On Thu, 23 Jul 1998 Philip.Belben_at_powertech.co.uk wrote:
> That's what I was afraid of. Although a neater hack still would be a
> modified dial that did 11 pulses for * and 12 for #. Mechanically
> possible, but I wouldn't want to try and modify the old dial.
Well, you could do that. However, here in the States, you'd most likely
end up confusing the telco switch. 11 and 12 pulses are not defined as
anything meaningful. What you'd have is 10 pulses (0) immediately
followed by another one or two pulses. I'd say the results are
unpredictable as to what the particular switch you are on would do. I
suspect the same is true for the UK phone systems.
> Sam, you should be ashamed of yourself. The object of the exercise was
> not to get a DTMF phone, but to get one with a _rotary dial_. I already
> have a DTMF phone, and I am interested in thes project _purely_ for hack
> value.
Yeah, I know, but the only problem with the exercise is that it would be
futile. There's simply no pulse equivalent to DTMF '*' and '#'. That was
my point.
> Slightly less far off topic, does anyone know the reason for the
> divergence in layout between phone keypads and computer ones, i.e.
>
> 123 789
> 456 vs. 456 ?
> 789 123
> 0 0
Computers are based on traditional ten-key numerical input
keypads and calculator keypads. The phone layout came later as touch tone
phones weren't introduced until around the late 60s or 70s.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar_at_siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ever onward.
September 26 & 27...Vintage Computer Festival 2
See
http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
[Last web page update: 07/21/98]
Received on Thu Jul 23 1998 - 14:04:07 BST