Why are phone numbers written with a preceding “1” in the US? It seems irrelevant to dialing (eg, “800-...” is equivalent to “1-800-...”) If it’s a country code, why isn’t the + written?
Back in the 70s and 80s, 1 just meant "dialing long distance, I am about to dial the area code next". Most calls would just be 7 digits, for local phone numbers. The 1 indicated that you were going to put an area code first.
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And if you put in a 1 you knew you were subject to long-distance billing, etc (or in the case of 800 numbers, no billing). Whether this was chosen to coincide with the country code, I don't know.
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hey Jonathon have you seen that incredible video about phone phreaking, that seems just like the type of tech wizardry that you'd be into
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Also, at that time, 1 meant direct dialing, while 0 meant operator assisted. I am pretty sure that you can still make an 0+ collect call on a payphone.
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I remember that there were some areas where you had to dial 1+ a seven digit number if it was outside your LATA. All that went away when we went to universal 10 digit dialing.
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