#Cereal whistle phone movie#

Wozniak tried to prank-call the pope, while Draper boasted that he once got President Nixon on the horn. (Though Wozniak admired Draper, he was intimidated by his intense energy, disheveled state, and many missing teeth.) The boxes could also be used for mischief. After a story about blue boxes was published in Esquire in 1971, the then-college student Wozniak and his friend Steve Jobs tracked Draper down to learn all they could. Draper became known for using it, and gave himself the nickname “Captain Crunch.” He even built devices, called “blue boxes,” to replicate that tone and other useful ones. co-founder Steve Wozniak’s words, “seize a phone line.” Though many phreakers used instruments for the same purpose, the mass-produced whistle became iconic. The whistle easily played at 2600Hz, the perfect tone to, in Apple Inc. These early hackers played certain tones through their telephones to bypass AT&T’s analog system and get free long-distance phone calls.ĭraper heard about the whistle from other phreakers. Draper was part of an underground culture that predated hacking as we know it: phone phreaks. One fell into the hands of John Draper, a former U.S. Meant to replicate the whistles used by sailing officials (boatswains) to signal mealtimes or commands, the multicolored whistles came along with boxes of Cap’n Crunch starting in the mid-1960s. Only one cereal box toy has that distinction: the Cap’n Crunch Bo’sun whistle.

#Cereal whistle phone movie#

From movie tie-in toys to video games on CD-ROM (remember Chex Quest?), cereal box baubles tend to be momentarily thrilling and then quickly forgotten. Photo courtesy of Jeff DilbertĬereal companies have long used box prizes as an inducement for children to nag parents into buying sugary breakfast food. The Cap’n Crunch Bo’sun Whistle, in all its glory.