
Payphone Controller for Asterisk - pndmnm
https://github.com/hharte/1dcoinctrl
======
peterwwillis
"This project is based on two other open-source projects (see References
below) and has the following goals: [...] _4\. The ability to be red-boxed._ "

I don't care if it's pointless nostalgia, I just turned into a 13-year-old
again. Where did I leave my radio shack tone dialer??

------
sprokolopolis
It is a bit odd to see a new phreaking project pop up. I barely ever see pay
phones anymore, but this is neat. Back in high school I always kept a little
music player with redbox tones on me. I often used it to get a ride home from
my after-school labs, clubs, etc.

------
rtanaka
I had no idea these payphones operated at 130 VDC. Seems crazy in this day and
age.

~~~
bri3d
Even the ringtone on POTS is 90VAC - used to excite the coils for the big ring
bells you see on the top of old phones.

Phone technology is pretty crazy in general - the ringing, dial, and busy
tones used to be generated by a magneto attached to a crank and later by racks
of DC motors attached to generator sets in phone company offices.

I think some ancient phone systems even used the AC frequency of the ring tone
to ring different phones on a shared party / conference line.

~~~
DanBC
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_line_%28telephony%29](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_line_%28telephony%29)

> Later, independent systems applied multiple ringing frequencies for fully
> selective ringing. (The Bell System eschewed frequency selective ringing.)
> The ringers in party-line phones were tuned to distinguish several different
> ringing signals so that only the desired party's phone would actually ring.
> In this arrangement the only inconvenience of a party line was occasionally
> finding the line in use (by hearing talking) when one picked up the phone to
> make a call. If one of the parties used the phone heavily, then the
> inconvenience for the others was more than occasional, as depicted in the
> 1959 comedy film Pillow Talk.

I was going to say "not that ancient!" because I remember using a shared party
line but that was in the 1980s, so pretty old I guess.

