Granted, the “nickel and diming” of hotline numbers (1900, 0900, etc) was nowhere as bad as today’s cash shops, but a lot of us simply forgot they were always hungry for all our money
Here’s a bunch other hotline ads for you to peruse - https://www.retromags.com/gallery/category/1729-telephone-hotlines/
PS: I never understood these american numbers that used letters, how were you supposed to know what was the actual number?
These ads were in every gaming magazine I read back in the day. EGM, GamePro, Nintendo Power, etc.
My friends and I never called any of them even once due to fear of parents+phonebill. We all understood that at a very young age, ha.
I even had one rich kid friend, he never called these lines even.
I remember calling the LucasArts one for Day of the Tentacle back in the day. I don’t remember what I was stuck on exactly, I just remember hearing, “You’re playing with Hoagie in the past.” I think that’s the only game I ever called a hint line for.
Your phones don’t have letters on the buttons?
Long ago, before cell phones blew up how many numbers people used, American seven digit numbers were often referred to as a combination of letters and numbers. Below was a guide I how to translate the first three letters to a single word for numbers in Chicago
When each letter is in a different number, I can understand, but what about “TIPS”, both P and S are on 7, so it’d be 8477?
That kind of thing was never used in Brazil, though part of that could be explained by telephones being state controlled up until 1990 or so, people could wait years to get a line.
When each letter is in a different number, I can understand, but what about “TIPS”, both P and S are on 7, so it’d be 8477?
You got it!
You just press the number that has the letter, regardless of if the letter was in the beginning or the end, you just press the number wherever that letter is.
And if it’s longer than 11 digits, just stop.
1-900-737-ATARI
1-900-737-ATAR
I’ll go to the magazine isle of Walmart with a pen and paper like a normal person, thank you very much.
StarTropics for NES had a “letter from your uncle” in the manual, that you had to soak in water to reveal the submarine’s activation code when you reached Chapter 4. I think that was the only time we used the Nintendo tip line, because of a lost manual!
I meant to keep the note since it said to, but lost the damn thing before I got to the point where you need the code. Luckily, I tried “747” out of desperation, thinking of the airplane. Boy, was that a relief!
