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Communications Technology

Remember When You Could Call the Time? 171

Posted by msmash from the times-they-are-a-changin' dept.
An article on The Atlantic this week takes a stroll down the memory lane. It talks about phone services that people could call for knowing the time. The service, according to the article, was quite popular in 1980s. But many of them don't exist now. For instance, Verizon discontinued the line -- as well as its telephone weather service -- in 2011. But what's fascinating is that some of these services still exist, and are getting more traction than many of us would've imagined. From the article:"We get 3 million calls per year!" said Demetrios Matsakis, the chief scientist for time services at the Naval Observatory. "And there's an interesting sociology to it. They don't call as much on the weekend, and the absolute minimum time they call is Christmas. On big holidays, people don't care about the time. But we get a big flood of calls when we switch to Daylight [saving] time and back." As it turns out, people have been telephoning the time for generations. In the beginning, a telephone-based time service must have seemed like a natural extension of telegraph-based timekeeping -- but it would have been radical in its own way, too, because it represented a key shift to an on-demand service. In the 19th century, big railroad companies had used the telegraph to transmit the time to major railway stations. By the early 20th century, people could simply pick up the telephone and ask a human operator for the time.
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Remember When You Could Call the Time? More

Remember When You Could Call the Time?

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  • dialing. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26, 2016 @12:37PM (#52393465)

    Dialing the time was popular long before the 80's, and in fact by the 80's I recall it being much less used, even if it still existed. I remember dialing the time as being more of a 1960's and 70's thing.

    I suppose next you're going to tell me that people nowadays don't understand why it's called "dialing" a number. Or why it was faster to dial a number with lots of low digits than lots of high digits.

    • VCRs became popular in the 1980's. So changing the flashing 12:00 on the digital display was a big deal.

      • I was always annoyed when I had programmed something to record, got home, and saw the flashing numbers.

    • Dialing the time was popular long before the 80's, and in fact by the 80's I recall it being much less used, even if it still existed. I remember dialing the time as being more of a 1960's and 70's thing.

      I suppose next you're going to tell me that people nowadays don't understand why it's called "dialing" a number. Or why it was faster to dial a number with lots of low digits than lots of high digits.

      You probably got a TV with teletext sometime in the 1970's or 80's that told you the time. IIRC lower end TV:s did not ship with teletext well into the 1990's.

  • My community still has this... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dave3138 ( 528919 ) on Sunday June 26, 2016 @12:38PM (#52393475)
    ...it's run by the local bank. It gives a quick advertisement for the bank, then time and temperature. Many organizations in town use it as the "official" temperature in town - "sportsball practice is cancelled if the temp is below X degrees, call time and temp for the temperature". It's number is 320-587-4700...not sure how many concurrent calls it can handle :-)

    • Our local area has one too, run by a funeral home

    • dial a dirty joke still going strong: (516) 922-WINE

  • Still around in the uk (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Still around in the UK. Number is 123.

    On the third stroke, the time, sponsored by Accurist, will be five - forty - exactly. Bip, bip, beep.

    • I'm surprised it's three and not five like the old BBC World Service top 'o' the hour time sync signal. Do they still do that? I haven't listened to shortwave in years.

      • Still have the pips on BBC Radio 4 (UK) and World Service - a series of shorts and one long to mark the hour. Very rarely one less or one extra short for leap seconds.
    • The UK also had 'dial a disc' for music, a weather service and dial-a-bedtime-story service.

  • NTP (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TheDarkener ( 198348 ) on Sunday June 26, 2016 @12:39PM (#52393479) Homepage

    Do we really need it anymore now that we have NTP [ntp.org] running on most of our smartphones, computers, etc.?

    I do miss the "time lady" though. Or "popcorn" - (767-2676, or 767-1111). "At the tone, the time will be, 9:38am. *BEEP*"

    I was just thinking yesterday about an automated telephone game system I used to call when I was growing up in the 80's. 573-3400. I forget what it was called, but there were 3 games you could play all by 'choose your own adventure' touch-tone style choices. One was a cowboy type game, one was a vampire, and I forget what the third one was. It was all free to play for us latch-key kids. Heh. Now get off my lawn!

    • Do we really need it anymore now that we have NTP [ntp.org] running on most of our smartphones, computers, etc.?

      I've got something running on my computer (Windows 7) but I have no idea what "on a regular basis" means when it comes to updating. Does it check once an hour? Once a day? Once a week? No idea. I forced an update just now and it was 45 seconds out.

      I think I'll go and install NTP... if I can find a decent build for Windows.

      When I were a lad, you could set your watch to the clock that they broadcast on BBC One before the news started. Can't do that now, thanks to digital TV and statistical multiplexing.

      • my phone (verizon) and my cable (comcast) do not quite match on the time.
        and of course, the individual channels clearly run on variously different clocks than comcast does, as trying to DVR programs on different networks proves. which is presumably why they provide the option of lengthening the start and end times of the recording.
        why?

        • The channel lag has to do with light speed delays in satellite broadcasts of certain channels. Not all channels are broadcast from the same part of the planet, so there is a delay on some channels.

          • There's more to it than that. Satellite delays would account for about 0.3s, but delays are also introduced by encoding (since encoders need to "read ahead" to encode certain types of frames) and decoding (same reason). Other stuff at the TV station introduces delays - on the BBC you'll see a one-frame stutter whenever a live digital video effect is about to occur (shrinking the credits to show a promo, for example).

            Yet more delays are introduced for all kinds of technical reasons. One factor is that here i

        • and of course, the individual channels clearly run on variously different clocks than comcast does, as trying to DVR programs on different networks proves.

          More likely they run on the same clock, but screw around with their scheduling a little bit to try to make you miss the beginning of a rival show on another network.

    • NTP is internet based, read: requires an internet connection to retrieve the time.

      Yet when I boot my Android phone after its battery runs empty, with Wi-Fi and mobile data disabled, it still retrieves the time just fine. Unlike say, a PC or Raspberry Pi when it relies solely on NTP for timekeeping.

      Read: yes, your phone uses 'the network' to retrieve the time (the mobile network, that is). No, not NTP or mobile data services. My PC relies on a CR2032-backed hardware clock (manually adjusted once or twic

      • It retrieves the time just fine because it has a realtime clock chip and still run with little battery to keep the time when it is off and between network time synchronization. A PC has also a RTC and a battery to keep the time. On another hand, the design point for the Raspberry Pi was to reduce the bill of material as much as possible, so, there is no RTC, you can add one if you wish. Hence, you just have to configure properly your OS on the Raspberry Pi to retrieve the network time at boot time. Of cours

      • The way GSM works is that each phone takes turns using the radio frequency. Your timeslot is half a millisecond long. Therefore the phone's timing has to be synchronized with the tower with microsecond accuracy.

      • NTP is internet based, read: requires an internet connection to retrieve the time.

        Yet when I boot my Android phone after its battery runs empty, with Wi-Fi and mobile data disabled, it still retrieves the time just fine. Unlike say, a PC or Raspberry Pi when it relies solely on NTP for timekeeping.

        Read: yes, your phone uses 'the network' to retrieve the time (the mobile network, that is). No, not NTP or mobile data services. My PC relies on a CR2032-backed hardware clock (manually adjusted once or twice a year), with the OS handling daylight saving changes. No network access needed to keep the correct time.

        in case young folks don't know, we used to have phones which were wired to a central phone switching system; and if you had one of those that displayed the time or stamped it on voicemail or somesuch, when you disconnected it and reconnected, it wouldn't know the time until somebody called.
        And we were grateful! we loved it!

      • My watch uses this:

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        It works pretty good too, though it isn't as accurate as NTP.

    • Do we really need it anymore now that we have NTP [ntp.org] running on most of our smartphones, computers, etc.?

      The question is - do the people who are calling the time number actually know that the time on their phone is set automatically? And probably not just for cell phones... our last land line phone, back when we still had a land line, would synchronize its time whenever an incoming or outgoing call occurred.

      I have this mental image of some elderly woman dialing the time number and then dutifully setting the time on her fifteen-year-old Nokia cell phone.

      • Re: NTP (Score:4, Interesting)

        by dunkelfalke ( 91624 ) on Sunday June 26, 2016 @02:07PM (#52393891)

        GSM network time can be wrong, though. A month or two ago O2 Germany had a problem with the network time so many phones all around Germany were set to 10 minutes earlier. Missed my train that way. Was very surprised comparing the phone clock with the railway station clock.

        • GSM network time can be wrong, though. A month or two ago O2 Germany had a problem with the network time so many phones all around Germany were set to 10 minutes earlier. Missed my train that way. Was very surprised comparing the phone clock with the railway station clock.

          I had a few VCRs that could find time signals impressed on some of the TV station signals (via cable, when it was still analog); i think most US PBS stations IIRC, and also what time zone, so would update DST for you automatically.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by adolf ( 21054 )

        Smart phones do not use NTP, although perhaps they should: It's computationally almost free, and can be very data-efficient, and works great even in free-running mode.

        Cellular network time isn't always accurate. I can put a few devices together from different carriers, and they're within a minute or two. But right now, in fact, I have two Verizon devices in front of me: One is 16 seconds fast, and the other is 1 second slow, compared to NIST -- even though they have the same exact time source.

        Maybe a mi

        • Smart phones do not use NTP, although perhaps they should: It's computationally almost free, and can be very data-efficient, and works great even in free-running mode.

          Cellular network time isn't always accurate. I can put a few devices together from different carriers, and they're within a minute or two. But right now, in fact, I have two Verizon devices in front of me: One is 16 seconds fast, and the other is 1 second slow, compared to NIST -- even though they have the same exact time source.

          Maybe a minute or two is good enough, but it's not anything approaching high-accuracy. If I cared about time enough to have a high-quality wristwatch, I would not set it from the time displayed on my phone.

          Meanwhile, IIRC, CID time did not include seconds in the timestamp. So it was only accurate within a minute, too.

          I have this mental image of the trains actually running on time, but nobody knows what time it actually is so they all miss them anyway.

          right! that's what i was talking about upthread a bit, how is it possible for these hyper precise items to all be so reliably out of synch? wtf?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by adolf ( 21054 )

            I don't know WTF, either.

            Every time I look at running NTP on Android (because I'm a geek like that, and it annoys me that clock skew is a solved problem everywhere else), I find that it's never been implemented by anyone because "herrp, it's taken care of automatically! who cares?"

            Kids, these days...

            Sometime I'll have to hack up ntp to run on Android as a proof of concept and get the ball rolling myself, I guess.

      • My landline doesn't have the time. Obviously, almost everything else does (cellphone, tv/DVR, answering machine, just to list the stuff in view of my landline), but even in prehistoric times when there were fewer clocks, I seldom called it to get the time. It also told the temperature (which of course I can also get off my cellphone :-P ).

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      There are MANY NTP servers who's primary clock source is NIST ACTS [nist.gov] you know, using a analog modem. NTPd supports this directly and is quite reliable as a primary time source.

      NTP isn't a primary time source, but a time distribution service.

    • I remember dialing a number that would call you back after you hung up and then just repeat whatever you said back to you.
      I guess in hindsight it was probably used for testing, but it was fun pranking people with it as a child.

    • Do we really need it anymore now that we have NTP [ntp.org] running on most of our smartphones, computers, etc.?

      Good question. I was using my laptop the other day (relatively fresh install of Windows 10 on it) and I got a call saying I was 10min late to a meeting .... the clock was at the wrong time. We put a lot of emphasis in having technology often without every taking the care to see if it's actually working or on, just like my phone didn't adjust for daylight savings time automagically but my girlfriend's did.

      To err is human, to really screw things up requires a computer.

    • Do we really need it anymore now that we have NTP running on most of our smartphones, computers, etc.?

      There are a substantial number of people who do not own a cellphone or an internet connected computer, and/or may just not have access to one of those at some time and place (e.g. power outage) when they want accurate time. And I'm confident providing the service is a nominal cost that benefits these many millions of people.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Do we really need it anymore now that we have NTP running on most of our smartphones, computers, etc.?

      I do miss the "time lady" though. Or "popcorn" - (767-2676, or 767-1111). "At the tone, the time will be, 9:38am. *BEEP*"

      Assuming everything is set properly, you can still be wrong on the time. Timezones, Daylight Saving Time, etc. Anytime you screw with the clocks, you run the risk of having the time set wrong.

      So it's nice to have a source of local time that's correct to confirm the time is correct.

      That's

      • That's why the calls spike around the time change - because people aren't entirely sure anymore.

        I think it's because that's when they reset all of their unconnected clocks (oven, microwave, wristwatch). You might as well set them accurately twice a year.

  • You can still use WWV... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    2.5, 5, 10, and 15mhz on a shortwave radio. You can also tune your guitar with the tones.

  • It had been a few years since I called our local one but I just checked and it's still up.

    Back when I was a kid in the late 80's/early 90's that was the go-to source for making sure you had your clocks set correctly. Later on they added current temperature too. It was used enough that it wasn't uncommon to call it and get a busy signal and you'd have to try back again in a few minutes.

    When I just called it gave the date, time, temperature, and a decently detailed daily weather forecast as well.

  • WWV (Score:2)

    by rfengr ( 910026 )
    I just listen to WWVB on HF. Once in a while, you can hear WWVH coming in on top.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Burdell ( 228580 )

      WWVB is VLF, not HF, and you wouldn't get much by listening to it (since it is a binary protocol at one bit per second).

      Maybe you just mean plain WWV?

  • We used to call it popcorn. In our area you could dial 767-any4digits and get the time.

    http://articles.latimes.com/20... [latimes.com]

  • USNO not answering (Score:3)

    by rfengr ( 910026 ) on Sunday June 26, 2016 @01:07PM (#52393609)
    Is the phone number slashdotted?
  • You can also dial up the audio from WWV (the time and frequency broadcast from the NIST) at 303-499-7111

  • There is guaranteed to be one "Time and Temp" service that still exists in each area code -- and in most likelihood, one in each tariff zone. They are great to check call completions across the US because you know that (a) they will always answer and (b) you won't be bothering some random person, even in the middle of the night.

    • (b) you won't be bothering some random person, even in the middle of the night.

      But that's half the fun...

      Just be sure to block your remote Caller ID.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jrumney ( 197329 )

      They are great to check call completions across the US because you know that (a) they will always answer and (b) you won't be bothering some random person, even in the middle of the night.

      I suspect this is the reason behind the higher usage during office hours, and lower usage during the holidays that everyone takes, like Xmas. These services are used a lot for Bluetooth handsfree device testing in my office too, as usually the developers don't want to bother someone else, and they don't want to listen to

  • There must be a modern equivalent (I can't even be bothered to Google it) where you can just "ring" Google or Siri or Cortana.

    I'd be hard-pushed to imagine that isn't already out there, especially given Google Voice.

    That function could easily do time-telling or weather forecast or data searches for you without anything more than a computer doing an "OK Google" at the other end and reading back the response like their smartphones do.

    • Google used to do this, in fact, though with SMS. They killed the service several years ago.

      There was also a free (and toll-free) service called Tell Me, which was voice-operated and worked well for lots of things.

  • Are these rotodial phone users or something?
    Every cellphone I've ever had came with a time display, and furthermore the time is obtained from the phone service so its always accurate.
    What would even be the point of phoning if the time is already displayed on the phone?
    Is there even such a thing as modern phones that don't have a clock?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by quetwo ( 1203948 )

      There are still ~ 90 Million residential landlines around, down from about 220 million. Depending on the phone, they may not have a display. Additionally, about 10% - 12% of the population over 18 don't have a cell phone.

      So... yeah... it's a thing.

    • My landline doesn't have a clock. It's a moot point, given that I have several time displays within sight of it, but the phone itself doesn't have anything.

  • Superannuated (Score:5, Funny)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Sunday June 26, 2016 @01:28PM (#52393699) Journal

    I'm so old I remember when there was a number you could call that would tell you the date, and it would give it to you in Julian and Gregorian.

  • Canada's is still going (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The Canadian National Research Council's "telephone talking clock" [nrc-cnrc.gc.ca] is still active,

    English: 613-745-1576
    French: 613-745-9426

    They also run an NTP server, shortwave time broadcasts, web-based clock, modem-based "simple time service", and daily time broadcasts on CBC radio.

  • To check if a phone was working, there used to be a number you could call and hang-up. Then the phone would be called back.
    • That number is the number from which you're dialling.
    • Different phone companies had different systems. A call back number could be handy, but I liked the number that you could call that would speak back to you the number that you were calling from. There were times that came in really handy.

    • To check if a phone was working, there used to be a number you could call and hang-up. Then the phone would be called back.

      and a voice would say "the caller is in the house!!!"

  • What is the point to dial a number to find out the time when you can just look at the screen first and see the time? They need an app for that. "Hey Siri, what time is it?" "U.S. Naval Observatory Master Clock. At the tone, the Eastern daylight time - 14 hours, 20 minutes exactly."

    • What is the point to dial a number to find out the time when you can just look at the screen first and see the time? They need an app for that. "Hey Siri, what time is it?" "U.S. Naval Observatory Master Clock. At the tone, the Eastern daylight time - 14 hours, 20 minutes exactly."

      my apartment building has a clock built in. I just pound on the wall and a voice from the wall says "It's 4 in the morning, dammit!"

  • I used to do this (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Blue23 ( 197186 ) on Sunday June 26, 2016 @02:22PM (#52393943) Homepage

    I worked for the company that used to provide this service (and a lot fo other 800, 866 and 900 numbers) for the NJ and NYC areas.

    It was fascinating equipment. Ancient but robust. It was a constantly turning magnetic drum that had the recording on it about 6 inches tall with a little oil reservoir on top that had to be filled every few months.

    It synced against the radio signal from the Navel Observatory, which was perfect but also perfectly useless. You see, there was a short delay induce by the phone lines, so if we let it set itself we'd get irate calls as people listened to it and the radio and they weren't synced. Yes, there are those people and out of the millions of population there are enough of them. So every time the time changed for daylight savings we'd set it, and then manually speed it up by a fraction of a second until it sounded right. Mind you it still wasn't perfect - the phone line induced delay varied by distance and number of trunks, but it was close enough.

    Remarkable gear. Never lost time after we set it.

    • I worked for the company that used to provide this service (and a lot fo other 800, 866 and 900 numbers) for the NJ and NYC areas.

      It was fascinating equipment. Ancient but robust. It was a constantly turning magnetic drum that had the recording on it about 6 inches tall with a little oil reservoir on top that had to be filled every few months.

      If you want something approaching steampunk, the UK had a speaking clock system using 1930s technology:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

      The Australian system was installed in the 1950s and is more compact and easier to see working, but the basic mechanism is the same:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • It synced against the radio signal from the Navel Observatory, which was perfect but also perfectly useless.

      Was it always questioning whether it was telling the right time?

  • As a family without the money to replace the TV, I think the service to call the time was used much longer in our household. In the early 80's people started getting TVs with teletext https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] and from our national broadcasting service, the time in the teletext status line were accurate enough to use for adjustment of any clock.

  • ...but it costs 1.90 euro for each call [www.tim.it]. My smartphone has of course an app for the clock, but curiosly the time transmitted by the telecom provider is often out of sync with the ntp server I access through the same provider, using their data service.
    My old wristwatch is however my preferred source for time information, followed by a few sundials I come across during my commuting...living in rural Italy has some benefits, isn't it ?!?

  • Time and Temperature. Time speaking. (Score:5, Funny)

    by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Sunday June 26, 2016 @03:02PM (#52394131)

    Years ago, in Pittsburgh, the number for the Time (and Temperature) was 391-9500 and reached the local power company, Duquesne Light. It still is, but you need to add the 412 area code now. It is still my "go to" number for testing a phone line when I don't want to bother a friend.

    I had a small business and we added a private unlisted line. The installer wasn't even out the door yet when we got our first wrong number call on it. Wrong numbers continued throughout the afternoon and evening. People wouldn't say anything, they would just hang up. Finally I managed to get someone to talk to me, and they told me what number they were calling. It was 391-9500. Our new number was 931-9500. It hit me. We were getting an incredible number of wrong numbers where people transposed the first two digits trying to call for the time.

    After I understood what the issue was the line became a lot of fun. If you answered the phone with "Hi. What time is it?" people usually knew what time it was and would tell you. If you answered with "Time and Temperature. Time speaking" you could often strike up a long conversation. I often told the story of how I screwed up and put my lunch on the tape reels of the time announcing machine and now my boss was making me answer all of the calls and give the time until the machine was fixed.

    The power company would start each call with a little promo message such as "Electricity is your biggest bargain. Electric time is ..". I enjoyed answering in my best announcer voice "We can raise your rates whenever we want and there is nothing that you can do about it. Electric time is ...". I fondly remember one caller saying to someone else after that message "Boy, they are getting rude".

    • It is still my "go to" number for testing a phone line when I don't want to bother a friend.

      I would instead recommend these:

        (909) 390-0003 Echo-back line (for testing latency)

        (415) 437-4880 SF Public library, Dial-a-story

    • Either that or look at the top of the Gulf Tower to find out the weather.

      But my personal favorite is Dial-A-Song, of course. 718-387-6962.

      Not quite the same now that it is on the internet, but still fun. http://www.dialasong.com/ [dialasong.com]

  • Coca-Cola (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Deadstick ( 535032 ) on Sunday June 26, 2016 @03:22PM (#52394235)

    In my childhood in Miami, 1950's, you called "the Coca-Cola Lady"...she delivered a short pitch for Coke, then gave the time.

  • I'm that old (Score:3)

    by bobjr94 ( 1120555 ) on Sunday June 26, 2016 @04:30PM (#52394523) Homepage
    I remember way back before the internet if you needed to know what time the movies were at, you called the theaters movie hotline. If you didn't catch the weather on last nights news, you could call your local tv stations weather hotline for a recording of the forecast. At the store they use to manually imprint your credit card with out knowing if the card was even valid, turn that slip into their bank in the next 3-5 days, the bank would process the transaction.
  • I remember Indian telephone service used to have alarm service. Call, them book the time, and the phone would ring at the appointed time. I remember time service, we used to use it often. My dad worked for the P&T and we had an unmetered line.

  • Peer-to-peer Time service (Score:3)

    by drfuchs ( 599179 ) on Sunday June 26, 2016 @06:33PM (#52395123)
    "Whenever it's too dark to see the clock, you can just call any random number. Whoever answers always says 'Are you crazy? It's 3:45 in the morning!'" - A comedian I can't recall

  • Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, on their album Dazzle Ships, had this wonderful mashup [youtu.be]. They called "time" from many time zones and synced them together. Give it a listen - it's short and sweet, and leaves you wanting more.

  • We would dial the letters "popcorn" in So. California on the General Telephone network to get the time recording.

  • Nobody else remembers Ford Prefect doing this to somebody in one of the HHGG books?

  • Thrilled to see so many people remember this, plus so many that know about WWV and shortwave. Fantastic group here!

  • NIST time: 303-499-7111

  • Remember WWV? (Score:3)

    by judoguy ( 534886 ) on Monday June 27, 2016 @10:03AM (#52398503) Homepage
    In the 60's I'd be scanning the shortwave frequencies and run across WWV [nist.gov]and it always made me pause. A station that just tick-tocked and then some dude would say the time and start tick-tocking again. I knew what it was but it always made me stop for a moment. It was just sort of surreal.

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