[Info-vax] OT: Chrome bug with Applet and threading

[Paul Sture]

On Fri, 25 May 2012 16:08:06 -0500, Bob Koehler wrote:

> In article <7bi499-qj2.ln1 at mint-hp.chingola.ch>, Paul Sture
> <paul.nospam at sture.ch> writes:
>>> 
>>>    1-800-555-1212
>> 
>> Sorry I'm not in the US.  What does that number do?
> 
>    1 - activate long distance
>    800 - area code
>    555 - exchange
>    1212 - number within the exchange
> 
>    By agreement with the entertainment industry, no telephone number
>    contains 555 as the exchange.

Thanks Bob.  555 brings back memories of early 1990s computer games that 
I had to get working for my boss's young son.

>    This came after a popular show used a telephone number in its name
>    and the actual phone was swamped.

There was a famous German hit song in the early 1980s which featured the 
number of a "lady of the night", and I was told it was a real number.
Same problem, but I have no idea whether the authorities did anything 
about it.

Here's the Youtube rendition, with some nice photos of Munich:

"Spider Murphy Gang - Skandal im Sperrbezirk"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJFHGupfLxw

>    800 is the original free-to-the-caller long-distance area code, and
>    1212 is the generic number to get telephone listings at someone
>    else's area code.

The UK used 0800 as the free-to-caller number for many years. There was 
also 0345 area code which wasn't free, but only charged at the local rate 
wherever you were calling from.

Unfortunately neither were obtainable from abroad, which was the cause of 
much frustration at one point in my life.  IMHO they should have offered 
a gateway to those services, and I really wouldn't have minded paying the 
full international charge, so long as it wasn't based on an extortionate 
rate.



-- 
Paul Sture