"In conjunction with the Federal Communications Commission, AT&T announces that 9-1-1 will be the new number for emergency services everywhere in the United States. The digits are chosen because they’re easy to memorize, and because 9 and 1 are far apart on the dial of a rotary phone, making misdials less likely."
They were not close on the dial, but because many business used dial 9 to get an outside line and a 1 was dialed for long distance without operator assistance, there were many modem software/connection utilities that had checkboxes to set a dial 9 and dial 1 that were set by default to on. This meant every call made by the software would be prefixed with 9-1 and if the BBS the user connecting to was in another area code the user would often type 1 in from of the number not realizing the software had added the 9-1 already and so every call attempted would start with 9-1-1. Ooops.
They were not close on the dial, but because many business used dial 9 to get an outside line and a 1 was dialed for long distance without operator assistance, there were many modem software/connection utilities that had checkboxes to set a dial 9 and dial 1 that were set by default to on. This meant every call made by the software would be prefixed with 9-1 and if the BBS the user connecting to was in another area code the user would often type 1 in from of the number not realizing the software had added the 9-1 already and so every call attempted would start with 9-1-1. Ooops.