Everybody is familiar with the popular 'Blue Box', but not many realize that
there are many different 'boxes' that have been created over the years. If I
have omitted any, please send me some email.
- Acrylic
- Steal Three-Way-Calling, Call Waiting and programmable Call Forwarding on old 4-wire phone systems
- Aqua
- Drain the voltage of the FBI lock-in-trace/trap-trace
- Beige
- Lineman's hand set
- Black
- Allows the calling party to not be billed for the call placed
- Blast
- Phone microphone amplifier
- Blotto
- Supposedly shorts every
phone out in the immediate area
- Blue
- Emulate a true operator by seizing a trunk with a 2600 Hz tone
- Bread
- Refers to an old scam in which a phone number will ring in two different locations, only one of which is known by the phone company. Often used by "bookies" to avoid police raids during the 1930's
- Brown
- Create a party line from 2 phone lines
- Bud
- Tap into your neighbors phone line
- Busy
- Renders the attached phone line inoperative; outside calls get a busy signal
- Chartreuse
- Use the electricity from your phone line
- Cheese
- Connect two phones to create a diverter
- Chrome
- Manipulate Traffic Signals by Remote Control
- Clear
- A telephone pickup coil and a small amp use to make free calls on Fortress Phones
- Color
- Line activated telephone recorder
- Copper
- Cause crosstalk interference on an extender
- Crimson
- Hold button
- Dark
- Re-route outgoing or incoming calls to another phone
- Day-Glo
- Connect to your neighbors phone line
- Diverter
- Re-route outgoing or incoming calls to another phone
- DLOC
- Create a party line from 2 phone lines
- Gold
- Dial-out router
- Grab
- Gives a greater range to wireless phones
- Gray/Grey
-
Combination Aqua, Chartreuse, and Brown (with 4-way calling)
- Green
- Emulate the Coin Collect, Coin Return, and Ringback tones
- Hallmark
- Generates payphone quarter tones using a Hallmark recordable greeting card
- Infinity
- Remotely activated phone tap
- Jack
- Touch-Tone key pad
- Light
- In-use light
- Lock
- Simulate FBI lock and trace
- Loud
- Increases the volume on your handset; for conference calls
- Lunch
- AM transmitter
- Magenta
- Connect a remote phone line to another remote phone line
- Mauve
- Phone tap without cutting into a line
- Neon
- External microphone
- Noise
- Create line noise
- Olive
- External ringer
- Party
- Create a party line from 2 phone lines
- Pearl
- Tone generator
- Pink
- Create a party line from 2 phone lines
- Plaid
- Allow Touch-Tone dialing on a pulse line
- Purple
- Telephone hold button
- Rainbow
- Kill a trace by putting 120v into the phone line (joke)
- Razz
- Tap into your neighbors phone
- Red
- Make free phone calls from pay phones by generating quarter tones
- Rock
- Add music to your phone line
- Scarlet
- Cause a neighbors phone line to have poor reception
- Silver
- Create the DTMF tones for A, B, C and D
- Snow
- Television
transmitter
- Static
- Keep the voltage on a phone line high (reduces static)
- Switch
- Add hold, indicator lights, conferencing, etc.
- Sword
- Combination Beige, Bud, and Day-Glo with enhancements
- Tan
- Line activated telephone recorder
- Tron
- Reverse the phase of power to your house, causing your electric meter to run slower
- TV Cable
- "See" sound waves on your TV
- Urine
- Create a capacitative disturbance between the ring and tip wires in another's telephone headset
- Violet
- Keep a payphone from hanging up
- White
- Portable DTMF keypad
- Yellow
- Add an extension phone
--> Back to the Esquire article.
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