Subj : Re: Real Modem on VOIP?
To   : Bo Holt
From : Kurt Weiske
Date : Thu Sep 10 2026 08:10 am

-=> Bo Holt wrote to Sean Dennis <=-

 BH> I've got to find my meter.  I also need to check my DMARC to see if
 BH> there is still a line out to the pole.  My house is huge and built in
 BH> 1928 so there are about a hundred years' worth of old phone wiring
 BH> (face palm).

I was just thinking about the phone line when I first started
realitycheckBBS. This was 1991, I was living in an old 1930s 5 story
apartment building in San Francisco. I ordered a phone line and paid for
the inside line installation - I think it was $75 for the first 30
minutes and a charge after that.

I didn't know much about wiring back then, thought everything was 2 pair
telco wire and they could pull the outside pair to get the second dial
tone in. This building had old solid, fabric-wrapped wire.

I don't know what possessed the installer. Maybe he liked me. Maybe he
called BBSes. He brought telco wire up from the basement DMARC through
the garbage chute, then down the wall, over 2 door frames and into my
apartment through lath and plaster. Was there probably an hour and a
half, charged me the $75 only.

Luckily, I had a walk-in closet against the outside wall of the
apartment - I had room to put the BBS in there. I had to pull power from
the overhead light fixture with one of those outlets that screwed into
the light socket, but it all worked.



.... Potatoes are a social construct.
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