1 post tagged “true story”
In the late 70s, my friend Alex lived in a house in Southeast Portland (Oregon), and like me, spent a lot of time dialing in at 300-baud to a central computer where we could write programs, but mostly play games. Unfortunately, he had a party line (where neighbors share a common talk path and a distinct ringer), and had to wait for his neighbors to get off the line so he could start his electronic connection, and would be interrupted from time to time when they picked up the phone.
One day, I was over at his house, and wanted to get online, so we picked up the phone to dial it (acoustic coupled, dialed by hand), and heard the neighbors chatting. He quickly cupped the mouthpiece, and we started listening to their conversation, having nothing else better to do. After a few seconds, one of the female voices asked "what was that?". The other female voice said "oh, it's just our neighbors: we're on a party line". (Apparently this was a common thing back then.) The first voice then said "but, doesn't that mean they're listening in?". To which the second replied, "Yeah, but it won't make any difference-- they can't hear us... because all we hear when they're online is a bunch of beeps."
Alex immediately threw the phone back on the hook to keep them from hearing us laugh out loud (literally) for nearly two full minutes.
I swear. Absolutely true. Vivid memories of this. Classic story.
