Five Digit Dialing
I remember until the mid-80s (and maybe even after), in Kimberley, BC, we had 5 digit dialing. We could dial 75555 instead of 427-5555. And to make dialing even quicker on a rotary phone you could dial 1 instead of 7, saving a total of 6 (i.1. dial 15555 instead of 75555).
August 25th, 2008 at 7:28 am
In the same time frame, I visited the local telephone exchange building in the small town where I went to high school. The building was one of the last in the area still using banks and banks of rotary switches to connect callers. I can almost imagine one of the BC Tel techs in Kimberley hard-wiring the switches at the local exchange over a weekend hack session in order to streamline local calls…