This guy really gets his use out of a stock footage subscription

"And this nerd, who later dropped out of college to run a fruit stand or something like that" A very expensive fruit stand may I say

Back in the 70's, I discovered out of boredom, that if you recorded the sounds the phone made when dialing a number you could then pick up the receiver (get the dial tone) and play the number into the receiver and it would connect you without charging you. If you didn't push the buttons the system didn't know what phone to charge avoiding the long distance charges.

In the eighties I had this calculator with a built in phone book. It had a speaker that emitted tones so I could use it with our rotary phone without having to use the rotor. I just chose the number on the calculator and held it up to the phone. Beep boop boop beep beep and it made the call. The real fun thing was that I could use it on many pay phones without having to pay.

Re: the Rick Moranis “hasn’t worked since the 80s” joke... After his wife died of breast cancer in 1991, the actor, without any fanfare or self-aggrandizing announcements, left Hollywood behind to raise his kids. His comedy style didn’t get old and the roles didn’t dry up, he just decided being a father to his kids was more important. The Keymaster is a good dude.

“This video is made possible by Trade Coffee” Everybody: Impossible

As a delinquent teen in the 90s I discovered you could jump two separate phone lines, dial *69 to hear last number that called, then press 1 to dial these numbers. Then you would listen to: "NO you called me" "Umm, nooo, YOU CALLED ME!"

3:55 “This guy who dropped out of college to start a fruit stand” My company does contract work for Apple, but due to confidentiality & non-disclosure agreements, we can’t refer to said company by name in any of our company communications, either written or even verbal, so in our company, we all know it as “The Acme Fruit Company”.

Man.. This was back in the day where you could get toys in cereal. Edit: I appreciate one hundred people separately saying that companies sometimes do that. If I didn't learn that from the first twenty, I won't learn it from the next eighty. Edit 2: Wow. Even more replies. Please stop

People would take these to the airports and disconnect all the pay phones at once. Imagine what it would have been like lol

"Do you play any instruments?" "Yea, the phone"

When he said "in the late 1960s, a group of hackers...", My Google Home activated and started telling me about the Green Bay Packers. I rewound and it did it again.

“Switch to AT&T for faster modem speeds and no hidden fees!” - Every AT&T commercial ever

Back when cereal had toys and not a chance to win a signed overwatch esports league player card

“Personally, I drink cold brew that’s so sweet that it tastes like melted coffee ice cream” Hey that’s what I drink, sometimes with literal ice cream scoops in it.

Fun fact, your phone calls still go through “wires”. Even cellular connections need wires for most of the distance.

1:29 "If you're one of the 15 viewers of this channel who've ever touched a push button telephone" Then what is the amount of people that ever had a *rotary dial telephone?* _Just me?_ Oh.

The Captain conceals the Jade Key, In a dwelling long neglected, But you can only blow the whistle Once the trophies are all collected

More accurately, a "Phone Phreak" would dial an 800 (WATTS) line - which was free and then enter the 2600hz tone which would drop the call. At this point the call was beyond the billing stage. Then the "PP" enters DTMF (multi frequency) tones to redirect the call. While the touchtone phones of that era also emitted DTMF tones they wouldn't work at this stage. The so called "Blue Box" generated a different series of DTMF tones - the same ones an operator or the internal systems would generate. Or so I've heard...

This video really just touched the tip of the iceberg in the phone phreaking world(I know, that's what this channel is about). They where able to pull of some serious stunts that went well beyond making free long distance calls. It really is an interesting topic and there are a couple good long form vids and article out there about it.

in an intro programming class in university i once wrote a program that can record with microphone the beep sounds a touch tone telephone makes and then display the phone number on the screen. The program worked by performing a fast fourier transform algorithm on the digital signal, which gives the individual frequencies the beeps were composed of. Each different number's beep is called a DTMF tone, and each is defined as specific pair of frequencies. A strong enough amplitude in the right areas of the frequency domain, and the program can guess a number digit. Repeat for all the digits in the phone number, then the full number can be displayed. It even works if you press multiple buttons at once!

“It was invented by this nerd and then later sold by this nerd”

A couple of the, "Phone Phreak" guys were give a choice by Ma bell and the FBI: work for Ma Bell to help them secure the system or they would be given a new address at the Grey Bar Inn. Had a high school friend who took the deal. Fun times!

Hey, I remember rotary-dial phones AND I still enjoy Count Chocula on a regular basis, thank you very much.

I have the feeling that, from now on, we're going to see a lot of Trade Coffee ads...

If you're more interested in phone phreaking and technical details, I *highly* recommend *The 8-bit Guy's* presentation video!

Trade Coffee: Check out the link in the description. Me: Yeah, sure! Brilliant, Skillshare etc.: **Gasp collectively**

Phreaking was fun. I used to call California BBSes from Michigan, and never pay a dime. Those were the fun days back before the world wide web and internet. It was awesome having someone call into the Shadoe Boxx (my bbs- come on, I was a teen and obsessed with martial arts) at 2 in the morning to play the handcrafted Dungeons and Dragons campaign I set up on there, or one of the other games or activities I did on there. Only in the night though, had to keep my phone line clear during the day for phone calls!

HAI: wow this 2600 Hz sound is annoying Me, a violinist: *hold my 3 octave scales*

3:53 ah yes, my favorite multi trillion dollar fruit stand, Apple

What I learned from this is that my tinnitus could hack phones

Lol this is actually a pretty awesome chapter in the book Jobs. Both Steve’s stopped selling the hacking equipment after one customer pulled a gun on them and robbed them of it... but later said customer couldn’t find out how to use it so ended up calling them back to ask for help.

That must've been a hell of a realization. First, the guy must have had perfect pitch or something; and so he blows the whistle and is like "hey, that's the EXACT frequency I need to hack AT&T!".

AT&T: NO YOU CAN'T DO THAT!!!!!! box toy: brrrrrrrrrrrrr

I have a working 1929 Bell South Rotary Dial phone still on my wall. I wouldn’t have a landline if it wasn’t for the fact I have free landline service for life. What really surprises me is my analog rotary dial still works to make and receive calls. I honestly don’t use my home phone for any reason other than to show off my phone and the more frequent spam caller.

omg i'd forgotten about the amazing toys that came with cereal! color/temperature changing spoons used to rock! hahah

For the sponsorship, you pronounced "Skillshare" wrong

I’m one of the 15 viewers who has touched a push button phone. I’ve also used a rotary phone aswell. Those were the days

"if you are one of the 15 viewers who have ever touched a push button telephone" me a teenager who has a family who still receives calls on it and sometimes calls other people too:

0:58 are we all going to ignore the fact that the person in this part of the video is calling 911

Kids in school when they figure out what frequency the school bell is: *pathetic*

When You See An HAI Video With A Topic You Already Know About: "Hey. I've Seen This One!"

You forgot to add the part where you had to block one of the holes in order to produce the 2600 hertz sound

Anyone remember the early 2000’s movie “The Core”? The skinny computer hacker kid did something somewhat similar with a piece of foil to put “free long distance on a cell phone for life”. Guess they used this idea. 😂💯

Before I watched the video, I was like. “Is this about the Phone Phreaker Nicknamed “Cap’n Crunch”

Earlier : CuriosityStream, Skill Share, Square Space, Dashlane..... Now : Trade Coffee WAIT, THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!

Growing up in the 80's in NYC- AT&T public pay phones you would dial 660 then 113 I think wait for the tone then you could make free calls even long distance. I think the dial codes was for the repair person to use to test the repairs on that phone.

Not only did I use a rotary phone, my family had a party line. When the phone rang, you had to wait a few seconds to make sure it was your own special ring. Ours was two shorts and one long.

See: Phone phreaking by the 8-bit guy

I'm glad you covered Towlie's discovery of Funky Town on the touch tone phone. It was the first thing I thought about.

Ahh the lightsaber spoons! Those were the best cereal toys ever! We had a couple of them and my siblings and I legit used them for years as a kid haha. I totally forgot about those.

Something similar still worked on payphones up until the mid 2000s. Someone that I knew had a box that made the tones for different coins being inserted. It was just a Radio Shack project box with 3 different buttons and a speaker on it. We used the box on a bunch of different phones around our small town, and we only found a handful where it didn't work. The legend was always that if someone deposited more than $50 at once, the phone would automatically call the police because payphones can't physically hold more than $50. We tested this claim, and nothing happened but then when you picked up the phone it played a message saying that the phone was out of service and could only make 911 calls.

Can we take a moment to discuss how he said "Set fire to the neighbor's cat."

It’s a good day when half as interesting uploads

1:29 Not only do I remember using the push button phone but I also remember there were clicks produced not tones. The 0 produced 10 audible clicks.

I remember when "phone phreaking" was huge. I coulda went to jail for it once..but I was only 14 at the time so it was just a coupla weeks in juvie.

Last time I was this early, this was on wendover as TWL

"...a design that was perfected by this nerd" Hey all, Steve here

I actually found an 1980s “speed dialer” device in my house. At first glance, it looks like a good old fashioned pocket calculator... but it had a speaker on the back. Entering a number on the pad, played the associated tone. You would store the numbers you wanted in the device’s memory. When you wanted to use it, you held the device over the handset microphone and punched in which memory slot you wanted the device to play back. It fired off, the switching station process the beeps, and your call was connected.

I finally understand the comrade crunch joke in Jazzpunk.

“This video is made possible by Trade Coffee” Brilliant, Curiosity Stream, Skillshare, Squarespace, -Raid: Shadow Legends- and Honey: "Am I a joke to you?"

I actually learned about this in the book "Ready Player One". Man, it taught you 80's and 90's trivia that most people didn't know.

I remember buying Chex cereal that had a disk inside containing a video game called "Chex-Quest- that was just a Doom knock-off (uses the same game engine) that my millennial age sons would play for hours on the computer. 90's was 'good times' indeed.

0:21 I LOVED that cereal as a kid. I predict I will still love it.

What's this? 2 uploads in 2 days? We have been blessed.

I'm so honored to be considered one of the only 15 viewers who used a touch-tone phone...

They still worked on payphones into the late 90's. You could just use a recorder, also called a "chinger"or red box, that would mimic the sounds of coins being put in.

Two videos in one week? Am I in heaven?

I would honestly be surprised if I went to a local coffeeshop and they actually gave me coffee. The Netherlands really is an interesting place

I'm one of the 15 people watching this video who has a landline.

I remember getting Roller Coaster Tycoon out of a cereal box

The clinical sarcasm is great.

AT&T charges me a 100 per month and they can't even protect their line from a cereal box toy

I have a landline in my house and use it regularly. Seriously, they are so easy to hear through!

Up until the 1990, maybe even later, it was possible to make long distance calls from public phones. All that was required was to tap the «disconnect» plate briefly, and emulate impulse dialing. It was not even required to put in a quarter.

The best part of this video is the new sponsor. Believe it or not, I ACTUALLY saw the ad. In its ENTIRETY.

*Random Fun Fact:* The yo-yo is believed to be the world’s second oldest toy, after dolls. -SavageInfoVan

I've got a feeling this is going to be one of his most popular videos.

"For the 15 viewers who heard tones when pressing the numbers on a phone." There was a time when you heard pulses when dialing numbers and instead of pushing buttons you had to use a round disk with holes in them. Simpler but good times back then.

This chick at 2:39 looks like she's 'bout to help a bee sue humanity

In a few years from now we will have a video titled “how HAI sponsorship killed a coffee bean startup”

I bet most of the watchers of this channel are too young to remember this and will be absolutely stunned.

our phone back in the 80's had a dial, buttons with sound are so 90's

Right after you talked about the coffee sponsor a coffee ad played for me. Lol.

“Phone Phreaks” As a perfectionist, the “Ph” makes me wanna die

3:23 That's a funny coincidence =D

Phone Phreaking was a blast back in the day. I'd spend hours on conference bridges talking with people all around the world. Even got to speak with Mr. Draper one night. Good times.

Just found ur channel commentary is gold man.

"one of the 15 viewers of this channel who have ever touched.... a push button telephone" I expected you to say rotary. damnit.

This is what they talked about in Ready Player One.

The little Legos in the box with the promise of a bigger model just by sending a voucher! God I miss those days.

Thanks for this. This actually help me for my college subject

2:32 me watching on a galaxy note 9! how does he know?

"One of the 15 viewers who've ever touched a pushbutton phone." Not only has every landline our family has ever had been pushbutton, our current one is corded and probably older than I am. The church our family went to had rotating dial. Apparently they could afford a multimillion dollar building but not a telephone made within the past 4 decades.

I MET Cap'n Crunch, John Draper, at a computer hobbyist meeting in Palo Alto. IF I remember - good luck - the topic was computers in music sequencing. We had a group discussion going until we reached a kind of stalemate - where to go next. Up till then (45 min?) he had not said a word,. and I had no idea who he was. When we reached that point of silence, he broke it with a comment, then processed to outline the entire discussion in a compact but complete precis, and then proceeded to explain the next several evolutionary steps we needed to take. I don't know who else was there, but a short time later the MIDI standard was proposed and developed, and looked a LOT like Draper's vision. A brilliant mind.

the fact that I know this because I read Ready Player One is truly astounding

Me, who read Ready Player One: *laughs in big brain*

This viedo is sponsored by trade coffee? is that even for real? and also do trade tea next yes

Tangentially related trivia - the sound effect Star Trek uses when the captain makes a shipwide announcement is a bo'sun's pipe

This worked in one area operated by Northern Telephone of Minnesota where they still had that until the 2000s as it only served 40 people