Newfound Radio Shack Tone Dialer Takes Phreaking World By Storm

Inside sources in the electronic-store giant Radio Shack informed me today of an acquisition of an advanced tone dialer. The dialer, which is dubbed "Personal Data Directory with tone dialer," presents new possibilities for the phreaking community, which has heretofore used Radio Shack "33-Number Memory Pocket Tone Dialers" (Cat. No. 43-146) to create a device called a Red Box. The new tone dialer's catalog number is 65-721. The newer dialer's advantages over No. 43-146 include an LCD display, requires one less "AAA" battery, stores 75 entries which include a name and two phone numbers, and a built-in calculator, to name a few.

When I recieved this information, the Radio Shack Sales Associate also informed me that there was only one more dialer available. So, after a mad dash for my wallet and keys, which took an hour and a half, I rushed down to the store and bought 65-721. My luck was very great today; apparently Radio Shack is having a Christmastime sale, so the normally-40-dollar dialer was discounted at the beautiful price of $24.95. I seem to recall paying as much for the normal tone dialer.

I got home and popped the box open and, frankly, the dialer is fantastic sexy keen. It is physically smaller than the regualar tone dialer, but upon inspection of the inside of the unit, there is ample room for a larger crystal than the stock 3.58 -- it will be very easy to convert these dialers into Red Boxes. I plan on installing a switch between crystals so I can use the dialer normally. Whether or not the device will properly operate with the 6.5 crystal is unknown (this thing is a little more complicated than your average tone dialer), but I have a feeling it will. And what better way to display your X-mas colors than to build a Red box? Happy phreaking.

Written, photographed and HTML'd 18.56 PM 11.23.97 by pSYchrowRYthe