No More POP-CORN After Sept 19th - AT&T Time Service Ending

All things come to an end and it looks like the time of day service that has been offered by one company or another since 1929 is ending. On Sept 19th, you will no longer get the time of day when you call POP-CORN in Northern California. Or 853-XXXX in Southern California.

The move will allow AT&T to retire aging equipment that they said can no longer be repaired. Probably more importantly, it allows for 300,000 phone numbers to be freed up.

While I'm saddened to hear of this bit of comfort technology getting put out to pasture, it's interesting to read about the device that is used to produce the time recordings. It's not digitized. It's some funky series of drums that turn and churn out the recorded time.

LA Times: Time of day calling it quits at AT&T
Sacramento Bee: No more dialing 'POPCORN' to get time after Sept. 19

They were talking about retiring this a couple of years ago. I recently got a new phone number, and I get daily phone calls from health care providers for the old owner. It's really annoying, and you would think you'd tell your doctors, etc. that you have a new phone number. So I feel sorry for people who get any of the new POP #s because people will surely still try to call those #s for the time. I used it the last time there was a power outage so I could update my clocks.

I had to change my phone number because some machine kept trying to fax us at 5 AM. Since it was a MACHINE and Caller ID was rendered useless (as it pretty much always is when a telemarketer tries to call you -- *69 NEVER works if it's a telemarketer), there was no way to find out who it was to tell them to knock it off. With my old #, I also still got frequent calls for the old owner after having the # for 5 years. A lot of the people who called sounded like they were relatives or old friends of that person.

At least you didn't end up with the phone number of the governor of Michigan, Pam.

They're going to leave a recorded message on all of the "POPCORN" numbers for a year so people get the point that the service is no longer available.

You know, our house number must have been for some kind of medical clinic some years ago too or perhaps is one number off of the number for a medical clinic. We had a pretty bad problem with getting calls from people looking to talk shop with docs and case managers. We've had what sounded like home health nurses leave patient reports for doctors on our answering machine before.

About once a year, I get phone calls for a cabin in Tahoe on my cell phone. There's usually a flurry of them in a week or so and then the action dies down for another year.

On another cell phone number, I got calls for a burglar alarm company for a few months. People left funny messages about how they weren't sure how to use their burglar alarms.

A college student in So Cal recently got Paris Hilton's old cell number but is keeping the number cuz she finds it entertaining. I'd find it annoying as hell. Plus it seems to be a bit of an invasion of privacy as I'm finding out way more about the person/people who had the old number than I care to know (for the record, I care to know NOTHING about this other person.)

AutoFinder mistakenly printed my cell # a couple of times and I got calls from people asking about the cars I was selling. That was annoying too. I wonder if the guy who placed the ad ever figured it out and wondered why he didn't get any calls. I guess if he saw the ad with my #, hopefully he figured it out.

QUOTE (Sheldon @ Sep 1 2007, 11:08 PM)

On Sept 19th, you will no longer get the time of day when you call POP-CORN in Northern California.

If only they could have a little digital version, and you had to call POPCORN, not just 767 anything, considering the number of blackouts and brownouts that need all these microwave and whatnot resettings. That would still be 299,999 or so new phone numbers available.

Where are bands going to get their samples from now!?

It makes me sad. I'm VERY particular about my watches and whatnot being on the EXACT second, and I can't get that from my cellphone. I'll have to take my OCD-ness elsewhere.

People often think their computers and cell phones keep perfect time. Nope. Well, they keep pretty good time because most are synched with a time service, but for reasons that I don't fully understand, electronic devices tend to drift backwards... maybe every once in a while something interrupts the system clock. All I know is that every few weeks or so, I've got to recalibrate the server clock on the Social Wave server because it loses about a minute a week.

I just called POPCORN and someone is off. It's two minutes ahead of my supposedly-accurate computer clock.

Have you read the reader comments on the Sac Bee article?

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SEVILLAL at 9:08 AM PST Friday, August 31, 2007 wrote:

It makes me want to cry, I really liked listening to popcorn as a kid. Why? Does it bugg them that much, not a lot of people have cell phones or computers.

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LOL.

Here's another one:

joseflv at 12:14 PM PST Friday, August 31, 2007 wrote:

Get with the times? Pay corporations for what you don't need.

I don't have a cell phone because I don't need one, and I don't have cable because I rarely watch TV. Why pay for things that I don't need and don't use? Sorry, not everyone is your clone.

Question: if the power's out and your cell phone battery has died, what time is it? The power goes out in my area about once every other month. As soon as it's back on, I dial up POPCORN to reset the clocks and the answering machine. Guess I need a Plan B come September 20th...

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That one almost made me spit out the water I was drinking. If your power goes out every other month, I'd say it's time to move.

This post has been edited by mobyfan on Sep 4 2007, 04:14 PM

QUOTE (mobyfan @ Sep 4 2007, 03:03 PM)

If your power goes out every other month, I'd say it's time to move.

Hee hee hee- did you know that really happens though, if you live at Leigh and Hamilton? 4 years now, our power does go out that frequently. Several times it's transformers blowing, a few times it's a car running into one of those green boxes on the corner somewhere, sometimes it's a contruction mishap on Hamilton somehwhere nearby, sometimes no one knows.... We do not bother to program the microwaves anymore, but the new cable box without a clock is bothersome, since that would often reset itself.

QUOTE (mobyfan @ Sep 4 2007, 03:03 PM)

Have you read the reader comments on the Sac Bee article?

Whoa, people are really up in arms over this!

QUOTE

Sorry to see this feature disappear, it is one of the last things AT&T excels at.

I agree with ya pamzella, they should just keep it going with one number. How hard could it be to program something to repeatedly synch against atomic time and play the time recording on endless loop?

This might be something they end up bringing back like Equal sweetner. I didn't think there was much use for a time service anymore, but it seems that plenty of people are saying they use it. In the end, I guess it's also a culture thing and that just doesn't go away easily.

QUOTE (pamzella @ Sep 4 2007, 04:11 PM)

QUOTE (mobyfan @ Sep 4 2007, 03:03 PM) If your power goes out every other month, I'd say it's time to move. Hee hee hee- did you know that really happens though, if you live at Leigh and Hamilton?

I hope eBay, Jamba, and Whole Paycheck have their own backup generators. My friend is thinking of moving to that area. Should I dissuade him?

There were a couple of other similar comments in the Sac Bee article. Apparently the power goes out often in Sac -- someone said it went out at least once a month. One of the many reasons I'm glad I don't live there!

I wonder if someone could get the audio portions just to post online to an Atomic Clock function. At least we could still hear Joanne Daniels' voice when we wanted too.