Posted by Bruce A Clarke on January 24, 2001 at 03:49:27 from 203.149.1.59:
In Reply to: Copyright, Oscar Wilde etc. posted by John Wilson on January 23, 2001 at 13:34:07:
John,
I seem to remember from visiting NZ once in the rotary dial days that NZ telephones had their numbers backwards.
The topmost number was nine then eight etc to the bottommost number being zero.
I remember being told that this was so the emergency number at the time: 999, could be dialled most quickly.
In Australia the earliest number I remember was Bundernoon 3 before we moved to Sydney where we had JX 2191 which changed to 49 2191. In Sydney, the prefix numbers indicasted the geographic location in the city, the 4 numbers were the North Shore, the 6 numbers were the western suburbs, the 3 numbers were the eastern suburbs and the 9 numbers were the northern beaches. All very useful when meeting young ladies to know whether their homes were GI (geographically impossible).
Some of the prestigious companies in the city had 5 digit numbers such as 20543. I think all the 5 digit numbers started with 2 and included gov't departments.