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09 September 2013
It occurred to me today that I couldn't tell you when the last time I heard a dial tone was. Can you?
I never thought about it before, but they must have created the dial tone intentionally to offer some feedback so that you knew you had an open line. If you just picked up a phone (landline) and heard nothing, you would not be sure if you just had a dormant connection or the line was open. It is a cool information-science sort of thing.
I have a land line at my apartment so I've heard it in the last month. I got a cool old phone for it at a garage sale. It has a squat yellow base and flat black handset.
Yeah, I had to get a landline because I have no cellular signal where I live. I will occasionally forget to hit stop on a phone call. It still exists in the wild.