It's mine, I tell you.
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Do I have the keys? No. Can we pick the lock? Also no.
I contacted a company who stocks spares for UK payphones, asking them to send me a set of keys to try.
They replied with "That will not be possible" and the following photo.
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I contacted a company who stocks spares for UK payphones, asking them to send me a set of keys to try.
They replied with "That will not be possible" and the following photo.
@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?
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I contacted a company who stocks spares for UK payphones, asking them to send me a set of keys to try.
They replied with "That will not be possible" and the following photo.
@jonty I feel like you know many, many lock pickers who will see this as a challenge.
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I contacted a company who stocks spares for UK payphones, asking them to send me a set of keys to try.
They replied with "That will not be possible" and the following photo.
@jonty got to like a company that provides a reason.
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@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?
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@jonty I feel like you know many, many lock pickers who will see this as a challenge.
@jamesbridle I am torn between wanting some friends to have fun and wanting a functioning payphone quickly
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@jonty My sister is 14 years younger than me, and when I said "oh what you've never used a payphone?" she said "Yeah well I've never sent a telegram either" and I crumbled to dust
(then I showed her how pretty phonecards used to be and made her jealous of those, but I'm not sure I won the exchange)
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I contacted a company who stocks spares for UK payphones, asking them to send me a set of keys to try.
They replied with "That will not be possible" and the following photo.
@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?
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@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?
@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.
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Do I have the keys? No. Can we pick the lock? Also no.
@jonty hook it up to a landline, insert coin, call the lockpicking lawyer
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I contacted a company who stocks spares for UK payphones, asking them to send me a set of keys to try.
They replied with "That will not be possible" and the following photo.
@jonty Send them the payphone...
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@jamesbridle I am torn between wanting some friends to have fun and wanting a functioning payphone quickly
@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.)
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@becomethewaifu Oh wait, you meant on the phone not in the background! No, that's just an LCD sadly.
I do have a Canadian payphone with a VFD in it which looks cool as hell
@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...
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@sa I have an entire box of ATAs, don't worry - the main problem is going to be getting into the damn thing as we don't have keys!
The fun problem is going to be reverse engineering the firmware to figure out the phone-home configuration protocol, if you fancy helping with that
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It's mine, I tell you. My own. My precious.
"What are you doing?"
"Making a long-distance phone call."— Johnny Mnemonic, 1995
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It's mine, I tell you. My own. My precious.
@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!
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I contacted a company who stocks spares for UK payphones, asking them to send me a set of keys to try.
They replied with "That will not be possible" and the following photo.
@jonty challenge lock for the lock people that come to emf?
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@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.
@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!
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I contacted a company who stocks spares for UK payphones, asking them to send me a set of keys to try.
They replied with "That will not be possible" and the following photo.
@jonty aren't these all tubular keys and your phone has a "normal" key?
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@jonty aren't these all tubular keys and your phone has a "normal" key?
@nicoduck Correct! They have now concluded that they aren't allowed to sell us a key, but could unlock it for us.
