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From: sje!tom@pdx.mentor.com (Tom Ace)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Prophetic ROLM Ad
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Date: 9 Aug 89 20:10:10 GMT
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X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 284, message 6 of 9

A somewhat pompous full-page ad (lots of white space around a paragraph of
text) for ROLM appeared in the 8/7/89 NY Times. It suggested that something
special would happen to ROLM customers the next day.  (The ad's text is
reproduced at the end of this posting.)

Sure enough, when I got into work on Tuesday, several extensions in the
building, including mine, were making bizarre noises from the speakers in
their bases:  howls, fragments of various ringing tones, screeching noises,
and more.  We have a Rolm PBX.  The repairman told me a card in the PBX was
taken out by a power disturbance, and that we ought to have a power line
conditioner.  I told him a PBX ought to have a more tolerant power supply; he
smiled knowingly.  Dozens of computers in the same building (Apollos, Macs,
others) had no problems.

The same day, I called someone at another company in another state, and the
voice mail was broken in their Rolm PBX.  I found it amusing that all this
happened on the day mentioned in the ad:

"For just about everyone here in America, tomorrow, August the 8th, will be
just another Tuesday.  Alarm clocks will ring a little earlier than we'd like.
The newspaper will arrive too late to read.  Dressing the kids will take at
least twice as long as planned.  Three meetings will be scheduled for the
same time.  The lunch hour will only be 38 minutes.  A few of us will get a
raise.  There won't be enough hours in the day.  Someone will get a puppy for
their birthday when they were really hoping for a pony.  In other words, for
most everyone here in America, just another typical Tuesday. Everyone, that is,
except for the customers of ROLM."


Tom Ace
tom@sje.mentor.com
 ...!mntgfx!sje!tom