In case anyone is wondering, this is how old phones with rotary dials worked: you wound the dial to the digit you needed and the built-in mechanism would automatically wind it back; as it did it would momentarily disconnect the line as it passed each digit generating pulses that the exchange would count. If you still live somewhere where landline phones exist odds are this still works because the exchange maintains backwards compatibility with pulse dialling.
Up until about twenty years ago virtually every supermarket had a phone by the checkouts with a single pre-programmed button for a local taxi company; we used this trick all the time to call home, our mates, etc.
In case anyone is wondering, this is how old phones with rotary dials worked: you wound the dial to the digit you needed and the built-in mechanism would automatically wind it back; as it did it would momentarily disconnect the line as it passed each digit generating pulses that the exchange would count. If you still live somewhere where landline phones exist odds are this still works because the exchange maintains backwards compatibility with pulse dialling.
Up until about twenty years ago virtually every supermarket had a phone by the checkouts with a single pre-programmed button for a local taxi company; we used this trick all the time to call home, our mates, etc.