Random Thoughts

[1995hoo]

My mother still prints directions despite her car having a very nice built-in sat-nav with a very clear screen. I've shown her how to use it, and she also went to the dealer for a tutorial on the car's features (it had been my father's car), but she still seems either unwilling or unable to use the sat-nav. I think the only time she used mapping software on her phone was one time when I programmed it for her when she wanted to walk from a Metrorail stop to somewhere in Georgetown.

[Rothman]

Who can forget the days of landline phones, when to contact a loved one one had to actually dial □ □ □ - □ □ □ □.

For a good time call 867-5309

[Scott5114]

Who can forget the days of landline phones, when to contact a loved one one had to actually dial □ □ □ - □ □ □ □.

For a good time call 867-5309

Except I hope you remember which one is the 8 key, because the buttons in that picture are all just labeled □.

[ZLoth]

Who can forget the days of landline phones, when to contact a loved one one had to actually dial □ □ □ - □ □ □ □.

Without an area code? Here.
With being aware that you can only certain prefixes as "local calls" and other prefixes as "local toll calls"? Here.

[elsmere241]

Without an area code? Here.

When I was a Census enumerator in 2010, one of the questions I asked was for the resident's phone number.  There seemed to be a generational cutoff between putting "302" in front or not.

[Scott5114]

Without an area code? Here.

When I was a Census enumerator in 2010, one of the questions I asked was for the resident's phone number.  There seemed to be a generational cutoff between putting "302" in front or not.

I have always been in the habit of giving my phone number with area code just because I assume most input forms require it, so I should tell the clerk exactly what they need to type. In Oklahoma, they would often type the 405 in without me saying it, and so they'd just stand there waiting for me to get to the rest of it. (And if someone gave a different area code, you'd hear "Hang on" while they backspaced over the 405.) In Las Vegas, so many people are transplants that it'd be silly for anyone to assume you have a 702 number. (Though sometimes I get an "Oh, 405, where's that one from?" type response since it's one of the less common ones to run into out here.)

[TheCatalyst31]

Who can forget the days of landline phones, when to contact a loved one one had to actually dial □ □ □ - □ □ □ □.

If the phone was old enough, you had to dial ○ ○ ○ - ○ ○ ○ ○.

[ZLoth]

A bit of phone history from my perspective...

From 1977 until 2018, I lived in the Sacramento area and had the 916 area code. 916 was one of the original area codes in 1947, and in 1950, was remapped to north-east California. After a chunk was broken off at the southern end to form area code 209, area code 916 was unchanged for almost 40 years. The big change occurred on November 1, 1997 when most of the 916 area became the 530 area code with the exception of most of the Sacramento area. That meant calling your friends in Auburn, El Dorado Hills, and Placerville was now a ten digit code. When I got my mobile phone, I made sure to program all ten digits even though seven digit dialing was acceptable in the Sacramento area. On March 10, 2018, with the exhaustion of phone numbers, area code 279 was overlaid on top of 916, and everyone had to dial all ten digits.

When I live now in Dallas, the area code 214 was one of the four original area codes for Texas in 1947 covering north-east Texas. In 1954, the western part of 214, including Fort Worth, was split off to form are code 817. This remained unchanged until 1990 when the eastern part of 214 was split off to form area code 903. In 1996, another split occurred with 972 covering the 214 area outside Dallas and Dallas county, but was remerged on July 1, 1999 as part of an overlay plan along with the introduction of a third area code, 469, for that area. A fourth area code, 945, has been assigned to the area since January 15, 2021, but can't been requested until all the other numbers are exhausted. They do not expect to have a fifth area code for the region until at least 2032.

I personally have not had a landline since the early 2000s and elected to be mobile-only especially after the "unlimited nationwide calling" plans started to come out. My mother has elected to keep her old 916 number after moving to Dallas while I converted over to the 469 number... partially because of the number of SPAM calls that identified as originating from the 916 area code.

[1995hoo]

Who can forget the days of landline phones, when to contact a loved one one had to actually dial □ □ □ - □ □ □ □.

You wouldn't include early cell phones in that?

[formulanone]

Who can forget the days of landline phones, when to contact a loved one one had to actually dial □ □ □ - □ □ □ □.

You wouldn't include early cell phones in that?

He would have, but only after 9pm

[vdeane]

I have always been in the habit of giving my phone number with area code just because I assume most input forms require it, so I should tell the clerk exactly what they need to type. In Oklahoma, they would often type the 405 in without me saying it, and so they'd just stand there waiting for me to get to the rest of it. (And if someone gave a different area code, you'd hear "Hang on" while they backspaced over the 405.) In Las Vegas, so many people are transplants that it'd be silly for anyone to assume you have a 702 number. (Though sometimes I get an "Oh, 405, where's that one from?" type response since it's one of the less common ones to run into out here.)

I noticed that when I first moved to the Albany area.  Nearly everyone would assume a 518 number, so it would throw them through a loop when you'd give them a different area code and then a group of three numbers instead of four, at which point they'd have to delete six numbers and start over.  Very annoying.  I assume that, due to the 838 overlay and lots of transplants from NYC, this isn't the case anymore, as it seems like I haven't had to do that dance in a while when giving my phone number.

[Max Rockatansky]

People around Fresno usually assume you'll have a 559 area code phone number.  Me having a 602 area code number usually throws people off.  A lot of the time I just give out my wife's number instead which has a 559 area code.

[JayhawkCO]

It's been about 30 years since I've lived in a metro area without multiple area codes. I sometimes temporarily forget that some places can still get away with 7-digit number.

[kphoger]

I was born in 1981.  Here are some that I'd add:

—  Making a collect call from a pay-phone to check in with your parents
—  Dialing '0' for operator assistance
—  Having more than two phone numbers memorized in the first place
—  Spending ten minutes trying untangle the phone cord after a long call
—  NOT printing MapQuest directions before a road trip, because MapQuest wasn't a thing
—  Being careful while you danced to music in the living room, or else the needle might skip
—  Going to the mall just to hang out, or going to a playground with your friends, or just going ANYWHERE
—  Looking over next week's TV Guide
—  Getting up to change the channel
—  Trying to wait long enough for the Wite-Out to dry before typing over your spelling error
—  Using C:/>edit startup.exe every so often to make changes

[kphoger]

I sometimes temporarily forget that some places can still get away with 7-digit number.

Wichita still does.

[gonealookin]

Here are some that I'd add:

—  Thinking I had to answer every incoming call with a polite "Hello?", rather than looking at the caller ID and thinking "that's almost certainly a junk call, but if it's something legit they will leave a message".

[kphoger]

—  Thinking I had to answer every incoming call with a polite "Hello?", rather than looking at the caller ID and thinking "that's almost certainly a junk call, but if it's something legit they will leave a message".

Letting someone leave a message was a good thing back then.

Nowadays, it's more annoying to let the scam call go to voicemail and then have to go into my voicemail, listen to make sure it's not a message from an actual acquaintance, and then choose the correct option to delete it—more annoying than to just answer the call and set the phone down till they hang up.

[1995hoo]

....

—  Trying to wait long enough for the Wite-Out to dry before typing over your spelling error

....

My parents never bought that stuff. Instead, they bought something called Ko-Rec-Type. It was a slip of paper that you inserted between the ribbon and the paper on which you were typing, directly over the typing error, and you then typed the letter you wanted to remove. I think it was similar to what some people called "onion skin." The problem with Ko-Rec-Type was that it wasn't nearly as effective as Wite-Out or similar correction fluid (sometimes also called "liquid paper"). People could not only see that you had made a typing error, they could sometimes tell what the error had been because the paper didn't fully "erase" the mistake even though you would then type over the correction.

I don't know why they persisted in using that stuff into the late 1980s instead of buying Wite-Out.

[Molandfreak]

—  Thinking I had to answer every incoming call with a polite "Hello?", rather than looking at the caller ID and thinking "that's almost certainly a junk call, but if it's something legit they will leave a message".

Letting someone leave a message was a good thing back then.

Nowadays, it's more annoying to let the scam call go to voicemail and then have to go into my voicemail, listen to make sure it's not a message from an actual acquaintance, and then choose the correct option to delete it—more annoying than to just answer the call and set the phone down till they hang up.

I'm not sure if you can get YouMail since you use a dumbphone, but if you can, it'll transcribe every voicemail and send you an email.

[kphoger]

I'm not sure if you can get YouMail since you use a dumbphone, but if you can, it'll transcribe every voicemail and send you an email.

That sounds even more annoying:  to have to open up my e-mail in order to see if it's a voicemail worth hearing/reading.

[GaryV]

Ko-Rec-Type

I think I recall some typewriter ribbons having that built in - you had to back up, raise the ribbon, and then type over it in white.

[Scott5114]

—  Using C:/>edit startup.exe every so often to make changes

The prompt was C:\>, since DOS uses backslashes as directory separators (and thus \ is the root directory of a drive, the same way / is the root directory of a Unix filesystem). This is a very important distinction because the computer we had when I was five had them close enough together that I would wonder why there was a weird diagonal U there.

That sounds even more annoying:  to have to open up my e-mail in order to see if it's a voicemail worth hearing/reading.

Presumably you would get a notification from the email app that contained at least the first part of the text of the email.

[ZLoth]

I was born in 1981.  Here are some that I'd add:

—  Using C:\>edit startup.exe every so often to make changes

Why would you use a text editor to edit a executable? If you were on a MS-DOS machine, the system startup files were config.sys and autoexec.bat. Like many other people, I also used QEMM to better manage the lower 640k of memory as well as the upper memory above 1 GB.

[1995hoo]

[kphoger]

Why would you use a text editor to edit a executable? If you were on a MS-DOS machine, the system startup files were config.sys and autoexec.bat. Like many other people, I also used QEMM to better manage the lower 640k of memory as well as the upper memory above 1 GB.

Aha!  Yes, I misremembered.  It was C:\>edit autoexec.bat.

Since my memory is apparently falling apart lately...  Am I crazy, or didn't the DOS prompt used to be just C:\ before changing to C:\>?