It's mine, I tell you.

[bix@chaos.social]

@jonty “but can I visit you and try to find the right key?”

But how did BT solve this problem, their engineers surely didn’t carry all possible keys around?

[jamesbridle@mastodon.social]

@jonty I feel like you know many, many lock pickers who will see this as a challenge.

[dtl@8bitorbust.info]

@jonty got to like a company that provides a reason.

[patterfloof@meow.social]

@bix @jonty surely they had master keys, maybe a handful, but not enough they needed a van full of keys

[jonty@chaos.social]

@jamesbridle I am torn between wanting some friends to have fun and wanting a functioning payphone quickly

[mair@mathstodon.xyz]

@rixx @jonty the... telephone exchange?

[lpbkdotnet@mstdn.social]

@jonty I think those are all for the customer-premises types of payphone (solitaire etc) - they all seem to be tubular locks

I'm not sure about the generation you've got, but earlier payphone keys wereregional, so each telecom region had their own set of bittings.

I expect yours is similar, so if there is any way to narrow down where it was originally installed - and then you try some of the ex-BT staff facebook groups, you might luck out and find someone who didn't return their keys?

[jonty@chaos.social]

@lpbkdotnet Yep, we realised that too!

This phone came from Bath (we've even found the phonebox), but I'm not sure I can be bothered to chase engineers. We know the lock was changed in 2007 as we did some keyhole surgery to extract the logbook.

[dngrs@chaos.social]

@jonty hook it up to a landline, insert coin, call the lockpicking lawyer

[extelec@mstdn.social]

@jonty Send them the payphone...

[dragonfi@social.jsteuernagel.de]

@jonty @jamesbridle Can't they just have fun, then replace with a lock you have keys for? (Based on the assumption that it is like most locks that allow replacement when open.)

[rogerlipscombe@hachyderm.io]

@jonty @becomethewaifu yeah; if I remember correctly, the LCD was used to display call duration, time left, and -- if it took phone cards -- credit remaining. But it's been a while, so...

[rogerlipscombe@hachyderm.io]

@jonty @sa presumably it's not going to recognise modern coinage, so I wonder if there's a way to reconfigure it for that...

[arpie4math@mathstodon.xyz]

@jonty

"What are you doing?"
"Making a long-distance phone call."

— Johnny Mnemonic, 1995

- YouTube

Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.

(www.youtube.com)

[japonica@kind.social]

@jonty what I can offer is that if you put 20p in, then whack it hard just under the key pad, your 20p comes out and the credit remains!

[emily_s@mastodon.me.uk]

@jonty challenge lock for the lock people that come to emf?

[lpbkdotnet@mstdn.social]

@jonty Oh it's that one!

I had wondered who won it.

Unfortunately, although I do know a few current and ex engineers from the westcountry, none of them were in Bath as far as I know.

However, I "might" know someone who knows someone... It may come to nothing, but it can't hurt to ask.

I had previously asked someone who I know used to steal cash from payphones in the early 90s how they got in

Unfortunately their methods were horrifically destructive - so not a suitable approach here!

[nicoduck@chaos.social]

@jonty aren't these all tubular keys and your phone has a "normal" key?

[jonty@chaos.social]

@nicoduck Correct! They have now concluded that they aren't allowed to sell us a key, but could unlock it for us.

[boreq@chaos.social]

@jonty that is a really cool response