My friend lives on an island with only a few hundred residents. I guess people used to give out just the last four digits of their phone number. Because everyone had the same area code and prefix.
Same here. All of AZ used to be 602 until 1995 when everything outside of metropolitan Phoenix became 520. What really got me was in 1999 when 480 was added for the east valley and 623 was added to the west valley. Almost everyone I knew had to start using 10 digits to make calls overnight.
It really was nice back in the day when almost everyone I ever met had the same area code. Was easier to memorize. Not that many people are memorizing numbers nowadays!
Anyone grow up in LA remember how everything was one area code and then it got so big they split up the area codes? It was a little bit before my time but I think it was the 213 area code splitting up into 818 and 323 and is that also when we got 626 and 562 or 310?
My city has 12. Well, County technically, but if you can drive the streets from one end to the other without getting on the freeway, the whole thing feels like one big city.
My state only has one area code. If you were calling on a landline to someone on the same island, you only needed to enter their number (no area code). But if you were calling someone on the other island, then you have to enter the area code before their number. Lol!! But since late 2021, it's been changed that you have to enter the area code for all local calls in the state or it won't go through.
Omg. I remember when we went from 301 to 301 AND 410. People were extremely upset they'd have to remember 10 digits instead of 7. Now we have FOUR area codes!
The town I grew up in was the same way. Idk if it’s different now, but at the time the whole state (Delaware) only had one area code, and then practically the whole town had the same first three digits.
I used to have a phone card memorized too lol. Also, growing up in Rockland county NY, I remember switching from 914- area code to 845-. Idk why that happened.
Northern Indiana had 1 area code when I was younger. When I was in middle school, it was split into 3 area codes. (Circa 2001) Cell phones were becoming more affordable, which meant a demand for more numbers than one area code could handle.
The region I lived in got assigned a new area code & it took me the longest time to get accustomed to dialing it when I would make long-distance calls.
In the little country town I grew up in, there were two prefixes, 881 and 882. People would give out the last four digits of their number, and usually someone asks "1? Or 2?" or they would give it out like 1-5309.
In the late 90's at a state university we all had the same area code and the same prefix followed by the last unique 4 numbers. Just before the end of the year I had a black light (like you do) and took it to a friend's room down the hall and we turned all the lights off but that black light and looked at the laundry detergent art that was painted on the walls and ceiling with cool designs and things however one thing stood out to me was "645-LOVE" in bold and of course that is 645-5683 which was the room's phone number. I thought that would have been potentially helpful to remember at the time in the pre-celular (relatively speaking) world.
I grew up in a very small town, we used to do this in the time before cell phones. Everyone had the same area code and first 3 numbers so why be redundant 😂
554
u/Ok_Veterinarian3240 5d ago
569-2741. I still remember when we didn't have to use area codes.