My uncle, on my father's side, once took
me to the home of an inventor friend of his. This was in 1962. The
man lived on Belvedere Street, here in San Francisco. My uncle told
me this man had invented the Touch Tone phone. I don't know how I
knew about the Touch Tone phone, because it wasn't rolled out
publicly until 1962. The Touch Tone phone is technically a dual-tone
multi-frequency, as I learned later when I worked with Capt'n Crunch
the king of the 1970s phone phreaks.
What struck me as bizarre is that this
great inventor was fanatic about his “greatest invention,” the
electric cigarette that would some day be mounted on top of taxi
cabs. When the cigarette was lit up, with a red light where the
burning end was, the taxi was available. When the cigarette wasn't
lit the taxi was occupied. The photo on the left shows a current
taxi with an illuminated message sign on top. (Cigarettes on the top of taxis never made it.)
Somehow I knew, back on Belvedere Street, that I would rather have royalties from the Touch Tone than from a potential cigarrette sign on a cab.