there was a certain satisfaction in banging that heavy receiver against something strong when one wanted to make a subtle point in conversation.
try that with your anchor cell phone
something else the ‘woke & broke’ generation will never understand.
20
Twenty some years ago the wife and I purchased a 4800 sq ft home in an exclusive gated community. One of the features that home has was a land line phone booth. Well that home is now back up for sale and the phone booth, well now it wine storage. Temp controlled.
11
Ma Bell even had rules about how long the cord could be, they wanted you to get another extension.
7
Anyone remember Party Lines?
Maybe it was just a Canadian thing.
24
The excitement of the ring was always there: you never knew who was calling, and it was almost always a friend or family.
17
The good old days before selfies.
11
….And you could take the speaker out of the bottom half of the phone in the basement and listen to your Dad talk to his girlfriend…….Wait, that’s not such a great memory…..
10
I remember wiring my folk’s house with a bunch of extra jacks, as we got our hands on a few ‘street phones’ when AT&T (or was it Bell?) only allowed one phone per house.
Then there was the 300 baud modem with the phone handset ‘jack’ in the late 70’s.
8
How incredibly primitive! Party lines! Whatchoo mean? Long distance charges….
10
Those kids will also not know of the relationship between a cassette tape and a pencil. They may not even know what a cassette tape is.
17
…. or a pencil for that matter
18
Kids were better off not having cell phones.
20
Does Southern Bell still exist. We had a wall phone like that in the hall way. The cord was so short I couldn’t go in another room for a private conversation. My mother made sure to listen to everything.
14
As a kid living at home we had a party line. When I was in high school I had a summer job at the local hospital in the dish room. Well one time I was feelling sick and had to call in to let them know that I would not be coming in. I picked up the phone and sure enough, two old biddies were yaking away, so I hung up and waited for a few minutes and tried again…still talking. Waited for a few more minutes and tried again… still talking, only this time one of them said “Do you mind? We’re having a conversation!”
Very innocently I said “I’m just trying to call the hospital…” at which time one of them exclaimed: “OOOH MYYYY Gawd! We’ll hang up right now!!” and did.
As I looked at the reciever it took me a second to realize what just happened 😂😂😂
Brad – the elegant phone booth of yesteryear has turned into the bathroom!
11
My parents still have landline phones. The one in the basement was the one I talked on most. The cord is stretched to within an inch of it’s life and reaches from one end of the basement to the other.
16
I wrote scripts and used a 110bps modem that would call phone companies looking for new codes to phreak into credit card companies and guess credit card numbers. Mom used it to call her friend in Japan and that was my excuse for sitting on the computer getting credit card numbers to order all kinds of toys to unsuspecting doorsteps that were vacant so my friends could help grab packages. Also built tone boxes to use payphones for free. No, that totally didn’t happen, instead I remember wrapping myself up in that curly cord and chat for hours with girls on party lines that I totally didn’t pay for with certain acquired digits. Ya know, thank God I don’t have the mind of a 12yr old anymore, I’d probably be in jail at best.
8
I have a land-line. With Brightspeed!
Phone doesn’t work when it rains.
I’ve been calling the assholes since they were CenturyTel (15 years) and they can’t (or won’t) fix it.
Some things never change.
mortem tyrannis
izlamo delenda est …
7
Nor will they ever experience having to make a collect call home from the Philippines after we had a serious fire on board the Kitty Hawk in mid Dec. 1973 after we got there to let my folks know that I was OK. It was $20 for 5 minutes but my mom and dad appreciated me calling to let them know what happened. And one thing that you can’t do with a cell phone is to make crank calls as a kid to ask them if they’re refrigerator is running or some other joke and not be identified since there was no caller ID back then.
11
I remember having to pay extra to get a single-party number. And you leased your phone from the company, you didn’t own it.
Even recently, our typical landline bill was $85 per month. About half of that was taxes and fees. We switched to VOIP when the fiber optic network became available. Now we pay $25/mo for phone service.
8
We had a party line when I was a kid growing up in Detroit.
I bought my first house in a semi-rural area in 1978. To place a long distance call, after dialing, you had to state the number you were calling from. With nothing in place to verify the number given, people would just make up a phone number and the call would then go through.
It was not at all rare to get your monthly bill finding charges on it for long distance calls you didn’t make. Not a problem. A quick call to the phone company and they’d be removed. I was flabbergasted that a system like that could even be in place. I’m trying to think of who the carrier was but I’m drawing a blank.
My recollection is that within 12 to 18 months the system was automated and calls were then charged to the number that dialed them.
5
That photo looks like it’s from a college dorm in the ’70’s…one phone for the entire floor of rooms, anywhere from 20-50 students.
7
I cut our phone line when I was in grade school one day.
The teacher was going to call to tell my parents what
a F*** UP I was…….
8
Just off to the side of my pc desk, I still have a red Western Electric 2500 DM push button tabletop phone that I picked up from a yard sale many years ago. Wish it was rotary dial but still a nice piece of Americana, in my book. The number is 916-966-7019 in case anyone was curious.
5
Cell phones are wonderful but they are deceptive in providing such convenience for calling, information, entertainment, etc.
They are the greatest intelligence gathering tool of our govt. No longer is there a landline they have to physically tap to listen to us. But now there is a single device that they can grab our conversations, texts, browsing, interests, and politics. I wish the smart phone had never been invented if I’m honest.
8
I still remember phone numbers from then, but none in the last 20 years.
8
Remember the original call blocking?
You left the phone off the hook……
16
Alexb,
Was?
They are still advertised on late evening TV. WNED BUFFALO esp.
aka, Sausage Party
2
I still remember my wife and I first phone number on our touch tone wall phone in the kitchen when we first were married in 1977.
4
Kcir,
Took me a while but i get it now.
Erv Weinstine was the last show i watched out of Buffalo.
2
The sperm donor put a lock on the phone (it fit into the dial ring.) Us kids had ways when he wasn’t around……
4
“I still remember my wife and I first phone number on our touch tone wall phone in the kitchen when we first were married in 1977.”
Geoff, I smiled at that one. I still remember our very first phone number from age 6-8 then we moved to central Florida (I can’t remember that one to save my life). I forget names, things people claimed I said or did but for some odd reason that number is ingrained in my head….nearly 50 years ago.
3
Remember when you didn’t have to dial an area code for a local call?
Detroit phone number. We moved out in 1963. WE44201 Burned into some recess of my brain I guess.
After moving, it was 353-3788. Shortly after, we had to dial the area code making it (313)353-3788. After a few years, they changed the area code to 248. Running out of numbers I think.
I remember our address in Detroit. The house no longer exists. Burned or town down? I don’t know. 9341 Cheyenne.
Now ask me what I had for breakfast yesterday. I’d have to give that a bit of thought but eventually it would probably come to me.
3
I grew up in the push button days, but whenever we had to go overseas, the feds would only supply the houses on base the rotary version. Ugh. HATE!
Especially when I dialed the wrong # in the middle of the sequence. LMAO
5
niiiiiiiiine
eiiiigggght
zerooooooooooo
three
fooour
😂
4
Was great back then because there were no robot dialers or call centers in India.
Never had a call about the Medicare Department, Siding and Windows or Solar.
No calls about your computer being infected with 87 viruses and never had anyone say they are charging your Amazon account for $2296.00 for an Apple iphone.
7
I honestly believe that we had more privacy as American citizens before cell phones. And it was a good thing that the company I worked for had an 800 number so I could call them from a phone booth when I was out on the road when phone booths used to be everywhere. And we all know the joke about where does Clark Kent change into his Superman outfit when there are no phone booths anymore.
4
I don’t have a cell phone.
I have landline phones in every room.
I do not have or use wifi either.
Stop contributing to the shitforbrains push that by destroying the market is enabling corporations and the government to put all of us on the equivalent of a parolee’s GPS tracking bracelet and Big Brother monitoring of everything we do.
4
Our first phone at home didn’t even have a disl. You picked up the handset, and if there was no one else on the party line, the operator said, “Number please?” Our number was 1089J, and some were even shorter. Yeah, I’m that old (70).
4
We had one of these old 1907 models on the wall. It was interesting, but we ended up selling to a local antique shop.
@Jeoff
In December 1973, I was in basic training at Lackland AFB. From our barracks, we could see a row of phone booths about three hundred yards away. A couple of the Gomers in our flight snuck out at night to make it to those booths make a call. One succeeded. Good times.
Side note: One of the guys had sexual relations in one of those booths when she came to San Antonio to watch us graduate. It was winter and he had on his long, wool overcoat to hide the act.
there was a certain satisfaction in banging that heavy receiver against something strong when one wanted to make a subtle point in conversation.
try that with your
anchorcell phonesomething else the ‘woke & broke’ generation will never understand.
Twenty some years ago the wife and I purchased a 4800 sq ft home in an exclusive gated community. One of the features that home has was a land line phone booth. Well that home is now back up for sale and the phone booth, well now it wine storage. Temp controlled.
Ma Bell even had rules about how long the cord could be, they wanted you to get another extension.
Anyone remember Party Lines?
Maybe it was just a Canadian thing.
The excitement of the ring was always there: you never knew who was calling, and it was almost always a friend or family.
The good old days before selfies.
….And you could take the speaker out of the bottom half of the phone in the basement and listen to your Dad talk to his girlfriend…….Wait, that’s not such a great memory…..
I remember wiring my folk’s house with a bunch of extra jacks, as we got our hands on a few ‘street phones’ when AT&T (or was it Bell?) only allowed one phone per house.
Then there was the 300 baud modem with the phone handset ‘jack’ in the late 70’s.
How incredibly primitive! Party lines! Whatchoo mean? Long distance charges….
Those kids will also not know of the relationship between a cassette tape and a pencil. They may not even know what a cassette tape is.
…. or a pencil for that matter
Kids were better off not having cell phones.
Does Southern Bell still exist. We had a wall phone like that in the hall way. The cord was so short I couldn’t go in another room for a private conversation. My mother made sure to listen to everything.
As a kid living at home we had a party line. When I was in high school I had a summer job at the local hospital in the dish room. Well one time I was feelling sick and had to call in to let them know that I would not be coming in. I picked up the phone and sure enough, two old biddies were yaking away, so I hung up and waited for a few minutes and tried again…still talking. Waited for a few more minutes and tried again… still talking, only this time one of them said “Do you mind? We’re having a conversation!”
Very innocently I said “I’m just trying to call the hospital…” at which time one of them exclaimed: “OOOH MYYYY Gawd! We’ll hang up right now!!” and did.
As I looked at the reciever it took me a second to realize what just happened 😂😂😂
Brad – the elegant phone booth of yesteryear has turned into the bathroom!
My parents still have landline phones. The one in the basement was the one I talked on most. The cord is stretched to within an inch of it’s life and reaches from one end of the basement to the other.
I wrote scripts and used a 110bps modem that would call phone companies looking for new codes to phreak into credit card companies and guess credit card numbers. Mom used it to call her friend in Japan and that was my excuse for sitting on the computer getting credit card numbers to order all kinds of toys to unsuspecting doorsteps that were vacant so my friends could help grab packages. Also built tone boxes to use payphones for free. No, that totally didn’t happen, instead I remember wrapping myself up in that curly cord and chat for hours with girls on party lines that I totally didn’t pay for with certain acquired digits. Ya know, thank God I don’t have the mind of a 12yr old anymore, I’d probably be in jail at best.
I have a land-line. With Brightspeed!
Phone doesn’t work when it rains.
I’ve been calling the assholes since they were CenturyTel (15 years) and they can’t (or won’t) fix it.
Some things never change.
mortem tyrannis
izlamo delenda est …
Nor will they ever experience having to make a collect call home from the Philippines after we had a serious fire on board the Kitty Hawk in mid Dec. 1973 after we got there to let my folks know that I was OK. It was $20 for 5 minutes but my mom and dad appreciated me calling to let them know what happened. And one thing that you can’t do with a cell phone is to make crank calls as a kid to ask them if they’re refrigerator is running or some other joke and not be identified since there was no caller ID back then.
I remember having to pay extra to get a single-party number. And you leased your phone from the company, you didn’t own it.
Even recently, our typical landline bill was $85 per month. About half of that was taxes and fees. We switched to VOIP when the fiber optic network became available. Now we pay $25/mo for phone service.
We had a party line when I was a kid growing up in Detroit.
I bought my first house in a semi-rural area in 1978. To place a long distance call, after dialing, you had to state the number you were calling from. With nothing in place to verify the number given, people would just make up a phone number and the call would then go through.
It was not at all rare to get your monthly bill finding charges on it for long distance calls you didn’t make. Not a problem. A quick call to the phone company and they’d be removed. I was flabbergasted that a system like that could even be in place. I’m trying to think of who the carrier was but I’m drawing a blank.
My recollection is that within 12 to 18 months the system was automated and calls were then charged to the number that dialed them.
That photo looks like it’s from a college dorm in the ’70’s…one phone for the entire floor of rooms, anywhere from 20-50 students.
I cut our phone line when I was in grade school one day.
The teacher was going to call to tell my parents what
a F*** UP I was…….
Just off to the side of my pc desk, I still have a red Western Electric 2500 DM push button tabletop phone that I picked up from a yard sale many years ago. Wish it was rotary dial but still a nice piece of Americana, in my book. The number is 916-966-7019 in case anyone was curious.
Cell phones are wonderful but they are deceptive in providing such convenience for calling, information, entertainment, etc.
They are the greatest intelligence gathering tool of our govt. No longer is there a landline they have to physically tap to listen to us. But now there is a single device that they can grab our conversations, texts, browsing, interests, and politics. I wish the smart phone had never been invented if I’m honest.
I still remember phone numbers from then, but none in the last 20 years.
Remember the original call blocking?
You left the phone off the hook……
Alexb,
Was?
They are still advertised on late evening TV. WNED BUFFALO esp.
aka, Sausage Party
I still remember my wife and I first phone number on our touch tone wall phone in the kitchen when we first were married in 1977.
Kcir,
Took me a while but i get it now.
Erv Weinstine was the last show i watched out of Buffalo.
The sperm donor put a lock on the phone (it fit into the dial ring.) Us kids had ways when he wasn’t around……
“I still remember my wife and I first phone number on our touch tone wall phone in the kitchen when we first were married in 1977.”
Geoff, I smiled at that one. I still remember our very first phone number from age 6-8 then we moved to central Florida (I can’t remember that one to save my life). I forget names, things people claimed I said or did but for some odd reason that number is ingrained in my head….nearly 50 years ago.
Remember when you didn’t have to dial an area code for a local call?
Detroit phone number. We moved out in 1963. WE44201 Burned into some recess of my brain I guess.
After moving, it was 353-3788. Shortly after, we had to dial the area code making it (313)353-3788. After a few years, they changed the area code to 248. Running out of numbers I think.
I remember our address in Detroit. The house no longer exists. Burned or town down? I don’t know. 9341 Cheyenne.
Now ask me what I had for breakfast yesterday. I’d have to give that a bit of thought but eventually it would probably come to me.
I grew up in the push button days, but whenever we had to go overseas, the feds would only supply the houses on base the rotary version. Ugh. HATE!
Especially when I dialed the wrong # in the middle of the sequence. LMAO
niiiiiiiiine
eiiiigggght
zerooooooooooo
three
fooour
😂
Was great back then because there were no robot dialers or call centers in India.
Never had a call about the Medicare Department, Siding and Windows or Solar.
No calls about your computer being infected with 87 viruses and never had anyone say they are charging your Amazon account for $2296.00 for an Apple iphone.
I honestly believe that we had more privacy as American citizens before cell phones. And it was a good thing that the company I worked for had an 800 number so I could call them from a phone booth when I was out on the road when phone booths used to be everywhere. And we all know the joke about where does Clark Kent change into his Superman outfit when there are no phone booths anymore.
I don’t have a cell phone.
I have landline phones in every room.
I do not have or use wifi either.
Stop contributing to the shitforbrains push that by destroying the market is enabling corporations and the government to put all of us on the equivalent of a parolee’s GPS tracking bracelet and Big Brother monitoring of everything we do.
Our first phone at home didn’t even have a disl. You picked up the handset, and if there was no one else on the party line, the operator said, “Number please?” Our number was 1089J, and some were even shorter. Yeah, I’m that old (70).
We had one of these old 1907 models on the wall. It was interesting, but we ended up selling to a local antique shop.
http://www.telephonearchive.com/phones/we/we317p.html#:~:text=The%20model%20317%20magneto%20wall%20phones%20were%20introduced,30%20years%2C%20a%20mainstay%20telephone%20for%20Western%20Electric.
@Jeoff
In December 1973, I was in basic training at Lackland AFB. From our barracks, we could see a row of phone booths about three hundred yards away. A couple of the Gomers in our flight snuck out at night to make it to those booths make a call. One succeeded. Good times.
Side note: One of the guys had sexual relations in one of those booths when she came to San Antonio to watch us graduate. It was winter and he had on his long, wool overcoat to hide the act.