Things you were shockingly old when you learned

After the remaining valid area codes were used up by expansion, in 1995 the rapid increase in the need for more area codes forced the NANPA to allow the digits 2 through 8 to be used as a middle digit in new area code assignments, with 9 being reserved as a last resort for potential future expansion. At the same time, local exchanges were allowed to use 1 or 0 as a middle digit. The first area codes without a 1 or 0 as the middle digit were area code 334 in Alabama and area code 360 in Washington, which both began service on January 15, 1995. This was quickly followed by area code 520 serving Arizona on March 19, 1995.

wait, there is a shared area code system covering both the US and Canada? Mexico too?

didn't realise they only changed that in the 90s. my late wife's number when she lived in the US started 562 so that would've been fairly new at the time.

UK area codes changed a lot in the 90s too I guess. Reading went 0734 -> 01734 -> 0118 in the space of a few years

London went one better with 01 - 071/081 - 0171/0181 - 020

And then the last change involved adding either 7 or 8 to the start of the rest of the number, meaning that many signwriters just did of as 0207 or 0208 but it soon didn't matter anyway as a vanishingly small number of calls were made from landlines within the area code.

tbf the London changes happened over a decade, the Reading changes happened in 1995 and 1996. there was the same confusion where existing numbers all had 9 prefixed so people thought the area code was 01189

The first area codes were assigned by population too. NYC, LA and Chicago are 212, 213 and 312 respectively based on their ease of dialing on a rotary phone.

Memphis got fucked with 901.

In my small town, we only had to dial four numbers. And each of those four either began with a 6 or a 7.

Gone are the days when 714 ruled Southern California outside of LA. 714 even abandoned my hometown's exchange, but it's replacement, 949, made the number more interesting. 714-494 became 949-494

Anti-Digit Dialing League

I dialed a sheep
I dialed a goat
I rammed my phone right down its throat

I still miss the days when you didn't have to dial the area code

We're currently the only area code in the state that has to dial the area code for every call, due to the 988 National Suicide Hotline. (The other area codes didn't have a 988 prefix.)

Freakin' Jacksonville. Thanks a lot.

I had no idea there were still areas that didn't have to!

We used to be 305 area code when I was growing up, then they created 407 due to overflow, which we got, and we had to start dialing the full number in the early 90s.

As a weird bookworm kid I would take out the phone book (remember those?) and look at the area code map. Also, apropos a question above, the North American Numbering Plan covers the US, Canada, and much of the Caribbean, but not Mexico or Caribbean islands that are still colonies of European nations.

What a time it was to be alive.

https://i.imgur.com/9EJ4EXK.jpg

I had an old client who had a list of 3-digit phone numbers still hanging up by her phone. (Not the main phone, the basement phone.)

The first area codes were assigned by population too. NYC, LA and Chicago are 212, 213 and 312 respectively based on their ease of dialing on a rotary phone.

Memphis got fucked with 901.

― pplains, Wednesday, July 26, 2023 8:50 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

iirc, one reason -- possibly the main reason -- the major metro areas had area codes with 1s, 2s, and 3s was because, if you had to reach someone in an emergency, it would take less time to dial 212 or 312 than to dial something with an 8, 9, or zero. And having grown up with a rotary phone for a number of years, it indeed felt like a long-ass time to dial a number with a bunch of 9s in it.

One weird adjustment a bunch of Chicago-area businesses had to make with changing area codes was rewriting and re-recording their jingles. All of Cook County was 312 until the late '80s, at which point Chicago proper was still 312, but many suburbs were 708. Later, parts of Chicago were 773, some suburbs changed to 847, others were 630, etc. etc. Anyway, for instance, Empire Carpet's jingle used to just be "588-2300," but after all the area code changes, they got an 800 number, and added the "800" to the jingle. Even though it's been decades since that change, the "800" still sounds odd to me, kind of like how I'm still caught a little off-guard hearing "I'm Only Sleeping" after "Eleanor Rigby," having grown up with the US Revolver track listing.

(I have not researched how Lincoln Carpet -- "call NAtional 2-9000" -- made the adjustment.)

Did they carve out an exception just for this? Old shows always had 555 numbers and I never knew if they reserved that particular prefix just for fictional shit

555-1212 is still used for directory assistance and 555-4334 is reserved for assigned national use. But a set of 100 555 numbers have been officially designated for use in Hollywood, 555-0100 through 555-0199.

We used to be 305 area code when I was growing up, then they created 407 due to overflow, which we got, and we had to start dialing the full number in the early 90s.

― linoleum gallagher (Neanderthal), Wednesday, July 26, 2023 10:00 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

At the time the changing area codes were assumed to be necessary due to overflow (fax machines, mainly), but in fact various entities were buying up blocks of numbers, so the "shortage" was largely artificial. At least, that was the case in the late '80s.

At some point in the olden days the number of "clicks" corresponded to population size/density because I grew up in the middle of nowhere with the area code 906, Alaska is 907, Hawaii is 808, the Texas panhandle is 806, etc.

There were times when you decided not to call someone because their number had too many 9s.

Also 844 and any four numbers got you the time lady. "At the tone, the time will be... twelve twenty-five... and forty seconds. BEEP.

Another number got you the weather. Maybe it was 936 and any four numbers?

New York City had a dial-a-joke line. One time I called it and someone said "Kerp New York City clean. Throw all your trash in New Jersey." I never called again.

xxp
I thought it was mostly businesses that had direct dial for their employees' phones, so a company with 1000 employees in one building would buy a block of numbers for them. Also portable phones means two #s per person.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liu6dq9gb2Y

There was a period in the '80s when the UK Speaking Clock became male and had to squeeze "sponsored by Accurist" into his read. And now everything's like that. :(

not your ankle

I still sometimes say "The time sponsored by Accurist is …" when asked for the time (and not inclined to avoid being insufferable)

UK has a bank of numbers "reserved for drama use" too, and another for mobiles. but they aren't as catchy as the us ones.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/information-for-industry/numbering/numbers-for-drama

under 'notes'. 01632 for general purpose, but many regions have their own block of 1000 reserved numbers

now wondering where 01632 is...

I had a friend who lived in very rural Northern California and her family had a party line.. they had their own phone number, but the line itself was shared by all her neighbors up and down the road.. if you picked up the phone and heard someone already on there, you were supposed to quietly hang up

yep me too, rural Virginia in the mid-70s

We had one of those too.

My parents ran a corner grocery and bait shop down the road. The store and our house shared the same phone number. There was some weird trick where if you wanted to call home from the store (or vice-versa), you could dial something like 411, hang up, and then both sides of the line would start to ring. We had some sort of "ring twice, pause, ring twice again" code for knowing one side was calling the other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pSbUEdTyW8

My wife's rural grandparents had free phone service because they kept with the party line long after everyone else in the area had abandoned it.

i'm pretty sure i thought cillian murphy was some waifish u.k. actress best known for being on some prestige streaming series i've never watched or was possibly that chambermaid who ends up marrying steve buscemi in boardwalk empire. but i found out LAST WEEK that he stars in Oppenheimer and was the inspiration for the alt-right Proud Boys and their haircuts due to his role in Poopy Blinkers!

i checked and i have only seen him in: 28 Days Later (no memory of him but i love that movie), Sunshine (no memory of him but i remember some cool unfurling of the spaceship sails in this movie?)...and that's it. no wonder i had no knowledge of his name.

i thought the guy in oppenheimer was engelbert humperdink!

It's the guy who plays Dr. Strangelove in the new Marvel movies.

i think ye have nailed the being shockingly old part anyway, grandad jokes

i learned over the weekend that the cajón is a peruvian invention from the 19th cen.

Budo jeru I have a lot to say about cajon but I am just gonna let this guy say something similar (though I would phrase it with significantly more tact)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KonoCLO4L0

That the part in Culture Club's "The War Song" where someone imitates Clare Torry singing "The Great Gig in the Sky" is actually Clare Torry.

Ciara's "Body Party" is based on Ghost Town DJ's "My Boo"

That there's a part in Culture Club's "The War Song" where someone imitates Clare Torry singing "The Great Gig in the Sky".

Ditto.

xps weird to call the cajón, an afro-peruvian invention, a "slave box" and then close the video by saying, "for those whose masters insist on cajóns ... we will all continue to pray for your emancipation"

but yknow i'm predisposed to hate all youtubers, especially ones who try really hard to be funny

Xps I remember vague details from WH Auden's book about Iceland and how, during the 1930s, there were (something like) 'women of the wires', employees of the phone company who operated a vast signal board for the entire island's phone network and who would listen to all conversations. (Which leads to Cheever's 'The Enormous Radio' and on and on we go.)

budo: Yeah I was not presenting that fellow as an admirable person. Rather, in that moment I was too tired to explain the complexities of my philosophy of how a multi-instrumentalist percussionist should best accompany acoustic musicians.

I do agree with him on precisely two things: (1) the Pearl Short Fuse snare is a delightful little drum, and (2) I don't want to play the cajón.

Personally I live in a world where someone asks me to play the cajón approximately once a week. My hands hurt and my back hurts and I don't think I sound good. For those gigs I prefer to play congas.

To those who like playing and/or listening to a cajón, rock on.

haha -- no worries, and sorry for your pain

That apparently americans play the national anthem before rock gigs?! (re: Sinead/Sinatra beef). Is this really a thing because what is wrong with you people.

i've never been to one where that was played beforehand

I remember a bit in the novel London Belongs To Me where a German spy reports back that the English seem very demoralized, "they hardly stand for the national anthem before cinema sessions anymore". Bring that back imo, I'd rather that than the fucking commercials.