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Installing a payphone in my house

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Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#131

Post by CapitalistCartr »

sangnoir wrote: post #116
franga2000 wrote: post #112

Just last month I got the opportunity to assist with an art installation that involved a phonebooth, which meant I got to take one home and poke around its insides. It was some of the most delightfully 90s tech I've seen in a while - 2-layer PCBs, all through-hole components, only a few well-known ICs... I ended up carefully removing all the "brains" and hooking up the insides to a raspberry pi, which could join a Di…

Vy any chance, did you write about the project somewhere? I have a similar project on the back burner, but with a rotary-dial handset, and I doubt a pi could provide enough juice to ring.

In North America, ringing takes about 100 volts, but any control will do. Link the control circuit to an ice cube relay, then have that control the higher voltage.

Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#132

Post by trevyn »

riffraff wrote: post #85
jamal-kumar wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you ever see 'hackers'? The 90s were cavalier. We're talking over 20 years ago, different time. The big difference was that people were... for lack of a better designation, intensely naive back then. There just wasn't a lot of understanding around consequences.

I don't think that people were more naive, they were just young. I am pretty sure kids today are also doing some different mildly illegal stuff with technology, but we'll have to wait 20 years to find out about it.

Photoshopping printed documents (school enrollment records, event tickets, covid stuff, etc.) was definitely weirdly popular among a certain demographic.

Also scamming product returns, food delivery refunds, stuff like this.

Curious what other things people have run across.

Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#134

Post by b112 »

franga2000 wrote: post #112

Just last month I got the opportunity to assist with an art installation that involved a phonebooth, which meant I got to take one home and poke around its insides. It was some of the most delightfully 90s tech I've seen in a while - 2-layer PCBs, all through-hole components, only a few well-known ICs... I ended up carefully removing all the "brains" and hooking up the insides to a raspberry pi, which could join a Di…

Seems weird, to me, that you would need a card. Every phone booth I've used took dimes, then quarters.

Some, near the end, could take a credit card or a telco card.

I presume you could buy the cards back in the day, anywhere and easily?

Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#135

Post by stackbutterflow »

WalterBright wrote: post #117
franga2000 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mic and speaker in the 90s Iskra payphones are far superior in sound quality to anything you'd find in a cheap phone these days. I hooked one up to Discord last month for an art instalation and could not believe my ears when it sounded way better than the 3 other people in the call using flagship smartphones.

One thing has not improved one iota in the 30 years I've had a cell phone - the voice quality.

At some point we may need a new name for that rectangle shaped thing that we use for everything but hardly for calling people anymore.

Maybe smartbrick?

Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#136

Post by makeitdouble »

suyula wrote: post #84
makeitdouble wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The credit card fraud is to me the worst, as any random number might actually match an existing one, and back in the days I wouldn't expect much scrutiny from the card processor. That's then up to the poor soul who's number was used to go through paperwork purgatory to dispute the charge. Orherwise ISPs are the poster child of monopoly giants that had to be broken down kicking and screaming, but kept screwing the cus…

If every human being alive today (~8 billion) had a valid Visa card (14 digits not counting the beginning 4 and the check digit), there would be a 0.008% chance of a collision.

I kinda agree with the low probability, but you also ignored the article (he’s faking mastercard), and I see 12 digits not 14.

Also, not every valid number will be used (e.g. all 0s won’t be an option), and every number don’t need to be valid at the same time. If I renew 25 cards, their numbers are burned with no reuse.

That’s a long way to say, I’m not a fan in general of throwing in naive probability calculations and calling it a day.

Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#137

Post by westhom »

mrb wrote: post #76

I love it that he uses the payphone to talk to his daughter's phone in her room... or rather that she uses her phone to call him ;) I also just set up a private phone network in my house, and my daughter can also call my room, from her bedroom. But it spiraled very quickly into something more evolved & more fun. It all started when I discovered after buying our new house that most rooms were pre-wired with RJ11 outle…

Thanks for sharing. This is exactly what I want to do once I get a house. First just room to room calling with extensions, and then possibly outgoing for fun. It’s good to know the actual hardware isn’t expensive and it can support analog. And lots of fun old school phones to choose from.

Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#140

Post by crispyambulance »

charlieyu1 wrote: post #133

They should keep at least a few pay phones. Works great when your phone battery dies. I think I have used one as recent as 2010s.

The last time I tried to use a payphone was 2007. I literally could not figure the damn thing out. FWIW, it was immediately after landing in a foreign country and my language/reading skills were not up to par and it was a credit card based thing.

After that, I switched to just getting a temporary SIM at the airport.

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