Final answer:
Before 1995, there were 800 possible area codes in the United States.
Step-by-step explanation:
Before 1995, telephone area codes in the United States were typically assigned with the format NXX, where N represents any digit from 2 to 9, and X represents any digit from 0 to 9. The first digit N could not be 0 or 1. There were a total of 8 possible choices for N (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) and 10 possible choices for each X (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9). Therefore, the total number of possible area codes before 1995 can be calculated as:
N (8 choices) * X (10 choices) * X (10 choices) = 8 * 10 * 10 = 800
So, there were 800 possible area codes before 1995.