Board index › Off Topic Discussion › Random Discussion

Memories of Rotary/Dial phones

Page 2 of 2 [ 24 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2

Previous topic | Next topic

Nymeria8
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 13 Jun 2012
Age:39
Posts: 1,251
Location: New York

22 Apr 2014, 5:35 pm

My strongest memory of rotary dial phones is hating when a phone number had a 0 or 9 in it because it took so long to dial. But there was nothing more satisfying than hanging up on someone on those old phones. Hitting "end call" just doesn't have the same effect.


_________________
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
- The Dalai Lama


Misslizard
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 18 Jun 2012
Age:51
Posts: 10,400
Location: Aux Arcs

23 Apr 2014, 9:52 pm

You never got on them during a thunderstorm,lightning could come down the line and fry you.Once we were visiting an old couple that lived on the top of the bluff,every time it thundered the phone would ring.Lightning had struck several trees in the yard and once it stuck a line a dog was tied to and the poor dog got shocked..


_________________
Queen of the Nagas


OliveOilMom
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 11 Nov 2011
Age:51
Posts: 11,059
Location: About 50 miles past the middle of nowhere

24 Apr 2014, 8:54 pm

Several years ago I ran across one at a junk store and bought it. It was one of the really old, heavy black desk phones that had the wired cord and not the modular one. We still had a landline then and my husband fixed it so we could use it with our jack. We put it in the den. I liked it. My kids had trouble with it because not only did they have to stay in one place while on it (the cord wasn't long) but I'll never forget my two younger kids calling me in there and asking me how to dial it once when the cordless battery was dead. They were amazed.

As for the touch tone menus, I think if you just wait a few minutes a live person comes on. Some places still do that while other ones don't.

We don't have a landline anymore.


_________________
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.


nick007
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 May 2010
Age:32
Posts: 13,335
Location: was south Louisiana but now Vermont

24 Apr 2014, 11:18 pm

OliveOilMom wrote:
Several years ago I ran across one at a junk store and bought it. It was one of the really old, heavy black desk phones that had the wired cord and not the modular one. We still had a landline then and my husband fixed it so we could use it with our jack. We put it in the den. I liked it. My kids had trouble with it because not only did they have to stay in one place while on it (the cord wasn't long) but I'll never forget my two younger kids calling me in there and asking me how to dial it once when the cordless battery was dead. They were amazed.
That's the kind of phone my parents have except abit newer so the cord was probably compatible with their jacks when they got it; maybe they got it new.


_________________
la-la-la


auntblabby
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Posts: 41,825
Location: the island of defective toy santas

29 Apr 2014, 5:39 pm

Misslizard wrote:
In 1988 there were still party lines here.About a year later that was a thing of the past.

not all of us can afford caller ID. anyways, my sister still uses her 1950s era hospital green dial phone. I remember back in the day when dial tones weren't the modern WRRRRRRRRR sound but something more akin to BGLRBGLRBGLRBGLR.



kraftiekortie
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 Feb 2014
Age:54
Posts: 14,803

29 Apr 2014, 8:18 pm

Dial tones were higher-pitched than they are today. More irritating to the ear.

I started hearing the lower-pitched dial tones around 1975--which is also about the time when I saw my first touch-tone phone.
Street lights also turned from white to pinkish. The NYC subways started to replace lightbulbs in the tunnels with more substantive lighting.

Anyone remember how irritating the "Emergency Broadcast System" interruptions were?



auntblabby
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Posts: 41,825
Location: the island of defective toy santas

29 Apr 2014, 8:30 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:
Dial tones were higher-pitched than they are today. More irritating to the ear. I started hearing the lower-pitched dial tones around 1975--which is also about the time when I saw my first touch-tone phone. Street lights also turned from white to pinkish. The NYC subways started to replace lightbulbs in the tunnels with more substantive lighting. Anyone remember how irritating the "Emergency Broadcast System" interruptions were?

I used to like listening to them and accompanying them with my own proto-baritone as a teen. :bounce:



Misslizard
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 18 Jun 2012
Age:51
Posts: 10,400
Location: Aux Arcs

29 Apr 2014, 8:31 pm

^^Those were annoying.And the tv channels went off at midnight.One of them always showed a jet with a man reciting the poem High Flight "oh,I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth"and another had some song about a dog named Blue,"here,blue,you a good dog you." :D


_________________
Queen of the Nagas


nick007
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 May 2010
Age:32
Posts: 13,335
Location: was south Louisiana but now Vermont

29 Apr 2014, 8:32 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:
Anyone remember how irritating the "Emergency Broadcast System" interruptions were?
They still are very irritating but they don't happen as often. I don't understand why the weekly test happened on all the cable channels every other weekday but the emergency alert system was not used at all during September 11th which was the biggest national emergency in my lifetime. I assume they were part of a government experiment to worry & annoy the masses before 9/11


_________________
la-la-la