Posted by octolad on July 10, 2015, 10:28 pm Breeder-Champion Dust Bunnies
I've brought myself somewhat up-to-speed on Facebook and belong to a few Bewitched pages, though probably not all available to me. Still, HB's discussion board seems the only appropriate place to post random observations about the show. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be much activity here anymore, but that emboldens me all the more to blurt my random notes here.
Last night, I watched "Eye of the Beholder" and noticed the moment when the policeman phones Samantha to say that Darrin is lingering in the park. For a moment, we hear what the policeman hears in his receiver: The "ring-back" tone that allows the caller to count the rings. The ring-back tone that is used in the episode is one known to the old Bell System as "city ring" -- one that in 1964-1965 you would only hear when calling a bustling downtown location like McMann & Tate -- not Morning Glory Circle. There are a handful of ring-backs the officer may have heard instead in 1964-1965, but not the city ring they no doubt used from stock recordings. I've always been a fiend for the old phone switching network, and when I was a kid in early 1970's, I could only hear city ring by calling a metropolis, or the local "time lady" recording.
It's a blooper. You'll have to take my word for it! "Sterbo... Vectra... Rangay... Zeem. You're about to have a dream. And, in the words of a wise philosopher, it's going to be a BEAUT!"
Re: wrong ring
Posted by maurine on July 11, 2015, 3:31 pm, in reply to "wrong ring"
Wow, I didn't know there were such things as different rings "back then." I thought life was simpler!! Haha. I'll have to check it out.
Keep up the "random posts." That's what I've always loved about Harpies message board..."Witches are good! Witches are dear!"
Re: wrong ring
Posted by octolad on July 11, 2015, 6:14 pm, in reply to "Re: wrong ring" Breeder-Champion Dust Bunnies
Indeed, Maurine! The old switched phone network used to have a soul, and a repertoire of sounds that varied from community to community. Ever bored? Here's ten minutes of the old rings and busy signals -- the first example given is the "city ring" the officer heard when calling Samantha. You'll probably recognize many of these, though I don't guess you'll be as ridiculously romantic for them as I am.
Antique Rings and Busy Signals"Sterbo... Vectra... Rangay... Zeem. You're about to have a dream. And, in the words of a wise philosopher, it's going to be a BEAUT!"
Re: wrong ring
Posted by Bob on July 17, 2015, 11:48 am, in reply to "Re: wrong ring"
Thanks, Octolad! Good stuff. I was also fascinated by the phone system as a kid. Loved to do "hacks", like rig the extensions so the phone company didn't know they exist (each extension cost extra). Or the discovery that blew my mind, that the touch tones didn't depend on pressing the buttons. If you record the tones, and play them back into the receiver, the phone would dial!
Re: wrong ring
Posted by octolad on July 18, 2015, 10:24 am, in reply to "Re: wrong ring" Breeder-Champion Dust Bunnies
Cool, Bob - another devotee of the old phone network! Not only can you play touchtones into a receiver to dial (Radioshack used to make a tone generator to do this), but you can also tap out the pulses on the switch hook of an older phone to emulate rotary dial and call out. My brother used to do this to circumvent the locked rotary dial on an inbound-only phone where he worked, and placed unauthorized calls over the WATS circuit. At four, I taught myself to identify touchtones by ear, but dammit, I never found any job that would pay for this skill."Sterbo... Vectra... Rangay... Zeem. You're about to have a dream. And, in the words of a wise philosopher, it's going to be a BEAUT!"
Re: wrong ring
Posted by maurine on July 21, 2015, 8:32 pm, in reply to "Re: wrong ring"
Y'all are too much! And here I thought life was so simple in the 60s...."Witches are good! Witches are dear!"