Fifty (or so) years ago…
- Yuri Gagarin circled the earth.
- Pampers were invented.
- The San Fernando Valley was on the cusp of all-digit (7 digit vs. Prefix+5 digit) dialing. As a result…
“Creeping numeralism” already has its index finger in the telephone dial and the whole area is in line for a plague of “wrong numbers,” if we don’t stand up and and be counted – or lettered, that is.
That’s the basic gripe of the Anti-Digit Dialing League, champion of the familiar telephone exchanges like State and Triangle and foe of the telephone company’s plan to take away our letters and replace them with numerals.
The league, rallying all able-bodied persons who can’t remember more than five numbers in a row, has organized a Los Angeles chapter and already boasts 500 bearers of the ADDL banner. “They’re reducing us all to numbers,” said Kent H. Gould of North Hollywood, chairman of the new Los Angeles chapter. “Someplace we’ve got to make a stand.”
There are Social Security numbers, service numbers, bank account numbers, house numbers and generally too many numbers for anyone to remember, he said. (July 29, 1962)
So which changed the world for the better, and which for the worse?
P.S.: Did you know that one in four office workers reckon that the best way to get a new work computer is to smash up the one they have?
