Yet despite all our advances in technology, the DTMF tone set is still used in the cellular network so it is essentially taking a new technology and wiring it to an old one. There is a saying in engineering "the simplest way to do things is usually the best". And you cant beat this for simple.
The tones, all in hertz (Hz) are: top row, 697, 2nd row, 770; 3rd row, 852; bottom row, 941; left column, 1209; middle column, 1336; right column, 1477. There was a 4th column, 1633, whose buttons were labeled A, B, C, and D. The US Department of Defense used that column for their defunct Autovon system, to give some calls priority; now only linemens' "butt sets" use it for various service functions.
I remember being in round-dial Britain in 1978 as a 10 old watching Starskey & Hutch get patched through from their CB to a land line by a fast melody of DTMF and the phone rang at the other end as they crashed through cardboard boxes in an alley. Wow.
I got good at dialing pulse by clicking the hangup dukicky. I never knew those clunky Stroger switches were doing that somewhere across town. Awesome video!
Still, if you had a touch tone phone back then, but your exchange, and/or other exchanges your call was going through, had step-by-step switches, you were able to dial fast but the call still needed to churn through all this mechanical switching to connect.
David, I'm from the UK (where these were never aired as far as I know) and I was a mere infant when you recorded these.... But they are great, surely time for some more.... Or an autograph?! :P
The way the push button tones work is through two different tones for each button. But if you press two buttons together, you can hear only one of the tones.
It has more than one meaning and name. Octothorpe, Hash symbol and Pound. And Tic-Tac-Toe is called 'Noughts and Crosses' in the UK There is no one definitive name for it. So yourself and David are both correct.
I love how impatient people are. "It takes 11 seconds to dial a number, but it only takes about 5 seconds do the same number with a touch-tone!" yeah, when they add up it takes a lot of time, but think of all the time you waste on RUclips
Through 'wasting' my time on RUclips, I watched David's vids, got in touch with David and he is great for a chat talking about this old stuff. Top guy and top show for its time.
I like vintage videos. No huff and puff, just a clean explanation.
"The thing that looks like an asterisk.. is an asterisk."
How specific, sir!
@Morahman7vnNo2 And the # was originally a ◇.
Yet despite all our advances in technology, the DTMF tone set is still used in the cellular network so it is essentially taking a new technology and wiring it to an old one. There is a saying in engineering "the simplest way to do things is usually the best". And you cant beat this for simple.
The tones, all in hertz (Hz) are: top row, 697, 2nd row, 770; 3rd row, 852; bottom row, 941; left column, 1209; middle column, 1336; right column, 1477. There was a 4th column, 1633, whose buttons were labeled A, B, C, and D. The US Department of Defense used that column for their defunct Autovon system, to give some calls priority; now only linemens' "butt sets" use it for various service functions.
Thanks for the frequency values i needed them!
The characters are also used in Europe to pass location information for emergency calls from a corp PBX. Tjis way nothing can be dialled accodentally
I remember being in round-dial Britain in 1978 as a 10 old watching Starskey & Hutch get patched through from their CB to a land line by a fast melody of DTMF and the phone rang at the other end as they crashed through cardboard boxes in an alley. Wow.
I got good at dialing pulse by clicking the hangup dukicky. I never knew those clunky Stroger switches were doing that somewhere across town.
Awesome video!
landline phone systems still fascinate me to this day.
Still, if you had a touch tone phone back then, but your exchange, and/or other exchanges your call was going through, had step-by-step switches, you were able to dial fast but the call still needed to churn through all this mechanical switching to connect.
I loved this show and Half A Handy Hour... thanks for posting!!!!
This is solo awesome!!!
Watching this in the year 2020..
2021 & still watching!
Watching in 2022
2023 here
Brilliant explanation in a short video...cheers
Interesting that 'hash' which was the the Britishism for the 'octothorpe' (proper) became very widely adopted!
AHH YEZZZ! I remember this show from when I was younger! That and " Half a Handy Hour"
David, I'm from the UK (where these were never aired as far as I know) and I was a mere infant when you recorded these....
But they are great, surely time for some more.... Or an autograph?! :P
04:42 Press five or six...
And he pressed eight. :) (according to my DTMF-decoder)
Kees den Heijer he did counted
where can i find a blueprint to a stroger switch?
very nice thank you
remember wating for a dial tone on the phones before you called a number.
the asterisk is.... an asterisk. haha classy
TV Ontario (Canada) 1989
at 2:50 why he press two buttons at the same time? what is the purpose? i can't listen him well. i'm not a native speaker.
The way the push button tones work is through two different tones for each button. But if you press two buttons together, you can hear only one of the tones.
3:34 "That thing that looks like a Tic-Tac-Toe game, according to the phone company, is an octothorpe." It's pound.
It has more than one meaning and name. Octothorpe, Hash symbol and Pound. And Tic-Tac-Toe is called 'Noughts and Crosses' in the UK There is no one definitive name for it. So yourself and David are both correct.
I love how impatient people are. "It takes 11 seconds to dial a number, but it only takes about 5 seconds do the same number with a touch-tone!" yeah, when they add up it takes a lot of time, but think of all the time you waste on RUclips
Through 'wasting' my time on RUclips, I watched David's vids, got in touch with David and he is great for a chat talking about this old stuff. Top guy and top show for its time.
Dial 6212666622621 that is Mary had a little lamb