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Dial Tone (lemm.ee)
submitted 1 year ago by 4am@lemm.ee to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world

Sometime, probably close to 20 years ago, but perhaps more recently, you heard a dial tone for the last time and you didn’t even realize it would be.

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[-] dialtone@lemmy.world 133 points 1 year ago
[-] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago

I’ve been meaning to ask, has anyone ever told you your F is a tad sharp for equal temperament? I’m not suggesting you change. I think your clean beat frequency makes you pretty cool just the way you are.

[-] sukhmel@programming.dev 3 points 1 year ago

I first read it

has anyone ever told you F

And thought it was going to be a joke continuing OP's thought 🫡

[-] mPony@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I thought we were paying respects to the fallen dial tone

[-] OpenStars@discuss.online 14 points 1 year ago

Did you... join during the Rexodus and wait all this time just for this joke? 🤣 (if there is a more mundane explanation, I don't want to know - I prefer this one:-)

[-] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

I'm so angry today, that I didn't even catch the joke. It wasn't until I was making my own reply of confusion that I needed to copy the username of who said that, that I realized their name was /u/dialtone

Then I got their joke. I still don't know what a Rexodus is though.

[-] Confused_Emus@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Rexodus - portmanteau of Reddit exodus

[-] OpenStars@discuss.online 4 points 1 year ago

Have you lost your mind!? Hehe, I could not resist doing it again:-P.

Rexodus = Reddit Exodus. Lemmy is several years old (>5), Kbin is newer (3.5 years?), and Mbin is a fork off of the Kbin code - the latter two being different code that both implement the ActivityPub (snooze... bored yet?:-P). Anyway, when the CEO of Reddit, Huffman (platform username: spez) pissed off a bunch of users, content creators, and 3rd party app devs, a lot of us came over here to the Fediverse at that time. And Rexodus is one of the names - the top one iirc - that we call that event that prompted us to leave there. It may lose all meaning soon again, i.e. when Reddit kills off the old.reddit access there will be another such migration wave, possibly larger than the first, and surely there were past such waves as well, but for now it means the time of the protests, so roughly one year ago. Which is also roughly the age of that person's account.

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[-] Lifecoach5000@lemmy.world 52 points 1 year ago

Dial tone still exists. Pretty much every business phone that’s most likely a VoIP line still generates dial tone to the user’s headset.

[-] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago

That’s just sparkling doot

[-] kakes@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago

Man, reading this sentence felt like a little electric jolt to the brain as it pieced the memes together.

[-] sukhmel@programming.dev 4 points 1 year ago

Indeed, but most people will not hear it anymore as they don't use business phones, same as ordinary landline phones

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[-] r00ty@kbin.life 39 points 1 year ago

Last time I heard a dial tone was just a second ago when I pushed the speakerphone button on my Cisco ip phone.

[-] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 year ago

Ceci n'est pas une tonalité

[-] plz1@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

It's actually fake, though. IP phones "play" that. Also, when on a call, they insert "comfort noise, that very low hiss you may hear, to augment the odd feeling most get with crystal clear VOIP audio.

[-] mPony@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

It's only a dial tone if it comes from a land line

otherwise it's just sparkling audio lies

[-] r00ty@kbin.life 2 points 1 year ago

Well, it's generated in the same way as modern tones are in a telephone exchange, not a played sample. You can usually configure the tone frequencies (never tried on cisco ip phone, but asterisk allows it for its own generated tones and I had a cisco ATA that let you configure them).

So, unless we're limiting ourselves to the original mechanically generated dial-tones. I'll consider them for all intents and purposes to be one and the same.

E.g. for the UK on cisco/sipura ATAs you would use the configuration found here https://teamhelp.sipgate.co.uk/hc/en-gb/articles/208200875-UK-Regional-Settings-Cisco-Linksys-Sipura-Adaptors and as an example (dial tone)

Dial Tone: 350@-19,440@-22;10(*/0/1+2)

The comfort noise is also generally only added when there's no other noise on the call. This is to prevent you thinking you were disconnected when no-one is talking.

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[-] Vinny_93@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago

I still hear a dial-up modem when I close my eyes

[-] db2@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

But can you tell the difference between 28.8 and 33.6 just by listening?

[-] AmidFuror@fedia.io 6 points 1 year ago

I don't understand the need for these. I can't read text faster than 300 baud anyway.

[-] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Wait until this guy learns about webtv, and its ability to load a 320x480 jpg in a little under 10 minutes.

[-] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I used to confuse my 56k modem in 1998. I used to pick up the phone and make modem noises. It used to "connect", and then IMMEDIATELY spew out a diarrea of errors that it wasn't connected.

I miss the 90s....

[-] shalafi@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

We tech support folks used to be able to discern a legit US Robotics 56K over a software modem. By listening to our customers connect.

[-] ripcord@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

300, 1200, 2400, 9600, 19.2, and 56k yes.

I don't remember 28.8 and 33.6 sounds, though. I guess my life has been for nothing :(

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[-] kakes@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

Ngl I wish I was of the generation where I could've acquired this skill. As it is, I just have the faint childhood memory of our home modem. (In my 30s, for reference.)

[-] Demonmariner@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago

I have a landline, I hear a dial tone every time I pick up the phone.

[-] CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee 13 points 1 year ago

Low-key way of informing everyone that nobody ever calls your landline.

[-] Chozo@fedia.io 6 points 1 year ago

Or that they're the ones making all the calls.

[-] MeatStiq@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

I listen to it every day at work when connecting to customers alarm systems.

[-] sukhmel@programming.dev 11 points 1 year ago

Necromancer

[-] umbrella@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 year ago

if you have tinnitus it never really stopped

[-] noughtnaut@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Sorry to nitpick... Tinnitus is more likely to introduce high-frequency sound than the 440Hz dial tone. If anything, that is the one frequency that old-timey phone techs would eventually struggle to hear...

[-] Waldowal@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

On a similar note for parents: At some point, you did/will pick your child up and then put them down for the last time.

[-] NeptuneOrbit@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

I have a captain crunch whistle so I hear it anytime I want to!

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 year ago

You were one of those people.

It is still wild to me that a cheap toy was able to "hack" the phone systems back then.

[-] slazer2au@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

What's even worse is in some countries the file tone was a pretty good match for a guitar note so some musicians would use it as a starting point to tune their guitars.

[-] squirrel@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 1 year ago

True, I remember tuning my guitar to it. Thanks for bringing back that memory.

[-] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

My phone makes a dial tone the moment I press a single key on the keypad to make a call. 🤷🏻‍♂️

It's not the same as picking up a landline; it's just the phone app adding it probably to let you know you're dialing.

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[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 year ago

I heard one about a week ago

[-] tiredofsametab@kbin.run 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I heard it last night in a movie. From an actual phone, it's been a few years, but less than 10. EDIT: actually, less than 3 years as I had to fax paperwork to get my internet. Japan!

[-] Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

My work has landlines, so I still get to hear it

[-] hperrin@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

I don’t know. I have several old phones and a touch tone dialing adapter. I like the experience. I can say with high confidence that I’ll hear a dial tone in the future.

Plus, watch any movie from the seventies through the nineties that includes a phone, and you’ll probably hear a dial tone.

[-] PanoptiDon@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Sadly, I had to fax documents recently.

[-] Classy@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

My work uses VoIP and when I call anyone I hear a dial tone.

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this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2024
199 points (94.2% liked)

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