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[telecom] Z on old dials; Intl dial letters?

Was the "Z" that appears on old dials ever used as a _dialable_ letter?

I know certainly special numbers had Zs in them since they had to be placed via the operator.

But I'm asking if there were exchanges like an AZtec 3 (203)? I think the use of Z on dials was discontinued before the NPA was drawn up, so that wouldn't have conflicted.

Also, did the Bell System issue phones that had numbers only in places where there were no lettered exchanges, such as small towns that had only 5 or less digits to begin with. There were many places like that. I think the Independent companies issued such phones, but I've never seen a WE phone like that. Maybe they simply standardized on the letter-number layout for all phones.

My Design Line phone rotary dial, made in the 1980s, has letters, but they are very small relative to the number. Presumably at that point the company figured most letters were obsolete, not expecting the

1-800-CALLME in the future.

Also...

I've heard that dials in other countries had different lettering than US dials. Has dial lettering been standardized for world wide uniformity, meaning foreign dials converted to the US standard? What about phones in countries where they use their own alphabet, such as Russia?

Reply to
hancock4
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Los Angeles had ZEnith for a long time after NPA became effective. You dialed the Operator, of course, and asked for ZEnith 4877 or whatever, and were given a toll-free connection to the other end.

Reply to
Sam Spade

The operator answered all calls placed to ZAnzibar, ZUlu, and ZYmurgy exchanges, as well as the better known ZEnith numbers.

This leads into potentially dangerous territory -- see the Robert Silverberg story "MUgwump Four" about strange prefixes.

Right. why make two models of phone, that differed only in the paint scheme. more parts to manufacture, more parts to stock, more overhead all the way around. Standardize on a single variant wherever possible. it's -cheaper-.

Nope.

Reply to
Robert Bonomi

I've got an old 302 type telephone dated "5-49". It has a "metropolitan" dial (numbers and letters) with no "Z" (and no "Q" either, of course). The word Operator was arced above the "0" And, let's see... Wasn't the NPA scheme introduced in 1948?

Al

Reply to
Al Gillis

I mean where the Z was dialed as part of a phone number, not to reach the operator.

Reply to
hancock4

Even large companies with heavy standardization had variants to save money and better meet specific operational requirements. For instance, with keyset phones, they came in six and four button varieties, and lamps on the buttons were optional. The volume of equipment was such variants were possible.

There were a variety of specialty models of common telephone models for various purposes, some well known, some relatively rare.

Reply to
hancock4

snipped-for-privacy@bbs.cpcn.com schrieb:

There is an international standard for dial lettering (from ITU) used in most other countries, which differs from the US standard. The 26 letters are alphabetically assigned to the digits 2-9 with three letters to all digits, except 7 (PQRS) and 9 (XWYZ), which have four letters. Most countries however, never used letters in phone numbers and the lettering of phone dials was uncommon before SMS was introduced as a service in cell phone networks some 15 years ago.

Tor

Reply to
Tor-Einar Jarnbjo

P.S. I just remembered that the dials on Bell Teletypes we used for Time Sharing had number-only dials. So Bell did make number-only dial wheels. Whether these were deployed in all-digit areas or in specialty systems I don't know. Many AE private exchange dials were number-only.

Reply to
hancock4

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