I converted an old broken payphone to a regular phone

Hey I can do that too. I also do sugar


Signed, million man

I don't get many telemarketer/unsolicited calls here.

When I was a kid we never got unsolicited calls. The first time I ever got one was when I was about 20 in the mid 1990s, and it earned me $100. It was from AT&T and they were trying to get me to switch to their long-distance service. It didn't matter to me what long-distance company I used, but I didn't have any incentive to switch either. Then she started offering me money to switch, starting with $20. Her final offer was $100, and I took it.

I told my supervisor about it at work the next day, and he laughed, thinking it was a scam, and I'd never see that $100. He changed his tune when I showed him the check from AT&T a few days later.

Like I said, I already have a payphone that stayed a payphone, and it's a Western Electric:

https://i.imgur.com/BAO6cP9.jpeg

I got that in 2012 and I have no intentions of converting it to a regular phone. I love the sound of a quarter dropping though the coin mechanism, and the sound of the escrow relay kicking it into either the coin return bucket or the cash box (the sheet steel cash box especially, because when the quarter hits it it sounds like a gong).

I recently succeeded in programming it, which is no simple task. You need an old PC with a serial port, an external serial port dial-up modem, a DOS installation, the Protel ExpressNet software, and 2 POTS phone lines (or simulated ones, which I created with a Panasonic 6-line, 16-extension PBX like they use in offices). Then you have to figure out the convoluted ExpressNet software to create cost bands and assign them to all the area and exchange codes, among other things. I've been wanting to program it myself since I got it (originally I paid Payphone.com $25 in 2012 to call my payphone and program it, but it was never exactly how I wanted it).

But the payphone chassis for this old Intellicall has always been dead since I got it; there's no information on how to fix it, and even if you fix it, there's apparently no way to get the software to program it, so it's just been collecting dust here since 2008. Also, everything I did to convert it to a regular phone is completely reversible.

"Have you ever worked with stereo amplifiers?"

No. I was into car stereo amplifiers in the late 1990s through about the late 2000s, but I never needed to work on any of mine.

"I am a bit of a stereo nut, but don't know how to solder and I am all thumbs anyway. I'd love to do this:"

Kits are easy to put together; you just need to learn how to solder. In the late 1990s I worked in a PCB factory for a couple of years, soldering about 5,000 joints per night. I also trained new hires to solder when I worked there. They had awesome soldering irons there (made by Metcal; they sold for about $500 each back then; current versions cost about twice that - https://store.metcal.com/en-us/shop/soldering-desoldering/soldering-desoldering-systems/mx-series/MX-5220), and in about 2007 I bought a used Metcal on eBay, same model as the one I used at the PCB factory. It still works perfectly.

That's always been a memorable scene for me, not only because of the real phone booth (which I've always liked, but they nearly went extinct before I was born), but also because of the 1977-1979 Ford Thunderbird. Our family car when I was a kid was a 1977 Thunderbird (Dad bought it in 1982; it was the second family car I remember; the first being a 1971 Ford Galaxie), with a "landau top" like the one in that scene. You can see the tail end of it in this picture:

https://i.imgur.com/jYDdUKV.jpeg

I can't figure that picture out, BTW. It was among Dad's things that we went through after he died in 2019. The date in the corner is June 1987, and those stores have French signs. The only time Dad was ever in a place like that was when we took a family trip to Quebec in 1984. The only thing my older brother can come up with for an explanation is that Dad waited 3 years to develop the pictures, but that doesn't seem likely. He was into photography; he was a professional photographer before I was born and had his own dark room. I don't see him waiting 3 years to get pictures developed.