9 Mar
2017
9 Mar
'17
5:31 p.m.
I don't buy either story. The ORIGINATING modems in the 103 days didn't
make any sound. It was the answering modem that whistled.
Anyhow, one other TIP/MODEM story (this one was true), we that when we were
in college at JHU, the closest TIP was a long distance call from the
Baltimore.
Mike Muuss placed a collect call to the Pentagon TIP, explaining to the
operator that we were calling a computer and if it answered with a tone, it
accepted the charges.
Worked a few times.
Of course,later on Brian Redman and Peter Langston were messing around with
a programmable PBX and set the thing to anser the phone:
Bell Communications Research (long pause) Yes, Operator! I'll accept the
charges.
More often than not, the timing was just about right for the operator to say
"I have a collect call from Ron Natalie" in the pause.