Comment on Phonebooks

• wallybeavis@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Rotary phones weren’t even that long ago?!??! I still remember the swooop, click-click-click-click sound, oh, and the ear shattering ringing bells. I am happy that in our lifetime we’ve come so far that kids don’t understand tools from just a couple decades ago. I remember my father showing me a stack of punch cards he used at work and warning me not to touch them - but what I also know is, that those kids better get the hell off my damn lawn!

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  • BackOnMyBS@lemmy.autism.place ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Fun fact: You could dial without even using the rotary. In a morse-code-like fashion, quickly click the hang-up knob the number you want with a pause in-between numbers. So if you were calling 558-9151 (remember 7 digit numbers‽), you’d do (c = click):

    c-c-c-c-c

    c-c-c-c-c

    c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c

    c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c

    c

    c-c-c-c-c

    c

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• illi@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Man rotary phones were the best

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  • andrewrgross@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I had one in my room! Such a good feel to it. Same with picking up and hanging up!

    This was in the early 2000s, btw. They were already a relics, but landlines were still commonly used when I was in high school, so and it had such a handsome look to it and felt great to use. I have long thought that a product that would do incredibly well would be a cell phone charging dock where you put your phone in and while it’s charging it just acts like a landline rotary phone. The user experience is very, very gratifying, and if you’ve ever tried to hold a call while your phone is plugged into the wall you know how much better a solid headset with a coil wire would feel than that.

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• chunkystyles@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Hey, they did a good job, and no one was being mean about it. That’s nice.

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• WoahWoah@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  I would probably have similar difficulties… I can’t even tell what they were doing wrong and then suddenly doing right. I do know the basic motion because I’ve seen it in shows I think, like you spin it around… but I never really thought about how precisely you do that. And you only had a certain amount of time to dial it?? That’s crazy.

  I will say I would have figured out you need to pick it up first sooner. But even my office phone I dial the number, see it on the little screen, hit send, and then lift up the receiver if I don’t want to use speaker phone.

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  • andrewrgross@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    They were starting by putting a finger in zero and then dragging to the number. And for zero they were dragging all the way to the stop.

    You’re supposed to dial by putting a finger in each number hole and then dragging to the stop. So they dialed zero correctly, but only zero.

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    • WoahWoah@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      You’re supposed to dial by putting a finger in each number hole and then dragging to the stop. So they dialed zero correctly, but only zero.

      How do you do that with only five fingers?? I guess that makes sense that the was such little time to dial it. Like you put each finger in the holes and then spin the whole thing? How does it figure out which… wait, then how would you do repeated numbers? Or did numbers never repeat…? I’m confused.

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      • MrsDoyle@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        You dialled by putting a finger in each number hole one at a time, dragging each one to the stop. When I was a kid our town’s phone numbers had just four digits, didn’t take long to dial.

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      • jqubed@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        No, do it sequentially. To dial 515-2400 you put your finger in the 5, drag it to the stop, then release. Next put your finger in the 1, drag it to the stop, then release. Next put your finger in the 5, drag it to the stop, then release. Next put your finger in the 2, drag it to the stop, then release. Next put your finger in the 4, drag it to the stop, then release. Next put your finger in the 0, drag it to the stop, then release. Finally put your finger in the 0 again, drag it to the stop, then release.

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      • Rhoeri@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        You mean to say you’ve never even seen a move with someone using a rotary phone?

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