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Comment by cookie_monsta | Hacker News Reader

I always thought it was particularly cruel that all emergency services (police, fire, ambulance) in my country were reached by dialing 000. It doesn't doesn't make much difference now, but imagine waiting for that rotary dial to spin all the way back around while your house is going up in flames around you...

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I think in (most?) Europe is 112 since forever exactly because rotary phones.

(checking wikipedia [1] ...)

TIL It was also to permit physically blocking all the other numbers in public access rotary phones while leaving emergency calls enabled. Smart.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/112_(emergency_telephone_numbe...

In British Columbia, 112 was once the prefix for making long-distance calls. That changed in 1985 to bring us into conformity with the rest of North America.

Edit: also, you could call for free on rotary pay phones by tapping out the number on the "hangup" switch.

In the late 80s I was messing with a rotary phone hook switch and dialed 117 accidentally, which was the proctor test set. It was an automated phone testing platform, and it would let you test things like the coin receiver and touchtone tones, among other things.

I never had the coin sound maker, but I did have a small transcription digital recorder years later that could trick the proctor test set into thinking a nickel had been inserted.

I don't remember all the other tests, hopefully there's a webpage somewhere about it.

In France main numbers for emergencies are still 15, 17 and 18. The 112 redirects on these.

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