In 1933, the Audichron company created the first time machine -- a machine to reduce the number of calls to operators asking for the current time. In some areas of the country, an time operator was dedicated to reciting the time "live". With the advent of these machines, later made by Audichron and a competitor Weatherchron, most large cities in the US had access to the current time by calling a local number.
Below are some examples of time recordings. These recordings are in .mp3 format.
| 415-767-8900 | Pacific standard time in San Francisco, California. | 147kb |
| 515-244-5611 | Time in Des Moines, Iowa. This one used to be completely in John Doyle's voice, but now has an ad recorded by John followed by a female voice for the time and temperature. | 163kb |
| 617-637-1234 | Verizon in Boston, Massachusetts. | 89kb |
| 702-564-1111 | Jane Barbe doing time for Sprint in Henderson, Nevada. This one still says "Thank you for calling Sprint" even though Sprint has exited the local telephone business. | 47kb |
| 760-762-2111 | Verizon in Boron, California. | 58kb |