First cell phone was a true 'brick'.

www.cnn.com ^ | Monday, April 11, 2005 Posted: 10:28 AM EDT (1428 GMT) | AP

[Certified Horticulturist]

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- "The brick" weighed 2 pounds, offered just a half-hour of talk time for every recharging and sold for $3,995.

Clunky and overpriced?

Not in 1984, when consumers lined up in droves to buy the first cellular phone as soon as it hit the market. And certainly not to Rudy Krolopp, lead designer of the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X.

Krolopp, now 74 and retired, still gets a "warm fuzzy feeling" thinking about the DynaTAC and knowing that "a handful of us did something that was really significant."

[Cyber Liberty]

Hey! How are ya?

Well, I got that from another, much better looking freeper wayyyy back. It got disabled in a software change a couple of revs ago. It was way cool, I agree. Nowadays, I just settle for the cash.

[Certified Horticulturist]

LOL!

[Cyber Liberty]

Oh, hey! How are you, too? Short time no see....

[dwilli]

Back in the old days when cell phones were still few and
far between I was working at a construction site in Penn.

My phone rang and I answered it. It was a young sounding woman and she had a wrong number (my first by cell).

When I got my bill the next month Cell one charged $2 for
out of home area fees, $2 for using the cell carrier in Penn
plus long distance tolls. They charged me $9.00 for the wrong number.

[Miss Behave]

Big: It's the new small. ;-)

[Miss Behave]

Hey back attcha, CL.

[Ditter]

I remember them but I didn't realize they were so expensive but we had a mobile phone in our truck when they were still a curiosity. When the day came that it could be taken out of the installation and carried with you, it needed its own battery pack. How far we have come in such a short time. LOL!

[NautiNurse]

I had to carry a bigger purse than I usually do in order to tote my first behemoth blab box around.

We've come a long way, baby! I recall the big briefcase used to carry the brick. ;o)

[dwilli]

Mine was mounted in my pick-up

[Miss Behave]

*That Thang* probably messed up your spinal alignment, NN. ;-)

[TC Rider]

I got my first cell phone in '88, it was the Motorola Bag Phone. Actually clunkier than the more expensive brick, but you could sling it over your shoulder and it had a handset on a cord.

When removed from the bag, it fit perfectly into the center console of my S-10 Blazer. Had a high 'ooh' factor for about 6 months.

[Dont Mention the War]

Here's a much better picture:

[dwilli]

I still have mine.

[Miss Behave]

My son actually got a good look at the RAZR V3 before it came on the market. His good friend is the son of the ex top guy of Motorola, and when my son was at their house one day, the dad was talking to my son and took the V3 out of his suit jacket, and when my son made a funny face, he told my son all about it. It was neat because my son is interested in the sciences and new tech....and they are a very nice family. :-)

[Certified Horticulturist]

I carried that thing in a Land's End soft (canvas) briefcase, but the charging stand in my NYC office was a lulu. It must have been 7-8lbs. A museum monster.

[Miss Behave]

Whoops. That was to NN.

[Miss Behave]

Did that Land's End briefcase have a fortified bottom to it? LOL.

[Certified Horticulturist]

A museum piece, like my '82 IBM PS2/50 micro channel PC. LOL!

[Miss Behave]

My dad still has a bag phone. He swears by it, and he laughs at me when we're out on Lake Michigan in the boat and I can't get a signal and he can. He thinks he's so hot. ;-)

[NautiNurse]

*That Thang* probably messed up your spinal alignment

That and my old Toshiba laptop with 4MB RAM.