32 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981
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The Telecom Digest for May 19, 2014
Volume 33 : Issue 87 : "text" Format
====== 32 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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Date: Sat, 17 May 2014 21:19:23 -0700
From: Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Telephony nostalgia -- dialing POP-CORN for free time of day
Message-ID: <537834CB.8000909@thadlabs.com>
We had a thread today (Saturday, 17 May 2014) in ba.internet that I felt
readers of comp.dcom.telecom might find interesting noting "ba.*" is
Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area.
From: Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com>
Newsgroups: ba.internet
Subject: Re: POPCORN (767-2676) still works.
Date: Sat, 17 May 2014 19:54:16 -0700
On 5/17/2014 3:28 PM, sms wrote:
> On 5/17/2014 3:17 PM, Eric Weaver wrote:
>> On 05/17/2014 01:31 PM, sms wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> I think that Sonic must have programmed this into their switching
>>> system. Cute.
>>
>> Huh.. I just tried this on the voice portion of my Fusion service and
>> got "Cannot be completed as dialled". So I guess it's not programmed in
>> the switch I'm on, whatever that may be.
>>
>> I recall reading that the old Pacific Telephone time box lived in Palo
>> Alto, which explained why it sounded so far away in Redding and so close
>> at my uncle & aunt's house in Menlo Park.
>
> It might not be in every area code. I'm in 408.
Hi Steve,
Googling "popcorn time number california" finds this as the first hit:
Time of day calling it quits at AT&T - Los Angeles Times
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/aug/29/business/fi-lazarus29
followed by these relevant items on the first page of hits:
Speaking clock - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaking_clock
Telephone Time Lady: POPCORN No More! - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-YlTQ3gSj8
Telephone Milestone: AT&T Terminates POPCORN Time ...
http://bartning.newsvine.com/_news/2007/12/20/1176823-telephone-milestone-att-terminates-popcorn-time-information-service
Topic: No More POP-CORN After Sept 19th - AT&T Time Service
http://www.socialwave.net/topics/3766/
Doni: It's time to say farewell to dependable, available ...
http://www.redding.com/news/2007/sep/09/its-time-to-say-farewell-to-dependable-available/
The first entry at the "socialwave" site has this comment:
" All things come to an end and it looks like the time of day
" service that has been offered by one company or another since
" 1929 is ending. On Sept 19th, you will no longer get the time of
" day when you call POP-CORN in Northern California. Or 853-XXXX in
" Southern California.
"
" The move will allow AT&T to retire aging equipment that they said
" can no longer be repaired. Probably more importantly, it allows
" for 300,000 phone numbers to be freed up.
"
" While I'm saddened to hear of this bit of comfort technology
" getting put out to pasture, it's interesting to read about the
" device that is used to produce the time recordings. It's not
" digitized. It's some funky series of drums that turn and churn
" out the recorded time.
The redding.com site has this line in their article:
" [...]
" The Bee story also said that when AT&T dumps POPCORN, it will
" gain about 300,000 new phone numbers that were reserved just
" for giving time.
" [...]
So there was a good reason (then) for dropping POPCORN.
Thad
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