There are indeed plenty of people still using pulse-dial phones, although actual rotary dial phones are becoming relatively rare, except for those who like the "old time" feel (and telephone nuts like yours truly, of course!
![[Linked Image]](https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/biggrin.gif)
).
I suppose it would have to come eventually, but I find the use of dial-pulse to DTMF converters somewhat ironic. Consider that back 30 years ago many of the SxS switches in North America were being fitted with converters to do precisely the opposite to allow TouchTone phones to be used!
Pressing the "R" key on a typical European phone sends interrupts the loop for a short time, pretty much the same as pulse dialing 1. (In the USA it's a longer pause)
Just trying using the flash/recall facility in some software and you'll get a demonstration of this. On the U.K. system it will break the loop long enough to be interpreted as a complete hang-up.
will an exchange actually "time-out" on people that dial slowly, while trying to make a call through a digital exchange?.
The British System X times out after about 20 seconds if you fail to dial or dial an incomplete number. That doesn't mean you have only 20 seconds to dial the full number though, just that if you dial nothing for 20 seconds you go to the default message: "The number you have dialed has not been recognized." You could dial one digit every 15 seconds and it will go through all right.
BTW, I went into an antique shop the other day and had to show my 12 year old daughter how to use a dial phone! She'd never seen one and I'd never even thought about it before!
You're slipping Hutch! Any child of the likes of us should know how to dial a rotary phone by the age of 4!
