deskthority

In finland # is called "Risuaita" and if we translate it to english word by word then its something like "dry twig fence" or "brushwood fence",

In Belgium called a train rail sign.

In Sweden # is called a square, or more jokingly, a lumber yard.

http://www.shadycharacters.co.uk/2011/0 ... rt-2-of-2/ provides an explanation for words meaning diamond being used for # - that the key originally was a diamond, and # replaced that due to being available on a typewriter.

I have used # as the abbreviation for "pound" (the weight, not the monetary denomination) for decades longer than I have used computers.

Is it not just part of " = inches (or seconds!) and ' = feet (or minutes!) etc or is that just a US thing?

I just use it as #!

Not "#" factorial, but "shebang".

But # by itself is not "she", nor is "!" by itself "bang".

Never used "#" for pound, lb, or libra. It confuses me when telephone operators tell me to hit the "pound" sign.

Nice! Already pledged at the 300 British pound level, might be willing to do more.

mr_a500 wrote: ↑I have the same problem. I've got a pulse to tone adapter for my WE 500 phones, but "*" and "#" don't work. I think my adapter is a piece of crap though because it keeps needing to be reset. I wish I could find one that works properly. I didn't need one until my phone company replaced my dead cable modem with one that doesn't support pulse dialling. Damn my phone company!

I've got the DialGizmo, and it seems to work fine other than the problem of being unable to detect a WE 500's dial shunt (because it doesn't load the phone line at all). I think its approach of sitting inline (and filtering out pulses from reaching the line) is a bit more elegant, although it has its drawbacks, like being unable to deal with the better Bell System designs. (And, I've had where the other party hangs up, then my ATA picks back up to give a dialtone, and the DialGizmo sees that as a pulse!)

I'm thinking of going for the Rotatone, which works on a different concept - it completely disconnects the dial from the rest of the phone, forcing it through the Rotatone instead.

fohat wrote: ↑I have used # as the abbreviation for "pound" (the weight, not the monetary denomination) for decades longer than I have used computers.

Is it not just part of " = inches (or seconds!) and ' = feet (or minutes!) etc or is that just a US thing?

" ' for inches and feet (Zoll und Fuss) and time etc. is not uncommin, but what do they have to do with poor little #?


The only non-computer use I know is:
"Number #344"

webwit wrote: ↑In Belgium called a train rail sign.

That's a good one!

i want a giant OFF key that turns stuff off !

when i get my grab bag order i have a 4x4 POS key that has Damages written on it that so has to get bound to long codlin abilities when playing games

i don't see the point on the number key, saying that i cannot find it only my mac even if it has a dedicated ±§ key for no reason whatsoever

The dedicated § key is awesome! I have to press Option + 6 to get that on my ANSI-US. Besides, it's better than what PC keyboards put there:



Most useless Alt Gr layer ever!

Similarly, # is perfectly easily typed on ISO-UK Macs with Option + 3. Its absence is there to help people #write #better #tweets #OMGhashtag #hashtag

bhtooefr wrote: ↑I've got the DialGizmo, and it seems to work fine other than the problem of being unable to detect a WE 500's dial shunt (because it doesn't load the phone line at all). I think its approach of sitting inline (and filtering out pulses from reaching the line) is a bit more elegant, although it has its drawbacks, like being unable to deal with the better Bell System designs. (And, I've had where the other party hangs up, then my ATA picks back up to give a dialtone, and the DialGizmo sees that as a pulse!)

Yeah, that's what I've got. It's a piece of junk. I had to reset it again just a minute ago because it wasn't working at all. Other times, picking up the handset will cause it to dial a "1". It only works a couple days at a time at the most before failing again. None of the autodial/memory features work - and that's one of the main reasons I bought it.

I don't think it's specific phones that cause a problem because it does the same thing with my Stromberg phones. I think the main problem is that the designer made it for the Australian system and didn't test it properly on North American phone systems.

I was going to go for the Rotatone, but you'd need one for every phone in the house. I wanted one to work for all phones, like the DialGizmo. The most elegant solution, of course, is a friggin cable modem that can work with friggin pulse dialling! (...sure, we've had tone dialling for half a century, but why remove pulse dialling now?!)

It's mainly older ATAs that bother to support pulse dialing, unfortunately. And, I dial into services that don't support pulse dialing, either.

Up until last year, I was able to do everything with the rotary phones - including automated services. If it said "press 1 for this" and I dialed "1" it worked. Then suddenly it stopped working. My phone company had removed pulse dialing support. The cable modem supported pulse dialing and I could dial phone numbers, but no automated services worked. Later, my cable modem died in a lightning storm and they replaced it with a new one that didn't support pulse dialing. That's how I got to the pitiable state I'm in now.

(...and no, I don't want a modern "Made in China" piece of junk phone. I love the old bakelite handset phones with real bells.)

Use a S/W DTMF generator??
Pick up phone, place handset next to speaker, press keys and let the sounds work their magic!
Not really a practical solution, since you need the PC nearby and on!

For the automated services, that meant that they were doing added conversion (above and beyond what the Bell System did) to DTMF for those services. Basically, they were doing what the DialGizmo or similar inline devices do when they can't detect dial shunt. The Bell System's only special support of pulse dial in a DTMF world was that 11 was accepted as a prefix for a VSC, as well as *, I believe. As far as I know, the recommendations were simply that automated services drop to an operator when nothing was selected, to accomodate customers still on pulse dial.

I might actually edit my Obihai ATA's dial plan to enable 11 as being equivalent to * somehow, although that'll require some finagling to be able to dial a phone number that begins in 11 (maybe only match a minimum of two digits after the 11, as the only phone numbers that would begin in 11 would be three digits long, as I'm in a Asterisk PBX environment). That also won't work with automated systems, but it doesn't have to. (# is the one I really wish I had, and I've found some vague things implying that 4 seconds without voice or button input should be equivalent to # (when 12 can't be used). The one place I need that, though, is a conference line on the PBX, where there's also a fixed 10 second timeout.)

The other thing I've done is simply plug a cheap Chinese phone into the ATA as well, and pick it up just to dial things that I can't dial from the phone.

Maybe I should just get a WE2500 and be done with it, but the WE500 is far more elegant...

chzel wrote: ↑Use a S/W DTMF generator??
Pick up phone, place handset next to speaker, press keys and let the sounds work their magic!
Not really a practical solution, since you need the PC nearby and on!

I got a couple of these - looks like a calculator (actually is one), but generates tones.
They work OK, but sometimes my phone doesn't pick it up. So it's still not the perfect solution.

bhtooefr wrote: ↑Maybe I should just get a WE2500 and be done with it, but the WE500 is far more elegant...

Yeah, I already thought about that. They have the same nice ring. No bakelite though. Maybe I could swap my 500 handset. Yes, that's a good idea. I think I'll get one.

mr_a500 wrote: ↑
Then suddenly it stopped working. My phone company had removed pulse dialing support.

My beautiful 1970s AT&T/Nortel stopped working recently but I was assuming that the jack that it plugged into had died. That phone will last at least as many more decades as it already has.

Now I will have to do some experimenting to see what it really going on.