To die… or di-al?

There was a definite hush throughout the house. I waited nervously in my bedroom. I heard the door of the lounge open again and even on the thin carpet the sound of my fathers steps. My fear tightened my entire body. I tensed as I heard his steps walking down the hall…. Away from my room? What? Maybe he was going to select something special from his room to administer my expected punishment with. Maybe he was going to his room to complete some warm-ups. Then I heard him pick up the telephone we had in the hall near my parents room and dial.

This was when telephones dialled. That is where the word ‘dialled’ came from. Unlike todays’ use of the telephone and what people do to make a call. Today, it probably could be called ‘pushing’ or ‘punching’ (probably more in keeping with the rise in violence of today’s society as well?) Dialling, was when the telephone front had a disc with ten holes arranged around the edge of three quarters of the disc. You put the finger in the hole for the number you wanted of the sequence and rotated the metal (and later plastic) disc around until it reached a stop point. Then once stopped, you removed your finger and the disc returned to its starting position with a ‘whirring’ and ‘clicking’ sound. This meant the number in the sequence would be sent through to the exchange. You then repeated the sequence until all six numbers (as we had back then) would be sent through and the connection made. Due to the arrangement around the dial each number caused a different variation of mechanical clicks which converted to electrical signal for the telephone system.

This was still at the time when the telephone exchange was mechanical, having moved on from the banks of operators who I used to see when working as a telegram delivery boy (more in a later blog). The new mechanical system, one of which I also got to see up close, was probably even noisier than the room the phone operators used to sit in. It was a large room rattling and clicking, as rows and banks of thousands of individual phone receiver units were positioned in place. There were miles of different coloured electrical cables coming in at one end and exiting at another. Inside each of these units contained nine spindles with the nine different sized ‘cogs’. Now think about the operation of the spindle. Nine different sized cogs giving ten variations times nine? But there were only six numbers, so…. someone was thinking ahead. Someone had set up a system for the future. Planning for about a trillion numbers (10x10 to the power of ten isn’t it? While I love some things about numbers, Maths wasn’t my strongest point…. What was?

(Continued tomorrow)