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Started by Brandon in Berkeley
Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:43
Odd yet Historic: Telephone Bulletin Board System in San Francisco
Author: Brandon in Berkeley
Date: Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:43
Date: Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:43
55 lines
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3593 bytes
Yes, it's been around for ages, and it remains a part of phone phreaking history.... It is the San Francisco City Conference: (415) 626-9999 When you dial it up, you'll hear a series of voice message prompts. Just press "9" to hear more about the system. You can post voice messages on any of the bulletin boards and listen to messages posted by others. (There is also a person-to-person conference system, a "party line" as they used to be called, but that is somewhat less active these days than it was.) It is run by one of the legends of the phone phreaking world: the "legendary Mark Bernay" referenced in the 1971 Esquire magazine article "Secrets of the Little Blue Box" -- the article that fired up Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs (of Apple Computer) to start building electronic "blue boxes" long before anyone knew who they were. Here's that article (very interesting reading -- the whole "phone phreaking" culture anticipated the internet all the way back in the 70s. The character "Captain Crunch" (mentioned in the article) was the electronics "guru" of Wozniak & Jobs, at least as far as telephone circuitry was concerned.): http://www.webcrunchers.com/crunch/stories/esq-art.html Wozniak himself describes his meeting with Captain Crunch (for some reason, this is black text on a black background, so you'll have to highlight it to read it): http://www.woz.org/letters/general/56.html === begin quoted text === 8. How did you meet John Draper/How did you hear about him? Woz: I read articles about phone phreaks in 1971, and Captain Crunch was the greatest legend among them. Then Steve Jobs and I heard that he'd done an interview on a Los Gatos radio station. We left them a note but never heard back. Then a friend from high school dropped by my dorm room in Berkeley and told me that Captain Crunch was John Draper and worked at KKUP in Cupertino, where my friend had worked. It was pure luck to stumble onto this very interesting character before the FBI, before he was ever caught and arrested. === end quoted text === You might just enjoy this curious little relic of cyber-history. It's always free (with the exception of any long distance charges you might incur). And no human being ever answers the phone at that number: it is all an automated system. Best wishes....
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