I got my pager at 18 (no one cool called it a beeper, this was when 'cool' was still a thing), and yes, my weed dealer had one, and knew my beeper code (it was a beeper code but you sent it to a pager, young people just do this). Beeper code is worth explaining: you'd send a number to be called back at, and there was room for more digits, so everyone had a three-digit number which was theirs, and you just kinda had to know it. Which could be tricky, so there would be conversations like "ok who is <three digit number>" "oh thats <friend>" "ah right". This let you page people from places which weren't your home.
The whole thing sort of worked, but we were happy to ditch it for cell phones when they became affordable.
I recall in the 90's we would add 911 if it was urgent and 420 if it was about drugs. We would also end with our 3-digit 'pager code' to identify who sent the message.
The whole thing sort of worked, but we were happy to ditch it for cell phones when they became affordable.
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