Didn’t have color television until I was 14. Could get 2 VHF and 1 UHF channels if you tweaked the antenna just right.
No 14 year-old today has any idea what that means.
I remember in this one house where we lived – if you had the phone in one hand and touched the electric stove you received the shock of a lifetime – that was mid 60’s or so if I recall correctly.
Yeah, the parents had to get that grounding issue fixed before disaster occurred.
Imagine having to use a pay phone to make a call if you weren’t at home!
Also, phones would ring until the calling party got tired and hung up.
If people had to get up off their ass to change the station on the tv today Hollywood would go out of business.
Anyone else getting an ad that blocks the website. It only happens on wifi.
Some insurance scam I assume.
The good old days before robocalls and telemarketers.
Built homes with a pocket full of change to make calls at 7-11.
It still worked after dropping it with no contract. Hell, you could kill someone with it and then call someone with it. For the low price of A B C or D local bands, otherwise long distance at 49 cents a minute in the lower 48, buck fifty to puerto rico, 4 bucks to japan, what the hell is texting?
My parents still have a phone on the wall in the kitchen 🙂
What’s really sad is that kids today wouldn’t know how to dial
a rotary.
We were on a party line. Two longs and one short (rings).
I had a car phone back in the 70’s. Now that was cool…..
my kids wanted a phone. i installed a rotary dial one.
true story.
I miss the days when you could make free long distance calls on pay phones with the right collection of light bulbs. You needed three different sizes to mimic the different *gong* tones for nickels, dimes, and quarters. The human long distance operator would hear and count the gongs and then connect you.
Coincidence you posted this today Fur. We are using the old, old rotary dial phone today because our neighbor’s tree took a lightening strike last night and the strike blew out all of our phones and a generator. Thank God for the sense to keep the phone stashed in our “old junk” repository in the basement.
I did have a difficult time answering it a few times because I didn’t know if it was a telemarketer or friend.
Blue box Uncle Al. I used one at the pharmacy pay phone many times so my mom could call her friend in Japan for $0.
@eternal c p – Oh, I remember blue boxes very well! The light bulb trick was handy before I ever heard of more sophisticated phreaking gizmos, though.
I had a phone just like that, except back then you could have any color you wanted as long as it was black.
At one time when I was a kid, there was maybe one family on a city block who had a TV (small-screen B&W, of course). Prior to that, we had radio – any video news was obtained through newsreels, which usually played before cartoons between feature movies at the theater.
Needless to say, it wasn’t too current.
The first color TV I saw was in 1957 or ’58 at a fairly well-to-do family’s house. Most people we knew couldn’t afford a color TV until the late 60’s or early 70’s. Telephones were the property of Ma Bell – you couldn’t legally own one.
Times do change…
🙂
A time when you called others for
a reason other than self-aggrandizement.
When you gathered together with
friends to tell jokes, play cards and
unwind. When kids were skinny as
rails from running around and playing
with pals they phonelessly gathered
with until it was dark. When your boss
couldn’t call (using the mobile
monkey on your back 24/7)when
you were in the car enjoying some
personal quiet time or on
vacation. Wall phones were well
named and loved for keeping privacy
and peace locked safely behind that “wall”.
@vietvet
Yup – you leased the phone and paid for it as an item on the monthly bill. My parents leased the same black, table top phone from 1945 until 1984. It weighed a ton, and the black painted aluminum dial had all the paint worn out of the finger holes. It never malfunctioned in 40 years.
Back in 1971 Cap’n Crunch cereal gave away a plastic whistle called the Captain Crunch whistle. … People quickly learned that blowing a Captain Crunch whistle into a phone made free long distance phone calls. … Blow a Cap’n Crunch whistle into a phone and make free long distance .
In the 70’s I was one of the first people in the area with a Ma Bell pager called a ‘Bellboy’. It didn’t have a display so when it went off you had to call all the people you gave its number to to find out who paged you.
Kids these days don’t understand the personal freedom of being out of touch.
How many Hollywood movie scripts wouldn’t have been possible because of the cell phone?
You’re in trouble?
Pull the damn phone out of your pocket and call someone!
Of course Jack Bauer and 24 took it to the opposite extreme.
I still have a trim line rotary phone on the wall. I can receive calls but can’t dial out with it. More of a novelty than anything else. Now-a-days no one needs to use it. I also have a hand pump on the well head just in case the electric goes off. Both work without electric in the house. There is enough power in the phone line to work the phone and light the dial.
Privacy was almost non-existent. We had this super long- ass cord that I would push to the limits to get away from the kitchen so my Mom wouldn’t hear me get all stupid with my girlfriend…oh the wonderful memories of nervously waiting for that loud ring, running to grab the phone and hearing the sweet voice on the other end…sad that kids nowadays won’t experience that….
Julio, how many times did you have to unplug that long cord and let it untangle.
I remember the first cordless we got.
It was utopia, until I heard the neighbors on it one day.
Ah, technology!
Too many times Amigo! Or the feeling of wanting to choke a family member because they wouldn’t get off the phone while you were waiting for that all important call! Cordless phones were truly a blessing!
I think 2600 HZ magazine is still being published. It is named for the 2600 Hz frequency that provided access to long distance trunk lines . The same audio frequency produced by the Capt’n Crunch whistle.
Didn’t have color television until I was 14. Could get 2 VHF and 1 UHF channels if you tweaked the antenna just right.
No 14 year-old today has any idea what that means.
I remember in this one house where we lived – if you had the phone in one hand and touched the electric stove you received the shock of a lifetime – that was mid 60’s or so if I recall correctly.
Yeah, the parents had to get that grounding issue fixed before disaster occurred.
Imagine having to use a pay phone to make a call if you weren’t at home!
Also, phones would ring until the calling party got tired and hung up.
If people had to get up off their ass to change the station on the tv today Hollywood would go out of business.
Anyone else getting an ad that blocks the website. It only happens on wifi.
Some insurance scam I assume.
The good old days before robocalls and telemarketers.
Built homes with a pocket full of change to make calls at 7-11.
It still worked after dropping it with no contract. Hell, you could kill someone with it and then call someone with it. For the low price of A B C or D local bands, otherwise long distance at 49 cents a minute in the lower 48, buck fifty to puerto rico, 4 bucks to japan, what the hell is texting?
My parents still have a phone on the wall in the kitchen 🙂
What’s really sad is that kids today wouldn’t know how to dial
a rotary.
We were on a party line. Two longs and one short (rings).
I had a car phone back in the 70’s. Now that was cool…..
my kids wanted a phone. i installed a rotary dial one.
true story.
I miss the days when you could make free long distance calls on pay phones with the right collection of light bulbs. You needed three different sizes to mimic the different *gong* tones for nickels, dimes, and quarters. The human long distance operator would hear and count the gongs and then connect you.
Coincidence you posted this today Fur. We are using the old, old rotary dial phone today because our neighbor’s tree took a lightening strike last night and the strike blew out all of our phones and a generator. Thank God for the sense to keep the phone stashed in our “old junk” repository in the basement.
I did have a difficult time answering it a few times because I didn’t know if it was a telemarketer or friend.
Blue box Uncle Al. I used one at the pharmacy pay phone many times so my mom could call her friend in Japan for $0.
@eternal c p – Oh, I remember blue boxes very well! The light bulb trick was handy before I ever heard of more sophisticated phreaking gizmos, though.
I had a phone just like that, except back then you could have any color you wanted as long as it was black.
At one time when I was a kid, there was maybe one family on a city block who had a TV (small-screen B&W, of course). Prior to that, we had radio – any video news was obtained through newsreels, which usually played before cartoons between feature movies at the theater.
Needless to say, it wasn’t too current.
The first color TV I saw was in 1957 or ’58 at a fairly well-to-do family’s house. Most people we knew couldn’t afford a color TV until the late 60’s or early 70’s. Telephones were the property of Ma Bell – you couldn’t legally own one.
Times do change…
🙂
A time when you called others for
a reason other than self-aggrandizement.
When you gathered together with
friends to tell jokes, play cards and
unwind. When kids were skinny as
rails from running around and playing
with pals they phonelessly gathered
with until it was dark. When your boss
couldn’t call (using the mobile
monkey on your back 24/7)when
you were in the car enjoying some
personal quiet time or on
vacation. Wall phones were well
named and loved for keeping privacy
and peace locked safely behind that “wall”.
@vietvet
Yup – you leased the phone and paid for it as an item on the monthly bill. My parents leased the same black, table top phone from 1945 until 1984. It weighed a ton, and the black painted aluminum dial had all the paint worn out of the finger holes. It never malfunctioned in 40 years.
Back in 1971 Cap’n Crunch cereal gave away a plastic whistle called the Captain Crunch whistle. … People quickly learned that blowing a Captain Crunch whistle into a phone made free long distance phone calls. … Blow a Cap’n Crunch whistle into a phone and make free long distance .
In the 70’s I was one of the first people in the area with a Ma Bell pager called a ‘Bellboy’. It didn’t have a display so when it went off you had to call all the people you gave its number to to find out who paged you.
Kids these days don’t understand the personal freedom of being out of touch.
How many Hollywood movie scripts wouldn’t have been possible because of the cell phone?
You’re in trouble?
Pull the damn phone out of your pocket and call someone!
Of course Jack Bauer and 24 took it to the opposite extreme.
I still have a trim line rotary phone on the wall. I can receive calls but can’t dial out with it. More of a novelty than anything else. Now-a-days no one needs to use it. I also have a hand pump on the well head just in case the electric goes off. Both work without electric in the house. There is enough power in the phone line to work the phone and light the dial.
Privacy was almost non-existent. We had this super long- ass cord that I would push to the limits to get away from the kitchen so my Mom wouldn’t hear me get all stupid with my girlfriend…oh the wonderful memories of nervously waiting for that loud ring, running to grab the phone and hearing the sweet voice on the other end…sad that kids nowadays won’t experience that….
Julio, how many times did you have to unplug that long cord and let it untangle.
I remember the first cordless we got.
It was utopia, until I heard the neighbors on it one day.
Ah, technology!
Too many times Amigo! Or the feeling of wanting to choke a family member because they wouldn’t get off the phone while you were waiting for that all important call! Cordless phones were truly a blessing!
I think 2600 HZ magazine is still being published. It is named for the 2600 Hz frequency that provided access to long distance trunk lines . The same audio frequency produced by the Capt’n Crunch whistle.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2600:_The_Hacker_Quarterly .
Wow! I remember 2600 HZ. I think I may have a couple in my hoarder stash. I can barely remember the book store where I purchased those.