Payphone Controller for Asterisk(github.com)
github.com
Payphone Controller for Asterisk
https://github.com/hharte/1dcoinctrl
3 comments
It is a bit odd to see a new phreaking project pop up. I barely ever see pay phones anymore, but this is neat. Back in high school I always kept a little music player with redbox tones on me. I often used it to get a ride home from my after-school labs, clubs, etc.
I had no idea these payphones operated at 130 VDC. Seems crazy in this day and age.
Even the ringtone on POTS is 90VAC - used to excite the coils for the big ring bells you see on the top of old phones.
Phone technology is pretty crazy in general - the ringing, dial, and busy tones used to be generated by a magneto attached to a crank and later by racks of DC motors attached to generator sets in phone company offices.
I think some ancient phone systems even used the AC frequency of the ring tone to ring different phones on a shared party / conference line.
Phone technology is pretty crazy in general - the ringing, dial, and busy tones used to be generated by a magneto attached to a crank and later by racks of DC motors attached to generator sets in phone company offices.
I think some ancient phone systems even used the AC frequency of the ring tone to ring different phones on a shared party / conference line.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_line_%28telephony%29
> Later, independent systems applied multiple ringing frequencies for fully selective ringing. (The Bell System eschewed frequency selective ringing.) The ringers in party-line phones were tuned to distinguish several different ringing signals so that only the desired party's phone would actually ring. In this arrangement the only inconvenience of a party line was occasionally finding the line in use (by hearing talking) when one picked up the phone to make a call. If one of the parties used the phone heavily, then the inconvenience for the others was more than occasional, as depicted in the 1959 comedy film Pillow Talk.
I was going to say "not that ancient!" because I remember using a shared party line but that was in the 1980s, so pretty old I guess.
> Later, independent systems applied multiple ringing frequencies for fully selective ringing. (The Bell System eschewed frequency selective ringing.) The ringers in party-line phones were tuned to distinguish several different ringing signals so that only the desired party's phone would actually ring. In this arrangement the only inconvenience of a party line was occasionally finding the line in use (by hearing talking) when one picked up the phone to make a call. If one of the parties used the phone heavily, then the inconvenience for the others was more than occasional, as depicted in the 1959 comedy film Pillow Talk.
I was going to say "not that ancient!" because I remember using a shared party line but that was in the 1980s, so pretty old I guess.
I don't care if it's pointless nostalgia, I just turned into a 13-year-old again. Where did I leave my radio shack tone dialer??