As a kid, and even before I discovered computers, there was the telephone-- pick up the handset, and there's this dial tone that waits for you to dial a number. Any number, which could lead you to the phone in your next door neighbor's house or to a house on the other side of the world. It turned out that not every number leads to a person. There are test numbers used by phone techs to troubleshoot problems, announcement circuits that can tell you things about the world, and all sorts of other automated voices.
Some of the hardware that answered these numbers, stored and played the announcements, etc. was likely either produced or improved on here at Bell Works. The transistor was an amazing invention, but there were a lot of other smaller things too-- the internal unseen and unheard parts of the worldwide telephone network that actually make the whole thing work. Test numbers are examples of this. So I decided to simulate some of them using current tech (Twilio).
One phone number to dial, from any phone: (318) 414-2600
Once the automated message starts, you can dial any of the following 'extensions', which in real life would be separate phone numbers that you wouldn't find in a phone book.
milliwatt test 1000 (1000hz tone)
sweep tones 1234
2600hz tone 2600
ringback 7464 calls you back at the number you are calling from
loopback 5667 loop (high)
loopback 7665 loop (low)
anac 2622 automated number announce circuit
(A "loop" is a set of phone lines used for testing that sometimes allow one person to call one side of the loop, and another person to call the other side of the loop, with the result that the two callers are connected to each other. This feature is simulated here.)
Other active numbers: 0 connects you to an 'operator' (maybe) 911 - not connected, on purpose 666 E Corp Support
Maybe others? :)
I'm in debt to http://www.thisisarecording.com/, from which I borrowed recordings made of actual phone calls. http://explodingthephone.com/, Exploding the Phone by Phil Lapsley which documents some of the people that started this phreak stuff and helped convince me I'm not crazy :)
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