Comments on: The Area Code.

By: Sara

Sara — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:56:39 +0000

really nice to read the area code. you have chosen the perfect picture accordingly. keep it up.

By: area code

area code — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 22:02:59 +0000

I always wondered how things worked before area codes. LOL…it makes sense though…human operators plugging in cables, before they figured out how to automate the process.

By: lynn

lynn — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 21:02:29 +0000

Party line telephone sets could also be wired so that only some (usually half) of them would ring at a time and the central office could apply ring signal to select which half would ring. This ment two parties on the same party line could have the same ring pattern.

There were several ways to talk to someone on the same party line. One way was you would call the operator and request the phone on the same line and hang up. The operator would then ring the other party and you would pick up again after a delay. This is similar to how some 3-way calling plan work now with one person placing the call on hold, calling another phone, then reconnecting the call on hold.

By: Adirondacker

Adirondacker — Sat, 24 May 2008 08:59:18 +0000

Seven digit telephone numbers were for big city slickers. There was no need for them outside of places like New York City. New York City introduced the seven digit phone number in 1930. ( PEnnsylvania 6 - 5000 instead of PEnnsylvania - 5000 ) So Mr. Mc Cain was born 6 years after the very limited introduction of seven digit dialing.
And years before they began to think about things like direct dialed long distance.

We didn’t get dial phones out here in the woods until the early 60s. Since a real live person was connecting all the calls, the number didn’t have to have a strict amount of digits. The local dairy’s telephone number was “4″. The grocer was “127″ People on party lines had things llke 3L22, which I have been told, in English, is “Party line 3, two longs” Everybody on party line “three” had a ring pattern. If it rang once “short” it was for the first subscriber, if it rang once “long” it was for the second subscriber, one short and one long for the third subscriber. Ten party lines - the kind where ten households shared one telephone line - had more complex patterns.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Wed, 21 May 2008 18:11:35 +0000

Emily J, I’m old enough to remember party lines. The deal was that you had one line shared by three or four people, but you had four phone numbers. Each phone number was set up at the central office switch to cause a different ring pattern on that one actual physical piece of copper. Thus 432-3243 might go “ring….ring…ring” and 432-3244 might go “ringring….ringring…ringring” and so forth. You had to answer only your ring pattern, and if you picked up when someone else was talking you could hear their conversation. For the most part because long distance phone calls were so expensive back then (over $1.50 a minute, or roughly $15 a minute in today’s dollars!), party lines tended to not be very busy, since they were in rural areas where there were few other people to call. People wrote letters instead. The telephone was for emergencies, not something you used daily.

I still don’t recall how you called one of the other people on the party line. Probably because we never did — we just walked down the road to Aunt Rachel’s house or whatever, and knocked on the door if we wanted to talk to her.

- Badtux the not-as-elderly-as-McSame Penguin

By: Emily J

Emily J — Wed, 21 May 2008 16:31:41 +0000

I was talking to my grandma and mom last weekend, and when my mom was a kid on a rural WI farm in the 1960’s, they had a neighborhood line. Families within several miles shared the same phone line. Even though area codes existed in the 1960’s, this could be why there were no area codes previously. Not sure though?

By: Shield

Shield — Wed, 21 May 2008 13:21:59 +0000

Not just area codes - phone numbers didn’t even use seven numbers when McCain was born!

At that time the US used a 2L-5N system - two letters and five numbers. The most famous of them is perhaps the old Glen Miller song, which references PEnnsylvania 6-5000.

In New York, it wasn’t until 1965 that 7 numbers were used in assigning new phone numbers. This was pretty similar around the country.

By: Chris Candell

Chris Candell — Tue, 20 May 2008 19:11:00 +0000

Apparently boys and men were the first to be switch operators but they tended to swear and were not polite or reliable so companies switched to hiring women early on, one of the early employment oppertunities for women. The boys were sent to the late shifts and basically replaced. Of course both phones and operators are older than McCain.

By: Cal Gal

Cal Gal — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:24:53 +0000

Well, I knew this one, because I’m younger than John McCain, and I remember when area codes started. Before that, you needed a long-distance operator to connect you outside your local phone company’s “book.”

I also remember when ZIP codes started.

I just found your (great) blog, so I don’t know if you’ve covered ZIP codes yet.

By: Lun Esex

Lun Esex — Sun, 18 May 2008 19:34:55 +0000

People pointing out the total number of combinations here are missing the fact that phone number prefixes, like zip codes, were assigned regionally. So, for instance, if prefix 123-xxxx were assigned to New York City, and 456-xxxx were assigned to rural Montana, that New York prefix would run out of combinations much faster than that Montana prefix. Adding area codes allowed NYC, Montana, etc. to all use all possible combinations of prefixes.

As someone else pointed out, those prefixes were also limited by the fact that only area codes could have a 0 or 1 as their second digit (the switching systems looked at the second digit and if it wasn’t a 0 or 1 you would get connected right after you finished dialing the 7th digit). Plus neither prefixes nor area codes could start with 0 or 1.

The introduction of 1+ dialing allowed the use of 0 or 1 as the second digits of prefixes, as well as 2-9 as the second digit of area codes. (The switching system now looks for a 1 followed by 2-9 to tell that you’re dialing an area code.)

Oh, and we can’t forget other special reserved numbers that reduced the possible number of prefixes everywhere, like the x11 numbers, plus 555-xxxx. I’m not sure, but they may have reserved x00, as well, even before area codes.

By: remny

remny — Sun, 18 May 2008 02:21:56 +0000

In the 50’s there were two types of local exchanges. In one, an operator answered a light on her board when you picked up your phone, and said “Number please”. You’d then tell her (always a woman) the local number or you would ask her for the Long Distance operator.

The other system was dial (rotary). You’d be able to dial within about 30 or 40 miles by dialing a unique - for that area- seven digit number. Dial “211″ for long distance.

We had a precurser to area codes, though. I lived in Northern NJ, and we could dial “11″ plus a New York City number and be connected without an operator. In New York City they could also dial “11″ and a New Jersey number to reach us. This was as early as 1951.

By: Drasties - Nou breekt me de klomp.

Drasties - Nou breekt me de klomp. — Sun, 18 May 2008 01:43:05 +0000

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By: My new WordPress MU Site » Blog Archive » The Area Code.

My new WordPress MU Site » Blog Archive » The Area Code. — Sun, 18 May 2008 00:55:03 +0000

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By: Avram

Avram — Sun, 18 May 2008 00:44:58 +0000

This is a good site, but you forgot that there are a shitload of possible number combos with seven digits–much more than 9,999,999, which is just the highest number possible. You could have figured this out with a scientific calculator, which is much younger than John McCain. He would have used a slide rule.

By: test » Blog Archive » The Area Code.

test » Blog Archive » The Area Code. — Sat, 17 May 2008 13:11:39 +0000

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