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1 total messages Started by Brandon in Berkeley Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:43
Odd yet Historic: Telephone Bulletin Board System in San Francisco
#89
Author: Brandon in Berkeley
Date: Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:43
55 lines
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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