[ih] Harasing whistlers (Was: [TUHS] UUCP mis-history?)

[Noel Chiappa]

From: "Steve Johnson"
This reminds me of a story from that era. One of the mainframe computers
had the ability to place phone calls and a program was run every night
to collect data from far-flung teletypes [which had been pre-loaded with
data tapes]. ... On day the operators realized that there were two
phone numbers in Nebraska that were getting called every weekday night,
and the numbers were very similar. They suspected one was a wrong
number, so they listened in on the calls to see which one was real. The
phone rang in Nebraska at 2am and was answered by a sleepy man .. The
man was heard to say "It's all right, Bertha. It's just that nut with a
whistle again!"

Interesting: I've heard this same story, but told about TIPs and the ARPANET.
A computer at BBN was set up to regularly dial all the TIP modem lines, to
check that they were working. One line was always down, so they listened in,
and heard some human say "it's just that pevert with the whistle again".

I wonder which one was the original: anyone know for sure?

Noel

[Alex McKenzie]

I remember the story  from my days in charge of the ARPAnet Network Operation Center at BBN.  We had deduced that some of the TIP modem numbers we had were probably incorrect because some of them never answered, so we were listening to the calls made by the autodialer.  However, I was not the person on the phone, and I don't recall exactly what was said by the person who answered the phone.
Cheers,Alex


From: Noel Chiappa <***@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
To: internet-***@postel.org; ***@tuhs.org
Cc: ***@mercury.lcs.mit.edu
Sent: Thursday, March 9, 2017 10:06 AM
Subject: Re: [ih] Harasing whistlers (Was: [TUHS] UUCP mis-history?)

    > From: "Steve Johnson"

    > This reminds me of a story from that era. One of the mainframe computers
    > had the ability to place phone calls and a program was run every night
    > to collect data from far-flung teletypes [which had been pre-loaded with
    > data tapes].  ...  On day the operators realized that there were two
    > phone numbers in Nebraska that were getting called every weekday night,
    > and the numbers were very similar.  They suspected one was a wrong
    > number, so they listened in on the calls to see which one was real.  The
    > phone rang in Nebraska at 2am and was answered by a sleepy man ..  The
    > man was heard to say "It's all right, Bertha.  It's just that nut with a
    > whistle again!"

Interesting: I've heard this same story, but told about TIPs and the ARPANET.
A computer at BBN was set up to regularly dial all the TIP modem lines, to
check that they were working. One line was always down, so they listened in,
and heard some human say "it's just that pevert with the whistle again".

I wonder which one was the original: anyone know for sure?

    Noel

[John Day]

Yes, Noel is correct the story comes from the BBN NOC for the ARPANET and them checking out TIP dial up lines.

John

Post by Noel Chiappa

From: "Steve Johnson"
This reminds me of a story from that era. One of the mainframe computers
had the ability to place phone calls and a program was run every night
to collect data from far-flung teletypes [which had been pre-loaded with
data tapes]. ... On day the operators realized that there were two
phone numbers in Nebraska that were getting called every weekday night,
and the numbers were very similar. They suspected one was a wrong
number, so they listened in on the calls to see which one was real. The
phone rang in Nebraska at 2am and was answered by a sleepy man .. The
man was heard to say "It's all right, Bertha. It's just that nut with a
whistle again!"

Interesting: I've heard this same story, but told about TIPs and the ARPANET.
A computer at BBN was set up to regularly dial all the TIP modem lines, to
check that they were working. One line was always down, so they listened in,
and heard some human say "it's just that pevert with the whistle again".
I wonder which one was the original: anyone know for sure?
Noel
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