And I'm sure you remember the little "dial lock" gizmos that were
> clamped into the "1" fingerhole and were supposed to keep people from
> making outbound calls on an unattended office telephone? It seems
> that nobody ever thought about dialing with the switchhook -- or just
> banging away with ten or more pulses and asking the operator for > assistance.
In my high school's computer lab (two ASR33's and an HP 9100), they resorted to locking the dial in the off-normal position -because- we were dialing with the switchhook (for some reason, we called it Dutch Dialing). Ten quick snaps of the hook and "Assistance in dialing, please". A small mod to the set fixed that... (as did the portable tone pad).
Speaking of which, is there an online copy of the famous phrase book for operators?
z!