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Rotary Cellphone

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Re: Rotary Cellphone

#111

Post by C1sc0cat »

tkmunzwa wrote: post #110
rsync wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You click the handset down, like you are hanging up the phone, but just very briefly. So think of the cradle switches - what "hangs up" the phone - as a button, and you just click that button (quickly) for '1' and then you pause and hit it twice in very rapid succession for '2' ... You need to be on a POTS line to do this, of course, but it will work even today. Even if you have no dialing mechanism, you can dial the…

> You click the handset down, like you are hanging up the phone, but just very briefly. This brings back memories, this is a trick people my age group mastered as teenagers in a 3rd world country. All calls were billed - including local ones, so parents would commonly get lockable cages that would cover the buttons/rotary dial to prevent unauthorised calls in their absence. The cages would leave the receiver accessib…

It was also an old school way of phreaking and getting free calls in a phone box.

Re: Rotary Cellphone

#112

Post by [deleted] »

TrickyRick wrote: post #89
timonoko wrote: post #62

European Union recommended emergency number is "112". Because you can morse it with the hook or even by short-circuitin the wires. This is also why the pulse-dialing receiver is operational in most EU countries.

For someone not familiar with morse or pulse dialing, how does one do that?

[deleted]

Re: Rotary Cellphone

#113

Post by hellotomyrars »

krilovsky wrote: post #51
pratio wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It goes opensource in my book maybe you will create an opensource alternative for the hardware. This sort of gatekeeping is maybe the reason why hobbyists avoid HN.

Huh? I didn't say that wasn't a cool project. On the contrary, I think this is a great project even if it was all closed source. Maybe I should have clarified that I just meant to highlight the fact it's almost impossible to understand what many of the devices around us are doing because of the dependency on fundamental building blocks which are closed source and have no open source alternatives. I'm sorry if my comm…

I think your comment is pretty fair and not an indictment of the project. It's 100% worth mentioning.

Re: Rotary Cellphone

#115

Post by Aloha »

What I dont understand is why they just didnt use the trimline case as the case for the thing - or at least the blueprint for the case - this thing looks uncomfortable to hold for any length of time.

Re: Rotary Cellphone

#116

Post by jagged-chisel »

croon wrote: post #59
JdeBP wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hand-held DTMF tone generators, for exactly this purpose, were once fairly widespread. A financial institution once sent one to me for navigating its dial-up automated teller system.

And before that less widespread, but in circulation [eg 0] for "free" long distance phone calls. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_box

You didn’t insinuate this, but to be clear, a blue box didn’t emit “touch tones.”

Re: Rotary Cellphone

#117

Post by pmiller2 »

Aloha wrote: post #115

What I dont understand is why they just didnt use the trimline case as the case for the thing - or at least the blueprint for the case - this thing looks uncomfortable to hold for any length of time.

Maybe “uncomfortable to hold” is part of the point. This is basically an art project, after all.

Re: Rotary Cellphone

#118

Post by nerfhammer »

cptskippy wrote: post #85
DonHopkins wrote: post #50

The problem with the "retro" telephone ring sound that so many modern phones have built in is that it just doesn't resonate and echo and slowly decay over time like a real phone ring. It would be cool to code up a physical ring simulator that reproduces that sound properly, and responds to the accelerometer, especially when you drop it or hang up on somebody by slamming it down. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxXsIQ…

When cellphones first came out, they eschewed classic ringers to sound modern and fresh. As soon as they started offering custom ringtones, I loaded up sounds from a classic TV and Movie sound effects library onto my Nokia. It included a Rotary Phone sound that became my standard ringer up until I started leaving my phone permanently on silent. I can't find the sound fx library online anymore but it had all sorts of…

I always wondered if Apple deliberately tried to kill wacky ringtones by having every default ringtone suck except for the standard simulated landline phone ring so that everyone would just choose that one.

But these days everyone just keeps their phone on silent anyway...

Re: Rotary Cellphone

#119

Post by dublin »

tkmunzwa wrote: post #110
rsync wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You click the handset down, like you are hanging up the phone, but just very briefly. So think of the cradle switches - what "hangs up" the phone - as a button, and you just click that button (quickly) for '1' and then you pause and hit it twice in very rapid succession for '2' ... You need to be on a POTS line to do this, of course, but it will work even today. Even if you have no dialing mechanism, you can dial the…

> You click the handset down, like you are hanging up the phone, but just very briefly. This brings back memories, this is a trick people my age group mastered as teenagers in a 3rd world country. All calls were billed - including local ones, so parents would commonly get lockable cages that would cover the buttons/rotary dial to prevent unauthorised calls in their absence. The cages would leave the receiver accessib…

The old GTE payphones up in Georgetown, Tx (suburb of Austin, now) when I was a kid would let you dial with the switchhook - no coins required. Agreed, zeroes were a pain, but this was partially compensated for by the fact that 5-digit dialing worked for any local number, e.g. 3-1234 got you 863-1234. Interestingly, most VoIP adapters support the pulse dialing of an old phone, but very few have the cojones to actually ring one that has a physical bell rather than an electronic ringer...
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