Old Style Dial Telephones?

Question

Can anyone tell me what the letters around the dial on old style telephones were for and how they were used?

Answer 1

phone numbers used to be like TX5-3443..for eg.

Answer 2

The first telephone numbers took the form of three letters and four or five numbers, e.g. PAV 1234 (That exchange would be Pavilion). As there were only 10 numerals on the dial, it was necessary for two or three letters on the dial to be assigned to one digit. Even today, some companies request phone numbers that spell out some feature of their business when the letters are read instead of the numbers. For example a plumber might have 7586237 By dialing PLUMBER on the keypad you would be dialling the number 7586237. Hope that helps.

Answer 3

You must be young, the numbers are the same as your cell phone. Except instead of text messaging, phone # started with letters like Liberty -9000 (Li-9000) which meant to dial 54-9000 or sometimes it would be liberty 9 -9000 (Li9-9000) which would mean 549-9000 All you had to do is stick your finger in the hole and rotate until the dial stopped, then let go. I still have one of those at home just to get laughs from guests.

Answer 4

1- nothing
2 - abc
3- def
4 - ghi
5 - jkl
6 - mno
7 - prs (today's cell phones also have "q" here)
8 - tuv
9 - wxy (cell phones have 'z'. too)
0 - Operator
Exchanges used to be identified by a word, like Butterfield 8 would be "28" for "bu", for example. So a person's phone number might be Butterfield 8-9000 and you would dial 288-9000.

Answer 5

Before STD (Straight Through Dialling) came into being in the 1960's with numbers for the exchanges, the letters were used to spell out telephone exchange names rather than a number hence the old Scotland Yard number was Whitehall 1212.

Answer 6

Nothing has really changed, it is the same as on the phones today all phones. What were they used for, well If I remember correctly it was more of a feature back then, but as time went on people got smart (business's) and started to incorporate there logo's or store names something catchy so people would remember the word not necessarily the number

Answer 7

Years ago, phone numbers were 5 digits. When there were too many phones for 5 digit numbers, they added 2 more, and they started using the letters to designate the first 2 numbers of the phone number.

For Example: 625-5522 was represented as "Madison 55522" and then as MA5-5522

Nowadays with all of the multi-line businesses and pagers and cell phones and fax machines, more and more areas require you to use all 10 digits of the number when calling local.

Sound familiar?

The relentless march of progress. :-)

Answer 8

The letters are the same as on your cell phone. Telephone numbers used to start with letters ex: AD5-5555. These letters represented the area you lived in (i think-its been awhile!)

Answer 9

They were used as area codes eg. cla = Clayton then number. There were not so many phones around then not sure if it was the vast increase in volume or the digital age for the change I was there but age takes it toll lol, slept since then.

Answer 10

for spelling words
1-abc
2-def
3-ghi
4-jkl

so J-A-C-K would be 4-1-1-4

never really took off in the uk it's more of an american thing