Chamblee54

It is a question for the ages…why do telephones have 123 on the top row of the keypad, while computers have 789? The best answer is , we don’t know.
Calculator/computer keypads were an improvement on cash registers. These devices had a matrix of buttons, with the 9 row on top. The row at the far right had single digits, and the row next to them had digits ending in one zero. To ring up a sale for $1.95, you had to push 100, 90, and 5. This evolved into the adding machine configuration of three rows of three buttons, with 0 on the bottom row and 789 on the top row.
When we got started, the telephone used a dial. 1 was at the top, and 0 was at the bottom. The early phone systems used letters as part of the phone number. The first three letters of the seven digit code were two letters and five numbers. (This is what PG remembers from childhood. It may have been different before then).
The two letters referred to an exchange, or part of town where the number was located. The two letters referred to a word. An example would be PG’s grandmother. Her number was TR2 2345. The TR stood for Trinity. Many numbers in midtown Atlanta still start with 87.
In the sixties, ma bell started to develop a keypad to use for what were then called push button phones. In a break with the adding machine tradition, the numbers 123 went on the top row. There are a few ideas why this is, but nothing is certain.
In the early days, the phone switching equipment was not as fast as today. Some thought that by switching the numbers to the top of the keypad, people would have to slow down a bit to “dial” the number. This answer does not make sense to those of us who have grown up with these keypads, and who learned to punch in numbers fast, no matter what system is used. (Anyone using a rotary phone, after getting used to touch tone, is shocked at how slow it is.)
Another concept is the phone company wanting to model the new keypad after the dial phones. This would mean putting the 1 at the top, and 0 at the bottom. Also, with the letters assigned to each number, it would make a lot more sense to have 123/abc def ghi on the top row.
It was suggested that the calculator keypad was patented in the 789-on-top format. Western Electric did not want to pay royalties on this important piece of equipment, so it designed another one. There is also the thought that the calculator was on a desk shelf, where the lower numbers should be at the bottom of the keypad. At the same time, the telephone was on the lower part of the desk, and having 123 on top would be easier to use.
This is a repost. This comment was left on facebook, after the first post.
I won’t pretend to know exactly their reasons, but I will say that I can see some logic in doing it this way. In a numerical context (calculator/computer), you’d want zero next to one, which is where it is in the number sequence. However on… a telephone, 0 has a special meaning: call the operator (at least, it used to mean this).
The guys at Bell Labs took this into consideration when they implemented the “touch tone” or DTMF dialing system. Old style pulse dialing was annoying because it would literally send a pulse for each number (two pulses for two, nine pulses for nine, etc). I meant larger numbers took longer. To change this, and also in anticipation of the fact that eventually phones would be connected to computers, they instead put all the numbers on a grid with each row and column assigned a unique frequency. Each key on the pad combined the two frequencies to produce a tone. In order to accommodate ten numbers, you need a grid of at least 4X3, which they actually increased to 4×4 because they wanted some additional tones (A-D) for extra network functionality.
Pictures are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”
This is written like Douglas Adams.

A recent podcast dealt with the New York accent. Someone did a study, where sales clerks were encouraged to say the phrase “fourth floor”. “He knew where the men’s suits were but he was trying to get people to say the words “fourth floor” to see if they dropped the Rs and said “fawth flaw.”
Twenty years later, and eight hundred miles south, PG was driving a truck for Redo Blue. One of the leading customers was a firm on West Peachtree Street. If you listened to the delivery radio, you would hear people say “Eerie eerie foth flow, eerie eerie sack and flow.” The driver knew to go to Heery Heery, both on the fourth floor, and the second floor.
In Georgia, people have their own way of saying four. The black people say fo, as in friend or foe. The white people make up for the R dropping elsewhere, and say fo-er.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. The spell check suggestion for fawth is faith.

It started when PG got an email from a longtime friend. He has recently produced a book of photographs, something in my eye. On the last page is a statement: “All photographs in this photo journal are taken exactly as the Camera and I see them. Life is much more interesting without alteration.” The wheels of thought started to spin. If you saw a mushroom cloud rising over Peachtree Industrial Boulevard, that might have been it.
PG sent a reply, “I disagree with the concept that life is more interesting when it is not altered. The world is big enough to handle both points of view.” The next morning there was a reply. “your alteration is completely different and stands alone on its own excellent merit and as its own artform. I mean reversing pix, airbrushing etc. I would not even use the word altered on your artwork. Maybe surgically enhanced! but you know what I mean. Your stuff by altered becomes something that is creating something completely new and original.”
As the reader(s) of this blog know, PG likes to play with pictures. It is a good hobby. No talent or education is required. The software is a free download. Have fun, and don’t spill your beverage.
When the blogging thing started, PG had a dial up connection. When you upload 4kb a second, you like to keep the file size down. One way is to reduce the image to the size the blog has room for. The typical picture today starts at 2048×1536(pixels), with 666 kb of memory. If you reduce this to 720×540, the file size drops to 198kb.
The image size needs to be adjusted to go anywhere. Negatives have been replaced with code. If you are going to put out a dead tree book, you need to find a size for the image. The same goes for a blog.
You don’t have to use the entire image. Most raw images have parts that are not interesting. PG likes to use the golden rectangle (1612:1000) as a default when he crops images. This is usually more pleasing to the eye than the 4:3 ratio used by most cameras.
Most images can use some work in addition to cropping. Level adjustment and color balancing can add to almost every picture made. What the camera sees is often different from what the eye sees. The mechanical tool can use some help.
The camera has always been an adjustable tool. The settings, whether manual or automatic, play a role in how the device records the image. The way the image is rendered for viewing can change it’s content. Ansel Adams is as famous for his darkroom skills as he is for his photography.
Does anyone remember those memorex commercials? (The person who cleaned up the broken glass does.) The voice over says ” is it live, or is it memorex?.” When the commercial played on tv, it was a reel to reel tape, from an unknown manufacturer. The tape used was usually the one the producer got for the lowest price. The spell check suggestion for memorex is memorize.
The memorex ad is a bit quaint today. Cassettes have been replaced by compact discs, which were replaced by the MP3. A recording studio has all sorts of gizmos to corrupt correct the original. The recording studio has long been a creative instrument, rather than a facility for catching sound waves. The same is true of the camera.
There is nothing wrong with trying to get the reproduced image as close to natural as possible. The world is indeed an interesting place. It is just that the technology which is available to anyone with an internet connection, can change what the camera sees to more like what the human being saw. It can also create beautiful images that found their starting point in the original.
The pictures for this post are by chamblee54, and were taken March 18, 2011. The first four were taken on a walk through Chamblee GA. The second one illustrates where manipulation tools can give the illusion of reality. It is almost impossible to photograph a rectangular object and have all the lines come out evenly. This picture was cropped with the no smoking sign in the middle. GIMP has a tool which allows you to pull out the sides. This enables you to have the borders appear to be portrayed as flat lines with ninety degree angles.
These pictures are presented today in the order in which they are shot. This is another option the presenter has. That evening, PG went to a discussion group. The best comments were by a dog. After that, the group went to a bar. The facility next door had a drag show, with the performers waiting on the sidewalk before they went in. This adds a new dimension to the concept of real versus altered.