On Mon 17 Feb 2020 at 22:10:48 (+0000), mick crane wrote: > On 2020-02-17 20:18, Doug McGarrett wrote: > > > > In the 50s I heard that you could tap out the number on the > > > cradle in the public phone boxes and connect without inserting > > > coins.
In the mid- to late-60s, there were codes that I believe the engineers used to bypass putting in money. We discovered that they appeared to be chosen systematically: in a city, you would dial the 3-digit code for calling an outlying village, then the 9 they would use to call said city, then the number you wanted. > thinking back it was 60's. after that I heard a whistle you got in > cornflake packets worked for a bit By the time phone phreaking (requiring tone-dialling) reached the UK, I had a phone at work. I know people played with it, but I don't recall how long their window of opportunity was open. The marginal cost of the odd evening call was swamped by daytime use of modems/acoustic couplers. At one time, they were logging £200/month of calls from my office. Cheers, David.