Circa 1990

I remember it clearly¹.

My father and I were on a bus going to Seremban. He talked about his experiences in the army. His rank was Lance Corporal and in charged of the telecommunication. He said when they were on a mission, they would bring along a phone. This phone would have its cable cut off.

He said after you cut the cable, it exposed two separate lines, copper wires. He then tied up those lines to two pins, one for each line. If they need to make phone calls they would find a public phone. Get the public phone’s cable and jab the pins in so the pins would touch those copper wires inside.

If you hear a dial tone. You are good to go.

I didn’t think much about it back then. I was just a kid, excited to hear stories about soldiers. Little did I know that this knowledge would come back and got me into all sort of troubles 7 years later.