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I am sorry but your story is more myth than fact.

I would actually be inclined to give the grandparent the benefit of the doubt for his story. Sure, 'modern' rotary dial phones are good at mechanically limiting how fast the dial returns to its starting position, but I wouldn't be surprised if there existed older phones that weren't quite as resistant to the described abuses. Even though it would generate the appropriate number of pulses on the line, it's possible that more closely-spaced pulses would come too fast for the telphone company's equipment to handle.

Remember, the switches were electromechanical beasts--Strowger switches--that could only tick through digits so quickly. Some neat pictures here, and an explanatory note here. So slightly erratic spacing of pulses is well-tolerated--the switch still advanced one digit per pulse. Pulses too close together will fail, because the mechanical components of the switch won't keep up.

Modern switches convert the current pulses to digital signals, which obviously can be parsed and routed at effectively unlimited speeds (compared to the rate at which they can be dialled).

I wouldn't be surprised if the person in the story had actually physically damaged the phone components through forcing the dial that way, too.

hash, pound, sharp, tic-tac-toe...

Actually, take a close look at the picture. It is an RJ-12. A reference page on phone connectors.

To me, it will always be F-octothorpe!

a little off topic, but as long as we're talking about the octothorpe

The second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary does not list "octothorpe" as an existing word. However, google knows more than the OED ever could, and a search for the string "octothorpe" yields the origin of the word "octothorpe" as its third hit.

The upshot (for those of you who don't read articles outside of /.) is that "octothorpe" is a word that was invented (whimsically constituted) by Bell Labs research head Don MacPherson in the early 1960s.

The symbol #, chosen as one of two data input keys for computer access over phones, had not been named. MacPherson was giving presentations on the use of phones for computer access and decided to come up with a name. "Octo" comes from the fact that a # symbol has eight points, while "thorpe" derives from the name of Olympic medalist Jim Thorpe. MacPherson was on a committee attempting to have Thorpe's medals returned from Sweden.

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Oh, and regarding Microsoft's pantenting of .NET technologies. There's nothing necessarily good or bad about it, but given Microsoft's history we should be prepared for the worst. (Now who's saying "All your base?)

But if Microsoft are smart, they will realize that the best way to get and maintain market share (which is different than a monopoly) in an open source wolrd is to facilitate the distribution of the use and licensing of their patented technologies, with free beer if necessary.

C Pound does sound stupid, but so does "C Hash" or "C Octothorpe". :-) ON

By the way, why did those loonie Britons use a goofy character for money that can't be represented by ASCII? :-) OFF (for the humor impaired)

Is BT Government-run like the BBC or are they a completely private entity?

BT is a private company.

More info here, should you have a great desire to know the full details.

BTW, BT is in real trouble financially, and it's busy trying to carve up and sell off its parts. (Mobile bit, wireless bit, broadband bit).

J