Well everybody beat me to it but yeah, the voltage drop across the line would tell Ma Bell how many ringers were going off when you got a call and you would be billed accordingly. Also remember back then you did not own your own phone, they all belonged to Ma Bell and were just rented out to you. IIRC, the phone we had before the rotary dial you had to pick up and tap the disconnect a couple of times to get the operators attention. I also remember if the person making the call didn't hang up but the other did, when they picked up again you could continue talking.

I've never used a pre-rotary phone, but I know that at least up until 20 years ago, it was possible to maintain a connection by simply not hanging up in a lot of cases, even when using buttonphones. That part of the behavior of the old systems was apparently based in the backbone for pretty much all of the pre-cellphone era phone systems.

...
First off, since Mork has been such a hard and valued worker though these many years...

Jocelyn was the master BOINC database server until the end of August 2009, she's been recalled for an encore performance. While the nearly 14 months of service that mork provided are valuable, jocelyn has filled the role for much more time. I think it's time for another feminine name anyhow.

                                                                 Joe