Phone Dialer - what is it for?

Question

I used to have a small hand-held device which had a number pad and a speaker. When the keys were pressed it emitted the bi-tones for phone dialing. If the device was held near the mouthpiece of a phone, it would dial the number but it didn't have any memory to store quick-dial numbers; I remember thinking at the time, as I still do, what is the purpose of the d**n thing?

Any ideas, sensible or not are welcome but I really would like to know. Was it just a device for people with OCD who don't like to touch the keypads in public phones?

Answer 1

It's for use on a phone that doesn't have touch tones so that you can access services that require touch tones like checking your voicemail, using a calling card, etc.  Now that practically every phone has touch tone (DTMF) these devices are obsolete.  

There was also another use for them......people found out with a simple modification to them that you could make free calls from pay phones, a technique called red boxing, but that's illegal and also for the most part obsolete!