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Is this really what a dial tone sounded like?

posted 3 years ago by nyctc7 (43591)
40 replies | jump to latest

It made a sound like when Uncle Fester put a light bulb in his mouth

The demonstrator is a rather striking-looking woman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p45T7U5oi9Q&t=632s

[–] BullSchmidt (3189) 3 years ago

> It made a sound like when Uncle Fester put a light bulb in his mouth

Wow, I had never heard that. And they used the same ugly sound for the dial tone (continuous), "phone ringing" signal (slow pulse), and "busy" signal (fast pulse).

> The demonstrator is a rather striking-looking woman.

Interesting video, even if she did lay on the "listen for the dial tone" line a bit much. I particularly liked seeing how they actually did the switch from the older to newer system.

[–] nyctc7 (43591) 3 years ago

And she says "dial tone" in an old fashioned way, as two distinct words with a different emphasis on tone. Today we would tend to run the words together.

[–] [deleted] 3 years ago

Here's a bit of insight: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dial_tone

Personally, I'm use to the North American DTMF dial tone in the article. I probably first remember a dial tone from about 1978 and the last time I heard a dial tone it was still the same, probably last year or so.

[–] nyctc7 (43591) 3 years ago

Thanks. I didn't know that The UK was like the US and not the European one.

[–] BullSchmidt (3189) 3 years ago

According to this page -- https://about.att.com/newsroom/2019/100_years_dial_phones.html -- the first dial telephones in the US were installed in 1919. The last community was not switched from manual to dial service until 1978!