Must be a strange feeling that something you used to use is now only seen in museums

Comments

• cardboardboxfort@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

  I’ve seen people keep the wall mounted ones up even after they were no longer usable (these used “pulse” which was phased out around 2000 for “tone” which had been around for a while prior to that but for a decade or so you could chose to keep pulse.)

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• foodandart@lemmy.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  The real fun bit is watching 12 year olds try to dial out on one.

  I kept my desktop rotary until 2017 when I got a cell phone with the landline number ported to it.

  NGL, the desktop rotary was a Godsend in the winter of 1996 when the Northeast got hit by a massive ice storm that took out power for weeks across parts of the region. Phone lines are more robust - also the power lines intercept the falling trees or catch the ice so while power would often be out, the phones would be just fine.

  What folks didn’t get about the rotary phones is that part of the spring-loaded mechanism under the dial is a magneto that puts voltage into the line as you dial.

  Think of the old 1930’s movies where the phones had cranks on them - you would actually charge the circuit to make the call. When dial tone phones came on the market big time in the early 80’s the phone company increased the monthly fee by $3.50 to dial-tone phone users in order to make up for them having to provide power to the phone.

  I had a fun time getting that charge removed from my bill… would be talking to the operator and dialing the phone as I did so they could hear the rotary click stops… Ahem… Fix that bill, thankyouverymuch…

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  • LodeMike@lemmy.today ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Haha yeah its SO FUNNY that kids don’t know how to use something they’ve NEVER USED!!

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    • foodandart@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      You’d think that maybe - just maybe - they’d see a movie or show that had older phones on set and see them in use? What era was that show Stranger Things set in?

      Lotsa rotary phones in use at that time… but then again, who actually watches a show when everyone’s got their noses glued to their devices. LOL!

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• greygore@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  There’s a a computer museum near me and I braced myself for seeing several computers that I’d used through my childhood. I wasn’t prepared to see an original iPhone though.

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• eurodyne@piefed.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I hated rotary phones. It took forever to dial a number.

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  • spicytuna62@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    But it’s also why heavily populated areas have certain area codes. These numbers were just faster to dial. For instance:

    • 212: Manhattan
    • 213: Los Angeles
    • 214: Dallas
    • 312: Chicago
    • 313: Detroit
    • 314: St. Louis
    • 321: East Central Florida
    • 323: Also LA
    • 332: Also Manhattan
    • 413: Pittsburgh
    • 415: San Francisco

    Generally, if the area code took less time to dial, odds are it’s an urban code. The emergent pattern is when middle digit is 1 or 2. Like 816 for KCMO or 918 for Tulsa or 416 for Toronto.

    And if it featured higher digits or a zero, it was probably rural. Area Code 907 was established in 1957 for almost all of Alaska. That’s 26 total pulses. 906 is for Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and was put into service in 1961 after splitting off from 616, which services Grand Rapids.

    Many of the high digit urban area codes were put into use after touch tone dialing became widespread since any number took just as long as any other to dial.

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    • foodandart@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      TIL, thank you for that!

      Also, if you were in a rural area that had the LATA code (the first three numbers after the area code) on a mechanical switcher, you did not have to use the LATA code. Could just dial the last 4 digits. My dad’s farm was in a town that was still sitting on a mechanical switch until the early 2000’s so in the early 80’s we had a budget party line (we were one long ring, while the neighbors had two shorter rings and there was a third person - whom we did not know, that was a phenomenally LONG call maker - you’d sometimes have to wait an hour or so for the guy to get off the line) and all of our friends were just 4 numbers… Can remember many - 8345, 8652, 8033 (<- my best friend in 10th grade…)

      It was a decidedly different, and less expensive, world.

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  • TheRiskiestBiscuit@reddthat.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Having to dial 911 in an actual emergency was the most harrowing experience ever. Waiting for the 9 to spin down made you feel like your heart would explode. Even worse if you jumped the gun on the following 1 and had to start over. Or you could dial the operator with a single 0, but that was a risky move in the late 80’s/early 90’s when operator services were being wound down.

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    • eurodyne@piefed.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      And towards the end there, operators went from super helpful to kind of mean

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