Quoting:
crazydon, that's a load of info!  Thanx, I never knew that!  But still, they didn't need the letters...they could have dialed the numbers, as they did anyway.   ???
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you're forgetting that before the 1960s, most people talked to an operator to place a call, long distance or local. Much easier to say a name and have no confusion as to which numbers the person stated

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Okay guys, so they had used letters Before....but why do they need them NOW?  I do like it though when they include the corrosponding numbers just below the letters...in certain ads.  :)
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I agree with you 100%. One thing that I DON'T understand, however, is sometimes in ads they give words that are longer than 7 letters in phone numbers, like 1-800-MY TOYOTA. I know that you only dial the first seven, but why do they have to include subsequent letters? Some people would find that misleading. How about Progressive (auto insurance)? That word's 11 letters long!

Quoting:
This thread has got me thinking... why do they have # and * buttons on (at least these) telephones? All I can think of are the Games companies putting out cheatlines saying # is to go back one, and * to go back to the beginning. Can anyone shed light on this?
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Actually if you notice this, press two keys on the same row or two on the same column, you'll notice that they create a simalar tone, the reason that 'ol Ma Bell brought about touch tone was to make dialing easier and take the human operater out of the equation. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, (I'll get to zero later) was fine but in order for the tones to work (at least when they developed touch tone in the early 60's) they need four rows of three. The # & * were added to solve the problem, plus telephone techs used the # & * for testing the tones on line and volt checks without actually triggering a switch.

You'll also notice that you don't even need to use the tones to dial, try this (even on an old rotary phone), lift up the receiver, and click or flash it for each number you want to dail (ex. flash four times for 4, 7 for 7 etc.) this will work for every number execpt zero. Zero is a combo of all tones, it isn't actually a tone to itself, that's why zero used to be for OPERator, it signaled the switches just for them, indivdual tones in combo with zero meant that an actual phone number was being signaled to the switches...
This is what I learned while I worked briefly at Pac (Pacific) Bell/SBC and Verizon, although it has some holes in the concept, I know that the phone companies go out of their way to make EVERYTHING they do CONFUSING & COMPLICATED. So if it sounds convoluted and unneeded thats because they want it to be..

Quoting:

Actually if you notice this, press two keys on the same row or two on the same column, you'll notice that they create a simalar tone, the reason that 'ol Ma Bell brought about touch tone was to make dialing easier and take the human operater out of the equation. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, (I'll get to zero later) was fine but in order for the tones to work (at least when they developed touch tone in the early 60's) they need four rows of three. The # & * were added to solve the problem, plus telephone techs used the # & * for testing the tones on line and volt checks without actually triggering a switch.

You'll also notice that you don't even need to use the tones to dial, try this (even on an old rotary phone), lift up the receiver, and click or flash it for each number you want to dail (ex. flash four times for 4, 7 for 7 etc.) this will work for every number execpt zero. Zero is a combo of all tones, it isn't actually a tone to itself, that's why zero used to be for OPERator, it signaled the switches just for them, indivdual tones in combo with zero meant that an actual phone number was being signaled to the switches...
This is what I learned while I worked briefly at Pac (Pacific) Bell/SBC and Verizon, although it has some holes in the concept, I know that the phone companies go out of their way to make EVERYTHING they do CONFUSING & COMPLICATED. So if it sounds convoluted and unneeded thats because they want it to be..
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Quoting:
Picking up on a previous point, though:

On a certain Simpsons episode, people are told to phone KLONDIKE 5-3226 (with apologies for my lack of fluency with phone number formats). So, what this means, I presume, is that they'd phone:

5 3 2 2 6 ?

Is this right? I'm not very well versed in areas such as this.
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Exactly, it would be KLondike 5-3226, or 555-3226, in days of yore the first two letters would be capitalized. The 555 exchange being the standard TV exchange number, it didn't exsist (though I read isometime ago that it actually does now but only for some private held clec/phone line lease number).