JEROME DA GNOME]

I never have that problem.

I use these:

Never a busy tone!

 

[This Guy]

I think the solid state switches used in the phone circuits today are too quick for that calling yourself trick.

My understanding of why that used to work is that you could hang up before the connection was made, after dialing the last digit. The lag time for the signal to be routed to and then from the nearest POP or phone station was long enough that you had time to hang up before the connection was made back to your phone.

Now, with the modern switches used along the way, it's nearly instantaneous.

But, I haven't tried it in years...

Maybe I will

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I think this varies from area to area, but we could also call ourselves by dialing 777-xxxx (the prefix was 277/272 which may figure in) and I'm pretty sure just dialing the number outright worked too, come to think of it.

 

[DoubtingStephen]

It is true that call records were only maintained for toll calls, and even then it was only for completed calls. A call is completed only when the called party goes off-hook by picking up their Electric Telephone. Some central office gear would not mark a call as completed until it was established for about 30 seconds, so it was possible to make extremely brief long distance calls without being billed.

I'm fairly certain that records were not kept in the USA for abandoned toll calls. A call is abandoned when the calling party goes back on-hook (hangs up) before the called party answers.

And yes, I did work for TPC (The Phone Company) during a prior century, although I was working with primitive data I/O gear called Teletype machines.

 

[HawaiiBigSis]

<snip>
With the old switches, back in the rotary only days, you could dial your own number, and hang up real quick, and the call would go through, and your phone would ring. If you had two phones in the house, you could get two people on line, and talk to each other when you did that. No, it served no practical purpose (in our small house), but it was fun

I also did this when I was too lazy (or busy, yeah, yeah, that's it) to walk upstairs but wanted to talk to somebody up there...

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

It is true that call records were only maintained for toll calls, and even then it was only for completed calls. A call is completed only when the called party goes off-hook by picking up their Electric Telephone. Some central office gear would not mark a call as completed until it was established for about 30 seconds, so it was possible to make extremely brief long distance calls without being billed.

I'm fairly certain that records were not kept in the USA for abandoned toll calls. A call is abandoned when the calling party goes back on-hook (hangs up) before the called party answers.

And yes, I did work for TPC (The Phone Company) during a prior century, although I was working with primitive data I/O gear called Teletype machines.

KSR-37s or 33s?