There was software for the c64 to emulate the sounds required….
The only hardware that ever really got involved when I did it was a walkman and a tape recorder… for pay phones…red boxing..

Like you can see in the movie war games

Commodore 64 ?!? When I was little my dad’s +$400 work issued calculator that had +-x (and divide) with an eight character led display fascinated me. It all fit into the tiny size of a brick. Before that I remember him having to punch numbers on a small typewriter and pull the handle to get the answer on a feed roll. That was around 1970. By the time I got to college computer classes didn’t exist yet. I enrolled in data processing and learned how to use the Hollerith Code for using punch cards. 12 years later I took an actual computer class for using business computers. It was DOS based, and the fastest available processor was the 386.

Oh, I do remember a computer lab in my fourth grade summer school. It consisted of a long strip that you fed into the top of the monitor. As you answered the questions (A,B,C or D) the strip would slowly work its way out of the monitor.

I remember my Dad’s first electronic calculator.  I don’t think it cost $400.  It was a Texas Instruments and it only had _, -, X and /.

I seem to recall it costing $36 in 1975ish.  I don’t know what that comes to in current dollars.

My first “real” computer as a Radio Shack PC-1, a glorified calculator with a 1 line display and 1.4K of RAM to program BASIC in.  Then I moved “up” to the PC-2 with 4K, still just one line but a very cool printer/plotter.

My first non-portable was a Timex Sinclair ZX-80 with RAM expansion and the thermal printer.

Then I got a Model 100 (also Radio Shack).  It was hooked to a dot matrix printer and I had the external floppy drive which ran through the parallel port.  It was slow but much faster and more convenient then loading and saving from cassette tape.

My first Intel PC was in 1988 the Tandy 1400LT.  It was a laptop and I think 1400 referred to the weight.  1MB of RAM and two floppy drives and a blue&White; CGA compatible screen.

Then in 1989 I got a 286 Packard Bell with 1MB of RAM and a 20MB hard drive.  Yes.  20MB.

Yes, things have changed. In my hand now I have a PDA with color screen, higher resolution than the old 1400LT and a lot more memory.

And in my Lap I have a 3lb package with color screen, wireless access to the internet and my printers, 40 *GB* of hard drive and 512MB of RAM with 512MB on the way.  Ironically I don’t have a floppy drive anymore…

I still have the PC-1, PC-2 and the Model 100.  They are reminders of a simpler time in computers.  No hard drives, no Windows, no drivers.  The only time I had to reboot those machines was when *I* locked them up somehow while playing with code.

[quote author=“tifosiv122”]The boxes were physical boxes that allowed you to do various things to phone lines.

Erik

One of the “secrets” was the DTMF “Touchtone” keypad which is actually based on a 4x4 array. The four additional keys were reserved for internal system control and routing commands. Nothing too mystical, it was a matter of getting past the dialtone and knowing the command syntax.

[quote author=“tmkt”]There was software for the c64 to emulate the sounds required….
The only hardware that ever really got involved when I did it was a walkman and a tape recorder… for pay phones…red boxing..

Like you can see in the movie war games

So like T3 but not.

[quote author=“dbs”]Nothing too mystical, it was a matter of getting past the dialtone and knowing the command syntax.

So the whole point was to make sounds into the reciever that let you make a call for free? (while at a payphone) Like what the kid from The Core does to the guys cell phone… right.

I wandered into a loser hacker forum once and they were saying that they used phreaking techniques to steal other peoples phone lines to hack from… can you even do that?

[quote author=“OnMyWayUp”][quote author=“tmkt”]There was software for the c64 to emulate the sounds required….
The only hardware that ever really got involved when I did it was a walkman and a tape recorder… for pay phones…red boxing..

Like you can see in the movie war games

So like T3 but not.

[quote author=“dbs”]Nothing too mystical, it was a matter of getting past the dialtone and knowing the command syntax.

So the whole point was to make sounds into the reciever that let you make a call for free? (while at a payphone) Like what the kid from The Core does to the guys cell phone… right.

I wandered into a loser hacker forum once and they were saying that they used phreaking techniques to steal other peoples phone lines to hack from… can you even do that?

The usual payphone hack was really simple. Older payphones kept the handset live when you placed an operator assisted call. As you dropped coins in an audible “chime” was transmitted to the operator indicating coin/demonination. Creative use of a portable tape player saved the bother of dropping in coins.

I personally never got involved and haven’t followed the phreaking crowd for some time now. I think for most of them the internet became a more entertaining target. One of the ways to get into the system was to call an international operator and, once switched, use commands to route the call away from the operator (just as if they’d routed you). I think the system is reasonably secure now. With long distance generally affordable and the advent of the internet the fun and incentive are mostly gone.