hanco...@bbs.cpcn.com writes:
> On May 18, 4:16 pm, D.J. <pongbill...@cableone.net> wrote:
>> >In 1971 they redid the rate schedule offering discounts for dialing
>> >direct.
>> I remember, up until 1955, you picked up the telephone and the
>> operator said, "Number Please". About 1956-57, we got dial phones.
>> This was in Texas,small town. Ma Bell was the provider.
> The above mentioned film "How to Dial" was intended for communities
> like yours.
> In 1971 there were about six remaining communities still with all-
> manual telephone service. The last cutover was on Santa Catalina
> Island.
> In 1971 the vast majority of the country had direct long distance
> dialing, but about 5% still needed an operator to place long distance
> calls. Such subscribers still got the cheaper rate.
> A fair number of subscribers still had to use the dial zero operator
> for operator assisted calls (collect, pay phone, credit card, etc.,
> instead of dialing 0+).
About 1980, hiking near Death Valley as we started to approach
civilization again, we came upon a phone with no dial. It connected to
the switchboard of a motel, and the motel clerk doubling as operator
could connect your call.
Peter Flass <Peter_Fl...@Yahoo.com> writes:
> On 5/17/2012 7:27 PM, Joe keane wrote:
>> In article<jp13so$e9...@dont-email.me>,
>> Peter Flass<Peter_Fl...@Yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> I hate to sound like an old grouch, but modern "just-about-anything" is
>>> pretty much junk.
>> If you buy an IBM 360 for $1 million [was about $1 million] and it
>> breaks, someone who says 'throw it out and buy a new one' is crazy.
>> If you buy a cell phone for $100 [is about $5] and it breaks, someone
>> who says 'get someone to fix it' is crazy.
> Maybe, but the new stuff breaks a lot more than the old stuff, and
> having to constantly replace a piece of junk is annoying. Besides, it
> fills up the landfills I'd pay more for a bit less aggravation.
>>> At least you can get batteries and film for an OM-2. I still
>>> take pictures with a film camera from time to time.
>> I thought I read that all the labs to develop film had closed.
> You probably heard the reports that the last facility capable of processing > Kodachrome was closed. Although I never worked with it, the K19 process for > Kodachrome was very messy, and required EPA action because of the nasty > chemistry it used. Kodachrome was a beautiful film (sometimes called the > "Walt Disney film for its exquisite color rendition); it will be ^W^W > already is missed.
K-14 process.
> Ektachrome (more correctly, color reversal film that uses the E6 process) is > still available although I suspect that "corner drugstore" processing > quality is likely to be on the way down. (It's been maybe 30 years since I > used commercial E6 processing; I preferred to do my own color work, both > 35mm and 4x5.)
hanco...@bbs.cpcn.com writes:
> On May 17, 8:24 pm, Patrick Scheible <k...@zipcon.net> wrote:
>> Well, the facility (Dwayne's in Parsons, Kansas) is still there, and
>> sells and processes many other sorts of film. It wasn't their idea to
>> stop Kodachrome, Kodak decided to discontinue the film and the processing
>> chemicals.
>> Kodachrome was such a great film for so many situations. Good skin
>> tones, good landscape colors, reasonably fine grain, the best archival
>> storage properties of any color film.
> Kodak once had a large network of labs across the US to develop their
> slide film. Photographers bought pre-paid mailers. (I still have
> some, I think they're worthless now).
Although, except for Kodachrome, professionals generally used
unaffiliated labs. The Kodak processing business was aimed at
amateurs.
> I believe Kodachrome was discontinued because of lack of demand. Many
> amateur photographers switched to digital. Color print quality
> improved quite a bit and the cost went down, and many switched to
> that. Some users (not me) switched to Fujifilm. For commercial
> users, I think many preferred Ektachrome since processing could be
> done themselves or locally. Also, I think Ektachrome was available in
> many more sizes.
Commercial users switched to digital MUCH faster than amateurs. In
paritcular, high-volume portrait and product photography houses could
easily profit from converting to $50,000 very-early digital equipment,
because they shot so many photos and hence had such high lab costs.
Also photojournalists largely switched because *speed* was one of their
main requirements.
-- David Dyer-Bennet, d...@dd-b.net; http://dd-b.net/ Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/ Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/ Dragaera: http://dragaera.info
In article <ylfkd3607wf1....@dd-b.net>,
David Dyer-Bennet <d...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> More to the point, Fujichrome is still available.
> Also, slides make less and less sense; color negatives scan more easily,
> and for any use other than direct projection of the originals, that's
> the next step after processing.
And slide projectors are hardly made these days. The are fairly expensive and the bulbs burn out at unexpected times. Worst, the bulbs develop bubbles and break the lenses which are the most expensive part. These days LCD screens or projection TVs are used where slides used to be used.
Graphic slides were relatively expensive to produce
> Peter Flass wrote:
>> On 5/17/2012 11:55 AM, Patrick Scheible wrote:
>>> To me, cell phones embody everything I like least about the modern cheap
>>> electronic phones: built to fall apart in two years or less, lousy
>>> sound quality, intermittent service, built in sweatshops and transported
>>> around the world at great cost in CO2 emissions.
>> And the time delay makes me think I'm talking to the moon, or is that
>> just my phone?
> I don't think so. All cell calls seem to be half-duplex. This is one
> thing that I was glad to see go away; now it's back with a vengence.
> /BAH
Cell phones are half duplex, both the phone and the base station transmit on the same frequency. It is actually worse than half duplex, the other local users are also time multiplexed on to the same frequency.
> Peter Flass <Peter_Fl...@Yahoo.com> wrote
>> Joe keane wrote
>>> Peter Flass<Peter_Fl...@Yahoo.com> wrote
>>>> I hate to sound like an old grouch, but modern
>>>> "just-about-anything" is pretty much junk.
>>> If you buy an IBM 360 for $1 million [was about $1 million] and it
>>> breaks, someone who says 'throw it out and buy a new one' is crazy.
>>> If you buy a cell phone for $100 [is about $5] and it breaks,
>>> someone who says 'get someone to fix it' is crazy.
>> Maybe, but the new stuff breaks a lot more than the old stuff,
>> and having to constantly replace a piece of junk is annoying.
>> Besides, it fills up the landfills I'd pay more for a bit less >> aggravation.
> My cell phone is remarkably more reliable than the IBM 1620, IBM 1401,
> or DEC PDP-8 computers I worked with in the late 60s and early 70s.
Yeah, mine too with a vast range of DEC 11s and a 9/15 too.
>In article <ylfkd3607wf1....@dd-b.net>,
> David Dyer-Bennet <d...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>> More to the point, Fujichrome is still available.
>> Also, slides make less and less sense; color negatives scan more easily,
>> and for any use other than direct projection of the originals, that's
>> the next step after processing.
>And slide projectors are hardly made these days. The are fairly >expensive and the bulbs burn out at unexpected times. Worst, the bulbs >develop bubbles and break the lenses which are the most expensive >part. These days LCD screens or projection TVs are used where slides >used to be used.
>Graphic slides were relatively expensive to produce
<Peter_Fl...@Yahoo.com> wrote:
>On 5/18/2012 4:16 PM, D.J. wrote:
>> I remember, up until 1955, you picked up the telephone and the
>> operator said, "Number Please".
>"num-ber pul-e-ase."
I remember the phrasing, but ciuldn't figure out how to type it. Of
course, I could have tried the old 'sound it out' advice for
unfamiliar words I was taught.
.
JimP.
-- Brushing aside the thorns so I can see the stars.
http://www.linuxgazette.net/ Linux Gazette
http://www.drivein-jim.net/ Drive-In movie theaters
http://story.drivein-jim.net/ A story Feb, 2011
>> On May 18, 4:17 pm, D.J. <pongbill...@cableone.net> wrote:
>>> My cell phone calling plan is nation wide, just like a local call. So
>>> I don't have to worry about roaming or long distance.
>> As is almost everybody these days. So I'm not sure why person-to-
>> person, at high prices, is still offered. Maybe it has been pulled
>> and just not removed from the tariffs.
>You could try making a person-to-person call and see if it works.
>Me, I don't remember even hearing of such calls before this
>thread.
Andrew Swallow wrote:
> On 18/05/2012 14:15, jmfbahciv wrote:
>> Peter Flass wrote:
>>> On 5/17/2012 11:55 AM, Patrick Scheible wrote:
>>>> To me, cell phones embody everything I like least about the modern cheap
>>>> electronic phones: built to fall apart in two years or less, lousy
>>>> sound quality, intermittent service, built in sweatshops and transported
>>>> around the world at great cost in CO2 emissions.
>>> And the time delay makes me think I'm talking to the moon, or is that
>>> just my phone?
>> I don't think so. All cell calls seem to be half-duplex. This is one
>> thing that I was glad to see go away; now it's back with a vengence.
>> /BAH
> Cell phones are half duplex, both the phone and the base station
> transmit on the same frequency. It is actually worse than half duplex,
> the other local users are also time multiplexed on to the same frequency.
I still remember the day I cheered because a phone call to Europe was not
half-duplex. (Some men couldn't ever shut up long enough for me to ask
a question or give them the answer they needed.)
Bernd Felsche wrote:
> jmfbahciv <See.ab...@aol.com> wrote:
>>Peter Flass wrote:
>>> On 5/17/2012 11:55 AM, Patrick Scheible wrote:
>>>> To me, cell phones embody everything I like least about the
>>>> modern cheap electronic phones: built to fall apart in two
>>>> years or less, lousy sound quality, intermittent service, built
>>>> in sweatshops and transported around the world at great cost in
>>>> CO2 emissions.
>>> And the time delay makes me think I'm talking to the moon, or is that
>>> just my phone?
>>I don't think so. All cell calls seem to be half-duplex. This is one
>>thing that I was glad to see go away; now it's back with a vengence.
> Maybe the called party has you "on speaker" because it's convenient
> to them.
> Just to annoy people like that, I revert to strict RTP (Radio
> Telephone Procedure). Over.
With some people, I don't even get the chance to utter over.
Even the radio talk shows are difficult to listen to because
the callers sound broken up.
> On Fri, 18 May 2012 07:37:25 -0400
> Peter Flass <Peter_Fl...@Yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Just bought one. I'm taking it back. It's impossible to hear anything
>> on it. And Panasonic is supposedly one of the *good* brands.
> It may be faulty, I've a house full of Panasonic DECT phones. Every
> other type I've tried has died early and/or been a PITA I've given up
> trying other makes now. I did have to replace the one the dog chewed up -
> about a year later when it stopped working.
It took a year for the phone to die from dog bytes?
"Joe keane" <j...@panix.com> wrote:
> Stan Barr <pla...@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
>>IIRC there are adapters that will allow you to use OM lenses on
>>certain digital cameras.
> I got a Canon EOS ?? (film) and later my friend got a Canon EOS ??
> (digital). The lenses are interchangeable. Autofocus works fine.
Canon's AF lenses are (with some exceptions) interchangable between bodies designed for AF, but the older FD lenses don't fit the newer cameras. (that includes the TS FD lens I bought many years ago when it wasn't anywhere near as obscenely expensive as the current AF-style TS lens...sob)
"Patrick Scheible" <k...@zipcon.net> wrote:
> About 1980, hiking near Death Valley as we started to approach
> civilization again, we came upon a phone with no dial. It connected to
> the switchboard of a motel, and the motel clerk doubling as operator
> could connect your call.
Emergency phones are designed to connect to a specified line as soon as they go off-hook. Even so, just about all the ones I've seen for the past several years were equipped with a TouchTone pad - it probably wan't worth the effort to buy the phones without one.
And as a side note: until just a few years ago the staff elevators at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum (the one on the National Mall, not the Udvar-Hazy at Dulles Airport) had emergency phones with dials, not TT buttons. They would have been removed when NASM converted to VoIP phones.
"David Dyer-Bennet" <d...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> "Joe Morris" <j.c.mor...@verizon.net> writes:
>> You probably heard the reports that the last facility capable of >> processing
>> Kodachrome was closed. Although I never worked with it, the K19 process >> for
>> Kodachrome was very messy, and required EPA action because of the nasty
>> chemistry it used. Kodachrome was a beautiful film (sometimes called the
>> "Walt Disney film for its exquisite color rendition); it will be ^W^W
>> already is missed.
> K-14 process.
Correct. I originally wrote "K-25" out of habit - that was the code name for one of the Oak Ridge facilities - and somehow averaged out K-14 and K-25 into K-19.
>>> You probably heard the reports that the last facility capable of
>>> processing
>>> Kodachrome was closed. Although I never worked with it, the K19 process
>>> for
>>> Kodachrome was very messy, and required EPA action because of the nasty
>>> chemistry it used. Kodachrome was a beautiful film (sometimes called the
>>> "Walt Disney film for its exquisite color rendition); it will be ^W^W
>>> already is missed.
>> K-14 process.
> Correct. I originally wrote "K-25" out of habit - that was the code name
> for one of the Oak Ridge facilities - and somehow averaged out K-14 and K-25
> into K-19.
>>> You probably heard the reports that the last facility capable of >>> processing
>>> Kodachrome was closed. Although I never worked with it, the K19 process >>> for
>>> Kodachrome was very messy, and required EPA action because of the nasty
>>> chemistry it used. Kodachrome was a beautiful film (sometimes called the
>>> "Walt Disney film for its exquisite color rendition); it will be ^W^W
>>> already is missed.
>> K-14 process.
> Correct. I originally wrote "K-25" out of habit - that was the code name > for one of the Oak Ridge facilities - and somehow averaged out K-14 and K-25 > into K-19.
On May 18, 8:08 pm, Peter Flass <Peter_Fl...@Yahoo.com> wrote:
> I remember, up until 1955, you picked up the telephone and the
> > operator said, "Number Please".
> "num-ber pul-e-ase."
In small towns the phone operator was like the ones seen in movies--
keeping track of the sheriff, doctor, etc. The now retired operator
of my town said after it went dial she was transferred to a nearby
city where the procedures were much more rigid and formal.
On May 18, 9:15 pm, "Joe Morris" <j.c.mor...@verizon.net> wrote:
> I recall being irritated that when our residential line was converted the
> last four digits changed; many other customers merely replaced the exchange
> (e.g., Tulane's switchboard changed from University 2741 to UNiversity
> 6-2741) but our phone went from Walnut abcd to UNiversity 1-wxyz.
I think most renumberings left the last four digits alone; if less
than four digits than zero filled them. For instance, Wilson 23
became 947-0023 (a real number that has remained since the 1920s to
today).
Direct Distance Dialing required everyone have a unique telephone
number, and unique 7 digits within its area code. A big part of the
job in the 1950s was converting many places to seven digits.
Some small towns that had five digits could continue to dial five
digits internally even though they had a seven digit number for
outsiders to reach them.
David Dyer-Bennet <d...@dd-b.net> writes:
> Peter Flass <Peter_Fl...@Yahoo.com> writes:
>> On 5/17/2012 7:27 PM, Joe keane wrote:
>>> In article<jp13so$e9...@dont-email.me>,
>>> Peter Flass<Peter_Fl...@Yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> I hate to sound like an old grouch, but modern "just-about-anything" is
>>>> pretty much junk.
>>> If you buy an IBM 360 for $1 million [was about $1 million] and it
>>> breaks, someone who says 'throw it out and buy a new one' is crazy.
>>> If you buy a cell phone for $100 [is about $5] and it breaks, someone
>>> who says 'get someone to fix it' is crazy.
>> Maybe, but the new stuff breaks a lot more than the old stuff, and
>> having to constantly replace a piece of junk is annoying. Besides, it
>> fills up the landfills I'd pay more for a bit less aggravation.
> My cell phone is remarkably more reliable than the IBM 1620, IBM 1401,
> or DEC PDP-8 computers I worked with in the late 60s and early 70s.
>>>>> "Walter" == Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> writes:
Walter> In article <XnsA0499727D1B6Dmakowiecatnycapdo...@88.198.244.100>,
Walter> Joe Makowiec <makow...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> I have a 35s right here on my desk. I could, I suppose, do a number of >> things on my computer which I do with the calculator, but the HP has two >> things that the 'puter doesn't:
>> - nice clicky keys
>> - RPN
>> >> The downside is that I can't cut and paste from the calculator... (I >> have an HP calculator emulator buried somewhere in my menu system. But >> it's not the same. http://hp.giesselink.com/emu48.htm )
Walter> You could program (or I could for my confuser) (or probably buy a Walter> program) that would provide RPN and even clicky keys on your computer Walter> or even your phone.
No need to program something, it has been done already. Use the emacs
calc program. This is more than you'll ever need.
'Andreas
-- ceterum censeo redmondinem esse delendam.
>>> On 5/17/2012 7:27 PM, Joe keane wrote:
>>>> In article<jp13so$e9...@dont-email.me>,
>>>> Peter Flass<Peter_Fl...@Yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>> I hate to sound like an old grouch, but modern "just-about-anything" is
>>>>> pretty much junk.
>>>> If you buy an IBM 360 for $1 million [was about $1 million] and it
>>>> breaks, someone who says 'throw it out and buy a new one' is crazy.
>>>> If you buy a cell phone for $100 [is about $5] and it breaks, someone
>>>> who says 'get someone to fix it' is crazy.
>>> Maybe, but the new stuff breaks a lot more than the old stuff, and
>>> having to constantly replace a piece of junk is annoying. Besides, it
>>> fills up the landfills I'd pay more for a bit less aggravation.
>> My cell phone is remarkably more reliable than the IBM 1620, IBM 1401,
>> or DEC PDP-8 computers I worked with in the late 60s and early 70s.
> Not a fair comparison, of course.
> -- Patrick
OTOH, the old WECo phones were more reliable than anything today. You coud drop them, throw them, maybe even drive over them and they'd still work. I think it would have taken a sledgehammer to crack the case, and the old wiring didn't kink or break.
> In article<05157e04-c82c-4b2f-9a5c-36d26f3cf...@j3g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
> <hanco...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>> On May 18, 9:15 pm, "Joe Morris"<j.c.mor...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>> I recall being irritated that when our residential line was converted the
>>> last four digits changed; many other customers merely replaced the exchange
>>> (e.g., Tulane's switchboard changed from University 2741 to UNiversity
>>> 6-2741) but our phone went from Walnut abcd to UNiversity 1-wxyz.
>> I think most renumberings left the last four digits alone; if less
>> than four digits than zero filled them. For instance, Wilson 23
>> became 947-0023 (a real number that has remained since the 1920s to
>> today).
> Telcos go out of their way to do this, just for the internal
> disruptions of new numbers. So, if there is a reasonable upgrade
> path they will follow that. But; sometimes there is not.
>> Direct Distance Dialing required everyone have a unique telephone
>> number, and unique 7 digits within its area code. A big part of the
>> job in the 1950s was converting many places to seven digits.
>> Some small towns that had five digits could continue to dial five
>> digits internally even though they had a seven digit number for
>> outsiders to reach them.
> I grew up in an area where there once was a very good, independent
> little phone company; (Telefongcopmagniet Fana) with a network
> of around 10 step-by-step switches from the early 1930's. They
> were built like tanks, and kept chugging along.
> This little company was absorbed by the city mini-telco in 1936, and
> that was again nationalised into the state telco in 1948. They largely
> left all these well functioning small units in place while
> concentrating on deployment to all the places with litlle or no
> service.
> But by 1972 the old step-by-step was obslote. The switch
> must have been painful, for I remember the small, (wooden)
> CO buildings were swarming with telephone installer for a few
> months.
Some years ago New York State knocked down a large chunk of Albany in order to build the Empire State Plaza. One of the neighboring buildings was the local telco (New York Telephone, IIRC). They wound up jogging the plaza around it rather than try to relocate it.
jmfbahciv <See.ab...@aol.com> wrote:
> Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> > On Fri, 18 May 2012 07:37:25 -0400
> > Peter Flass <Peter_Fl...@Yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> Just bought one. I'm taking it back. It's impossible to hear anything
> >> on it. And Panasonic is supposedly one of the *good* brands.
> > It may be faulty, I've a house full of Panasonic DECT phones. Every
> > other type I've tried has died early and/or been a PITA I've given up
> > trying other makes now. I did have to replace the one the dog chewed up
> > - about a year later when it stopped working.
> It took a year for the phone to die from dog bytes?
Yes, I presume the eventual death was caused by saliva induced
corrosion, but I didn't bother with a postmortem. I was impressed.
-- Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
