Back then, you weren’t allowed to own your own phones, you had to rent them from the phone company, and they charged you for each line to go with it. In addition, you had to pay extra for colors, or fancy styles.
We had one in the kitchen, one in my parents’ bedroom, and one in the family room down stairs. So my Dad, who wouldn’t spring for a color TV, already had to pay for THREE phones, and THREE lines, so he wasn’t paying for any upgrades like color. We had three black, Bakelite, rotary dial phones. He wouldn’t even spring for the touch tone phones, when they came along.
And we could forget about having a line in our bedrooms. When I got old enough, I used my own money to buy a super-long cord that could stretch from the kitchen to my bedroom.
foodandart@lemmy.zip 2 weeks 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…
jqubed@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I saw a mediocre movie about Walt Disney once (not authorized by the Disney company or I think even the family). It was fairly low budget and one of their selling points was having the star of Napoleon Dynamite in a minor role. Anyway, at one point in the movie a character answers a call on one of those really old crank phones where the user lifts the earpiece but the microphone stays on the wall. The caller is asking for someone else, so the character puts her hand over the phone to shout for the intended recipient in the busy building, except the actress put her hand over the earpiece in her hand instead of the microphone on the wall. I’m sure she’d never used that type of phone before, but I chalked it up to the inexperience of the production team that no one caught that goof.
LodeMike@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Haha yeah its SO FUNNY that kids don’t know how to use something they’ve NEVER USED!!
foodandart@lemmy.zip 2 weeks 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!