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In reply to the discussion: Who else remembers their childhood phone number but not the [View all]crimycarny
(1,648 posts)I grew up in the midwest and I remember something referred to as a "beep line" which was a number everyone could dial and there would be a constant beep--beep--beep, but in between the beeps you could call out your number and others could hear it and would call you (a teenager thing).
For example, my childhood number was 241-6860. I remember calling into the beep line and yelling out each individual number between the beeps:
Beep--2!--beep--4!--beep--1!--beep--6!---beep--8!---beep--6!--beep---0! We'd hang up and then our phone would ring with some stranger who was on the beep line and wrote down the number we screamed out between beeps. That, I guess, was our closest thing to an "internet", in that several people could be on the same line at once.