Martin Underwood wrote:


As I understand it, 999 was chosen in the UK partly because it consisted of
high digits and there fore was unlikely to be dialled by accident using old
pulse-dial phones. 112 is much easier to dial this way by accident - eg
random shorting or make/break of the phone line. So how come it wasn't an
issue for Europe if it was for the UK? Had mainland European countries
already turned off pulse-dialling at their exchanges by the time 112 was
chosen?

I have a vague recollection of hearing that the UK originally wanted to
go with 111 as the emergency number (so it was quick to dial in an
emergency) but that the early telephone wires could sometimes
automatically dial 111 if the wind hit them right.
Probably rubbish though.



--
To contact me take a davidhowdon and add a @yahoo.co.uk to the end.

Jonathan Morris wrote:
Clive wrote:

I've an old mobile without a sim card in it but it will still make 112
calls when dialled.


Really? TTBOMK not a single network in the UK (real or 'virtual')
allows calls without a SIM. Or did you do this abroad?

It will certainly accept the number and say "Emergency Call" but will
not connect IME.

Which is actually rather worrying since (other than by making an
unjustified call to the number) there is no way of checking this in
advance and somebody with such a phone might assume they can rely on it
in an emergency.

--
To contact me take a davidhowdon and add a @yahoo.co.uk to the end.

David Howdon" "davidhowdon[nospam] wrote in
:

Martin Underwood wrote:


As I understand it, 999 was chosen in the UK partly because it
consisted of high digits and there fore was unlikely to be dialled
by accident using old pulse-dial phones. 112 is much easier to dial
this way by accident - eg random shorting or make/break of the phone
line. So how come it wasn't an issue for Europe if it was for the
UK? Had mainland European countries already turned off
pulse-dialling at their exchanges by the time 112 was chosen?

I have a vague recollection of hearing that the UK originally wanted
to go with 111 as the emergency number (so it was quick to dial in an
emergency) but that the early telephone wires could sometimes
automatically dial 111 if the wind hit them right.
Probably rubbish though.

Presumably it's still the case that momentary breaks/shorts on the line can
dial 112 - and that this will continue until exchanges are modified to turn
off pulse-dialling.

David Howdon typed

I have a vague recollection of hearing that the UK originally wanted to
go with 111 as the emergency number (so it was quick to dial in an
emergency) but that the early telephone wires could sometimes
automatically dial 111 if the wind hit them right.
Probably rubbish though.

No, not rubbish.

Ghosts in the machine would still bleep me on 'one, one, one, one' when
I started working in 1981.

--
Helen D. Vecht:
Edgware.

"David Howdon" wrote in
message ...
Martin Underwood wrote:


As I understand it, 999 was chosen in the UK partly because it consisted
of high digits and there fore was unlikely to be dialled by accident
using old pulse-dial phones. 112 is much easier to dial this way by
accident - eg random shorting or make/break of the phone line. So how
come it wasn't an issue for Europe if it was for the UK? Had mainland
European countries already turned off pulse-dialling at their exchanges
by the time 112 was chosen?
I have a vague recollection of hearing that the UK originally wanted to go
with 111 as the emergency number (so it was quick to dial in an emergency)
but that the early telephone wires could sometimes automatically dial 111
if the wind hit them right.
Probably rubbish though.



Not at all, particularly with pulse dialling as in the old phones (which
still work of course). 111 could be randomly produced by fault conditions.
112 less likely because the '2' would require more exact timing.

Paul

In message , Clive D. W. Feather
writes
[At least one other country had its dials backwards to ours, so that
"9" was 1 pulse and "1" was 9 pulses, and therefore used 111 as the
emergency number.]

New Zealand? One of their dials turned up on an internal line in a
gallery at London Weekend Television's South Bank studios in the 1980s.
No one could ever explain how it managed to get there, either.......

--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

Clive Feather :
[At least one other country had its dials backwards to ours, so that
"9" was 1 pulse and "1" was 9 pulses, and therefore used 111 as the
emergency number.]

Ian Jelf:
New Zealand?

Right. The same dial is/was used in Oslo, Norway. (Just Oslo.)
In Sweden they also use/used a reversed dial, but with 0 in its
proper sequential position, so the same pulse sequence would be 222.
I don't know about emergency numbers in either place (before 112).

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 most countries
0-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 New Zealand and Oslo
9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-0 Sweden
--
Mark Brader | "And don't forget there were five separate computers
| in those days."
Toronto | -- Bob NE20G3018 (Ira Levin, "This Perfect Day")

"Mark Brader" wrote in message
...
Clive Feather :
[At least one other country had its dials backwards to ours, so that
"9" was 1 pulse and "1" was 9 pulses, and therefore used 111 as the
emergency number.]

Ian Jelf:
New Zealand?

Right. The same dial is/was used in Oslo, Norway. (Just Oslo.)
In Sweden they also use/used a reversed dial, but with 0 in its
proper sequential position, so the same pulse sequence would be 222.
I don't know about emergency numbers in either place (before 112).

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 most countries
0-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 New Zealand and Oslo
9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-0 Sweden

As you would expect, the emergency number in NZ is 111. When the US
'911'-type TV programs started showing, 911 was added. I don't know about
112.


--
Errol Cavit |
If you took the whole of Norway, scrunched it up a bit, shook out all the
moose and reindeer, hurled it 10,000 miles around the world and filled it
with birds then you'd be wasting your time because it looks very much like
someone has already done it.
Douglas Adams, describing Fiordland, _Last Chance to See_

Clive Feather:
[At least one other country had its dials backwards to ours, so that
"9" was 1 pulse and "1" was 9 pulses, and therefore used 111 as the
emergency number.]

Ian Jelf:
New Zealand?

Mark Brader:
Right. The same dial is/was used in Oslo...

Errol Cavit:
As you would expect, the emergency number in NZ is 111.

Yes, that's what I said.
--
Mark Brader | "In a perfect world, the person of authority responds
Toronto | to needs rather than to demands. That's not the way
| the system works, though." --Tony Cooper

Mark Brader wrote:

David FitzGerald:
112 is the international standard emergency number. It works almost
anywhere in the world. ...

My understanding is that it is only a European standard. I'm confident
enough that it doesn't work here to try it -- and I've just confirmed
that it doesn't. If you can cite anything official saying that it is
a world standard, I'd be interested to see it.

Martin Underwood:
Has Europe always just had 112?

Certainly not. I think it was a new innovation about 10-15 years ago.

As I understand it, 999 was chosen in the UK partly because it consisted of
high digits and there fore was unlikely to be dialled by accident using old
pulse-dial phones.

Also, the 9 hole could be easily found in the dark -- an advantage of
your 999 over our 911.

But the 0 hole is even easier to find in the dark, so why didn't they go
with 000 like Australia did?

ISTR reading an Australian news report a few years ago that said there
had been problems with 000 accidentally getting dialed on mobile phones,
and also on hotel phones (where people mistakenly thought they had to
dial 0 to get an outside line). So 000 would cease to be dialable from
those sources. IIRC 112 was the replacement number, though they would
also accept 0000.

It made me think that maybe that's the reason other countries didn't
start their emergency number with 0, until I found out that it was
common overseas to have to dial 9 for an outside line!

--
Aidan Stanger
http://www.bettercrossrail.co.uk