Dial To Replace Operators' Personal Attention As UNI., POR., Cease at 10 o'Clock Tomorrow

Cambridge is about to become a modern city; the dial telephone is coming in.

Although in general no specific into in history may be said to mark the change to a now era, the hour of 1.00 o'clock on the morning of December 2, 1934, will be recorded as the exception to the rule, for at that precise minute tomorrow the "cut-over" to the dial system takes places in Cambridge.

For months men have been working to get all in readiness for the big moment; installers have fitted out the modern equipment in the new central telephone building; new machines have been universally substituted for old; new directories have been prepared and held in readiness for the exact time of release.

Yet not only has all this come to pass, but the Company has further seen fit to give everyone who has a telephone a different number on a different exchange. Where before stood University and Porter, here are Trowbridge, Eliot, and Kirkland. Although at first this seems merely a further play on the part of the Company to befuddle the subscriber and make him mad, it is really a very logical institution.

Under the old system, if you asked the operator for University and were only reasonably lucky, you got University; but if you dial UNI, that doesn't mean the mother machine will give you University; far from it--you would probably get Union. But if you dial TRO, you will always get Trowbridge.

Harvard men may also be glad to learn that the Eliot exchange is outside the University walls, so that they won't have to dial ELA unless they particularly feel like it.

Of course the personal element of the old system, with its corresponding uncertainty, will be missed at first, but there are other considerations to make it forgotten. The dial telephone is one of the most versatile machines ever devised. It's much more fun to play with while awaiting a call. You can play roulette with it, you can do if one-handed, one-fingered, in fact a man in New York once called a number with his nose.