Posted on 04/14/2010 11:49:46 AM PDT by fishtank
I guess there's LOTS of people now who never had to learn to dial a telephone!!!
Hey! Where’s the SEND button?
I guess that film clip was played in movie theaters before the feature presentation?
Sort of related, but how many of us cell phone users dial numbers, or do we all use our contact list?
I have no idea, off the top of my head, what my wife’s cell phone number is or her office number.
Contacts -> Favorites -> Wife
3 touches on my touch screen phone (not a droid or an iphone, just the samsung touch), and her phone is ringing.
When she was a teen, my granddaughter saw an old phone in my basement and couldn’t figure out how to use a dial phone...sure does make one feel real old. Then again, the phones out today are a mystery to me....some of them I couldn’t use if I had to get to 911.
I was thinking that the other day, just how many numbers do I actually know
I’m glad your wife is in your list of favorites.
The party lines were fun....You’d hear....”Would you please get off the line”....Hey, we were kids!!!
What year is this?
My mom was a switchboard operator as they were being phased out.
That’s nothing compared to the incredible database technology shown in this video from 3:55 on...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hX57Oy2SA0
Dial? I use a voice recognition system to make my phone calls. Call "JimRob".
“Number, please.”
The switch to direct dial in my little northern Indiana city took place on November 22, 1963.
LOL. The top 5 in my favorites on my phone:
1) The other guitar player in my band
2) the bass player in my band
3) my sister
4) my wife
5) the drummer in my band
I went to a telephone museum in NH and it showed the old
switchboards. When you called the operator they would put a plug into a jack (so, if someone’s number was ‘31’ they’d
connect your call into that jack). Then came self dialing rotary phones
I remember seeing a very old TV show, World of Giants, about a spy who gets shrunk to 6 inches tall. He has to make an important call at once point...a night watchman was dead
and his full sized partner was out cold. So he had to climb up to the desk and laboriously dial the number—not easy at his size! Would be so much easier for him with a push button phone
What did the drummer do to be listed after your wife?
For years my parents had rotary phones. They didn’t want to spend the extra money for touch tone. In the late 1980’s, we got a cordless phone and there was a switch on whether it did pulse dial or touch tone. I tried it with the touch tone and it worked. After some arguing with my parents, we finally upgraded to touch tone since it was an option that was no longer charged.
Of course now, there is VOIP and phone calls are next to nothing to make on long distance.
I was thinking that the other day, just how many numbers do I actually know
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In the early 80s, I was working retail, and after using a calculator for a year or so to calc tax on a sale, I discovered I could no longer easily do 5% tax in my head. I was a bit unhappy and took steps immediately to no longer use the calculator (hey, dude, wait while I figure out the tax!!).
I’m gonna do the same with cell numbers.
Maybe.
You know the old joke about drummers?
“What do you call a drunk who follows the band around?”
Good question. He's been in the band for 4 years and the bass player only 1 year.
I'll chalk it up to the simple question "why would you talk about music with a drummer?"
Ducking.
see my #23
There’s a Tiger Woods joke in there somewhere...........................
And the party lines.
You could never imitate those pompous, overdramatic voices today if you tried. They just scream “I’m important and you’re not.”
Ah, the party lines - there were no secrets in our little neighborhood.
I believe there was another switch that took place on that date as well.
Now THAT is hilarious. How far will we be in another 80 years?
I still frequently see women 60 and older with isolated arthritis of the index finger’s last joint on one hand from dialing telephones for so many years. Check the hands of many women in nursing homes and you’ll find it.
I remember always calling the operator and asking for an Emergency Breakthrough to reach my teen girlfriends who were busy talking to each other, when I wanted to get through. We did this pretty much DAILY. The operator would break through the call personally to tell the girl she had an emergency breakthrough from me. The emergencies probably involved which boy talked to us between fourth and fifth period.
I actually force myself to dial a few numbers so I have to remember them.
November 22, 1963? Your little northern Indiana city entered a “brave new world” on the very day that Aldous Huxley died.
Our newly formed Presbyterian church just purchased an old Methodist church building. There was a dial phone left behind in one of the classrooms. I was amused to watch almost all the children not even recognize it as a phone!
1. I loved the old dial phones, and the jingly ringing sound, not blips or musical ringtones.
2. Sometimes when calling a business with a phone tree, they still direct you to wait for an operator to direct your call “if you do not have a touchtone phone.” I always wait for the operator, but wonder what will happen to her now that everybody uses a “touchtone phone”.
Not sure how much more history some of us can stand to live through. We had a 12 party crank phone high on the wall. Stood on a stool to reach it. Our ring was one long and one short. People with one long and two shorts were gone a lot so someone always answered and said, “They’re probably not home!” Certainly no privacy back then but if you had a problem, you could always quickly get some help - I prefer to call it the early version of neighborhood email or tweeting. Then we really were uptown when my mom got a raise and we went to an expensive two party line. Then to a dial phone - CY9 prefix was for the townies, SU8 prefix was for we country folks. You could always tell where someone lived because of their prefix. Remember my dad blasting the “new fangled stuff with all those extra buttons” and what a waste of good money he felt it was - the * and the # which we couldn’t survive without today.
for later amusement
My grandma used to have a phone just like that. We thought it was so cool. It was the 70’s and she still had that phone! She was really “modern”, too which always seemed contradictory. My old fashioned and older grandma had a modern phone.
LOL! I remember when we got our first touchtone phone. GAWD I’m getting old! :(
We have an old wooden one (as a decoration) on the wall ... great conversation piece ... it doesn’t have a dial though. Which also begs the question - why do people still say to dial a number when there are just buttons ....???
Did they run this on TV?
I remember when they put in telephone service in my area.
Nah. People pulled it up on the internet, just like now.
My cousin tell a story about his father, a bar tender. Regular comes in and complains about how his car is riding. Uncle Paul innocently asks him if he changed the air in his tires since last winter. Well, no the guy says. Paul tell him the thing he’s got to do is let the old winter air out of the tires and replace it with new spring air. Everyone know that.
Huh, the guy says. About an hour after the guy leaves another regular, who owns a gas station comes in and tells Paul, you’ll NEVER guess what I just saw a guy do. Paul casually says - Did he let all the air out of his tires and pump them back up? The guy’s jaw dropped.
I guess it was to test whether your phone was in working order, but it was a great way to, say, tease a sister waiting for a phone call from a certain boy.
Just sayin'.
My mom was a switchboard operator, too.
Everyone I knew, including my family, had rotary phones in the ‘70’s. I believe my parents kept ours in use into the ‘80’s. And I remember the pay phones having them.
Not long ago, one of my children saw one somewhere - I forget where - it might’ve been at a museum - and he asked me how you’d use it. Wow, did I feel old...
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