These are great tips for those who are not aware of them.

some Trivia:
Do you know some of the reasons for 112 being an emergency number? This has been the fire workers number first and then general emergency in Germany for more than a hundred percent of my lifetime

If you don't remember telephones with a rotary dial, the numbers were in counter-clockwise order with number 1 a little to the right over the top and the rotary turned clockwise to select and counter-clockwise to dial the number.

Dialing a number was done by interrupting the flow of current. Once for 1, twice for 2, thrice for 3 ... and ten times for 0.

Now here comes the catch. Often after work hour telephone bills started to rise. Cleaning staff, not only them but they are the ones at work after office hours, used the office telephones to call long distance. So companies started to insert a little lock in one of the holes of the rotary dial. If that lock was in the second hole one still could dial any phone number consisting of ones and twos. 112 fits in there.

And here's the real trick. You still could dial any number worldwide even if that lock was in place. You just needed to establish the right rhythm of dialing all the numbers just pressing the hook. Zeros were challenging. Counting to eight, nine or ten was difficult.

Some people like those old rotary dials a lot, for instance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN00LxT-F-0


Last edited by GHinCH; 07/05/15 11:49 AM.
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