I remember the kids in my first-grade class talking about what the star and pound keys were for: automatic redial. It sounded so wonderfully futuristic!

And when the telephone switching system in our area was upgraded (when I was in seventh grade), it took some time to get used to the instant connection created by the touch-tone dial. Previously, you dialled (even with push-buttons) and heard clicking rotary sounds, followed by a pause of two seconds while the connection was found and created. With the new system, the phone on the other end started ringing as soon as you pushed the seventh digit (sometimes the phone was picked up even before the caller heard a ring tone!). It was unsettling to lose the brief pause during which we had been accustomed to mentally preparing ourselves to greet the other party.

Seven digits… those were the days before the Los Angeles area was divided up into 213, 818, 323 and 310 area codes. Now, dialling an area code is mandatory, even when the number being called is in your same code.