Have you ever...

[derickr@phpc.social]

@neil You could just have asked how old we are

[theforeignagent@social.taker.fr]

@neil I did all, Am I so old 🤪

[neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk]

@gsuberland Ooh, good clarification. I was meaning in the context of a payphone here.

[rhube@wandering.shop]

@neil Most of these. Not sure about the phone card. I don't *think* so, but I'm not entirely sure.

I've talked to operators but I don't think been routed from one system to another, unless this includes dialling 9 to dial out, or being forwarded by a receptionist?

Never received a phone call in a phone booth, but used to use them regularly to call parents as a child and teenager.

[sarahjamielewis@mastodon.social]

@neil all of the above

[nrmacdonald@mastodon.social]

@neil
My auntie was a switchboard operator on a joint operations air base during The War, she had to speak English AND American.

[bradley@techhub.social]

@neil ha unfortunately I still remember my ATT phone card number

[colinthemathmo@mathstodon.xyz]

@neil I have also used a pay phone on a train.

[damien@layer8.space]

@neil used a telephone book for which purpose?

[neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk]

@sarahjamielewis Well there's a surprise

[aimaz@mstdn.social]

@neil I am curious what it means to dial from one exchange to another.

I probably only called local numbers as a kid and dialing other areas when I was older was always just preceding the number with a 4 or 5 digit area code, did it work differently before?

[ceciliabell@mastodon.social]

@neil Yes to all, plus for a summer I actually was a (human) telephone operator. Those overnight shifts were something else.

[ska@social.treehouse.systems]

@neil this is just an age test. No need to be cruel.

[paul_ipv6@infosec.exchange]

@neil

if you said yes to more than two of these, you're overdue to schedule your next colonoscopy...

(which reminds me...)

[jessamyn@glammr.us]

@neil Most I'm not sure what "Dialled from one exchange to another" means specifically, maybe a UK thing?

I did buy this bad boy new in box from my local thrift store last week. I have a Bluetooth dongle in my house so that I can make calls with it. Fake dialtone and everything!

[theonedoc@tech.lgbt]

@neil are you under 46?

[extelec@mstdn.social]

@neil and made free international calls, by a number of methods.

[slaettaratindur@piaille.fr]

@neil "Were you alive 40 years ago?"

[dpnash@c.im]

@gsuberland @neil I’m not sure if there’s a UK vs elsewhere distinction here but: in the US a “phone card” often meant something kind of like a phone company-account specific access card. It was also called a “calling card”. You’d dial a number (with an extra code/digit string to enable “calling card” mode), wait for the phone to make a “ka-BONG” sound, then dial the phone card ID number, and your call would go through and be billed to the account associated with the card. My parents gave me the phone card number for their account when I was in college in the 1990s so I wouldn’t have to worry about phone charges calling them.

[mmiasma@mastodon.sdf.org]

@neil

7 out of 8 boxes ticked. <sigh>