Post the very best in obsolete and failed technology

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WithoutTheFezOn: Aug 28, 2005; Oh no

Shibawanko posted:

"CELLULAR TELEPHONE" said in that 1920s radio voice

Now I want my phone to say something like �dialing Klondike 5, one two one two� when I make a phone call.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 01:46

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# ? May 29, 2024 11:54

Cat Hassler: Feb 7, 2006; Slippery Tilde

I. remember in our town in the 70s you only needed to dial 5 digits for a local call. On the phones was a little label under a piece of clear plastic with the phone number (ours said NOrmandy-26996)

And your phone was provided by the phone company. Up until the late 80�s phones weren�t a thing you bought at an electronics store. That became a thing as a result of the Ma Bell breakup maybe?

# ? Aug 6, 2019 02:16

LifeSunDeath: Jan 4, 2007; still gay rights and smoke weed every day

WithoutTheFezOn posted:

Now I want my phone to say something like �dialing Klondike 5, one two one two� when I make a phone call.

This era of cool poo poo will never exist again.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 02:39

Kwyndig: Sep 23, 2006; Heeeeeey

Keith Atherton posted:

I. remember in our town in the 70s you only needed to dial 5 digits for a local call. On the phones was a little label under a piece of clear plastic with the phone number (ours said NOrmandy-26996)

And your phone was provided by the phone company. Up until the late 80’s phones weren’t a thing you bought at an electronics store. That became a thing as a result of the Ma Bell breakup maybe?

Yes it was, originally AT&T held a monopoly on both service and equipment.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 02:40

Krispy Wafer: Jul 26, 2002; I shouted out "Free the exposed 67"
But they stood on my hair and told me I was fat; Grimey Drawer

As of 10 years ago there were still about 200k phones being rented. Odds are they were old people who didn�t realize they were still paying on a long discarded phone.

That said those old phones were really sturdy. I have an box phone that was meant to look classy on an office desk and even though most of it is plastic (including the fake wood) it�s still pretty heavy. It receives calls via a VoIP adapter, but it can�t dial out.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 02:58

RC and Moon Pie: May 5, 2011

Keith Atherton posted:

I. remember in our town in the 70s you only needed to dial 5 digits for a local call. On the phones was a little label under a piece of clear plastic with the phone number (ours said NOrmandy-26996)

And your phone was provided by the phone company. Up until the late 80�s phones weren�t a thing you bought at an electronics store. That became a thing as a result of the Ma Bell breakup maybe?

My grandparents might have still had a wall phone (rotary, of course) in 1990. My mother said they had a party line when she was a teen.

I can remember that it used to be an insane hassle for anything that required touchtone. Our house had pulse dial in 1995 and maybe even later than that. If Dad needed customer service on anything that involved touchtone, he had to go to his workplace, or to the payphone down the street.

WithoutTheFezOn posted:

Now I want my phone to say something like “dialing Klondike 5, one two one two” when I make a phone call.

My mind was blown not long ago, when it I realized the movie was a) BUtterfield 8 and b) that's what it referred to. I knew about exchanges, but had never given the film any thought.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 04:06

GutBomb: Jun 15, 2005; Dude?

Keith Atherton posted:

I. remember in our town in the 70s you only needed to dial 5 digits for a local call. On the phones was a little label under a piece of clear plastic with the phone number (ours said NOrmandy-26996)

And your phone was provided by the phone company. Up until the late 80�s phones weren�t a thing you bought at an electronics store. That became a thing as a result of the Ma Bell breakup maybe?

In the early 90s I lived in a tiny town in Montana where you only had to dial 4 digits to call anyone in the local area. Just a couple years earlier, late 80s I had a friend who still had a party line while living in rural Colorado.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 04:54

Don Gato: Apr 28, 2013; Actually a bipedal cat.; Grimey Drawer

When I lived in Vermont, I found out there had been small remote towns with party lines well into the 90s, because that whole state is a throwback

# ? Aug 6, 2019 05:23

Cat Hassler: Feb 7, 2006; Slippery Tilde

Another old-rear end phone thing. My uncle was an orchardist and farmer and they lived 20 miles from our small town

This is the early 1970s but they had one of these for their phone

And it was on a party line so everyone could :ninja:

and listen to their neighbor�s phone calls

# ? Aug 6, 2019 06:08

Cojawfee: May 31, 2006; I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius

Keith Atherton posted:

Another old-rear end phone thing. My uncle was an orchardist and farmer and they lived 20 miles from our small town

This is the early 1970s but they had one of these for their phone

And it was on a party line so everyone could and listen to their neighbor�s phone calls

When my dad was a kid, they had a party line and his family's number was two shorts and a long.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 06:14

Platystemon: Feb 13, 2012; BREADS

People used to �phone� fish.

They would go electrofishing with the hand‐cranked ringer magneto from a telephone set.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0EYv8yod3A

# ? Aug 6, 2019 09:11

The_Franz: Aug 8, 2003

RC and Moon Pie posted:

My grandparents might have still had a wall phone (rotary, of course) in 1990. My mother said they had a party line when she was a teen.

I can remember that it used to be an insane hassle for anything that required touchtone. Our house had pulse dial in 1995 and maybe even later than that. If Dad needed customer service on anything that involved touchtone, he had to go to his workplace, or to the payphone down the street.

AT&T still charged extra for touchtone dialing on business lines until sometime around 2008. In the 80s my parent's auto shop had a fancy Merlin PBX system installed, but when you hit speed dial on the handset all you heard was
dit
dit-dit-dit
dit-dit

They absolutely refused to ever pay for touchtone, even if it meant spending two months fighting with the credit card machine company to get one that worked with pulse dialing in 2003. At some point touchtone just started to work, so I guess it pays to hold out.

Arsenic Lupin posted:

Is it old enough that it's going to lose connection once 2G GSM shuts down this year?

CDMA is shutting down this year. AT&T already shut down their 2G GSM network 2 years ago and T-Mobile is probably going to start shutting it down next year.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 11:12

stevewm: May 10, 2005

Don Gato posted:

When I lived in Vermont, I found out there had been small remote towns with party lines well into the 90s, because that whole state is a throwback

Its not just Vermont... In southeastern Indiana, the road I grew up on didn't get private line service until 1994-95. My parents didn't want to get a phone because of it. If we wanted to use the phone we had to walk up to my grandparents house and hope one of the 2 neighbors it was shared with wasn't already on the line.

We finally got our own phone once private line became available.

My aunt, who lived on the same road, rented a rotary phone from GTE until they became Verizon. I am sure she probably paid in excess of $1,000 for that phone over the years.

5 digit dialing for local numbers worked right up until the early 2000s.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 13:54

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

Almost certainly apocryphal, but I still love it:

quote:

An elderly lady phoned her telephone company to report that her pet dog always barked three times immediately before the phone rang and she wanted to know why.

The telephone repairman proceeded to the scene, curious to see this psychic dog or senile elderly lady.
He climbed a nearby telephone pole, hooked in his test set, and dialed the subscriber's house. The phone didn't ring right away, but instead the dog barked three times and then the telephone began to ring.

Climbing down from the pole, the telephone repairman found:

1. The dog was tied to the telephone system's ground wire via a steel chain and collar.
2. The wire connection to the ground rod was loose.
3. The dog was receiving 90 volts of signaling current when the phone number was called.
4. Each ring would cause the dog to bark in pain. After a couple of such jolts, the dog would urinate on himself and the ground.
5. The wet ground would complete the circuit, thus causing the phone to ring.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 15:33

stevewm: May 10, 2005

Its a problem almost unbelievable like the 500 mile email: https://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail.html

# ? Aug 6, 2019 15:47

Iron Crowned: May 6, 2003; by Hand Knit

stevewm posted:

Its not just Vermont... In southeastern Indiana, the road I grew up on didn't get private line service until 1994-95. My parents didn't want to get a phone because of it. If we wanted to use the phone we had to walk up to my grandparents house and hope one of the 2 neighbors it was shared with wasn't already on the line.

We finally got our own phone once private line became available.

My aunt, who lived on the same road, rented a rotary phone from GTE until they became Verizon. I am sure she probably paid in excess of $1,000 for that phone over the years.

5 digit dialing for local numbers worked right up until the early 2000s.

What always blows my mind is just how long it's taken for 9-1-1 to propagate.

Wikipedia posted:

AT&T made its first implementation in Huntington, Indiana, the hometown of J. Edward Roush, who sponsored the federal legislation to establish the nationwide system, on March 1, 1968. However, the spread of 9-1-1 implementation took many years. For example, although the City of Chicago, Illinois, had access to 9-1-1 service as early as 1976, the Illinois Commerce Commission did not authorize telephone service provider Illinois Bell to offer 9-1-1 to the Chicago suburbs until 1981.[12] Implementation was not immediate even then; by 1984, only eight Chicago suburbs in Cook County had 9-1-1 service.[13] As late as 1989, at least 28 Chicago suburbs still lacked 9-1-1 service; some of those towns had previously elected to decline 9-1-1 service due to costs and�according to emergency response personnel�failure to recognize the benefits of the 9-1-1 system.[14] By 1979, 26% of the U.S. population could dial the number. This increased to 50% by 1987 and 93% by 2000.[8] As of December 2017, 98.9% of the U.S. population has access.[15]

# ? Aug 6, 2019 15:54

Rap Game Goku: Apr 2, 2008; Word to your moms, I came to drop spirit bombs

stevewm posted:

Its a problem almost unbelievable like the 500 mile email: https://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail.html

I think this came up recently in this or another thread, but that story points out how having a fully switched network wasn't the norm then.

Also, SunOS

# ? Aug 6, 2019 15:59

Dick Trauma: Nov 30, 2007; God damn it, you've got to be kind.

Krispy Wafer posted:

That said those old phones were really sturdy. I have an box phone that was meant to look classy on an office desk and even though most of it is plastic (including the fake wood) it�s still pretty heavy. It receives calls via a VoIP adapter, but it can�t dial out.

I have an Automatic Electric rotary phone (AE80) from 1954 converted for a modular jack and that thing will still be working long after I'm gone. You could definitely bludgeon someone to death with just the handset.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 16:34

Exit Strategy: Dec 10, 2010; by sebmojo

I continue to be delighted by how "durable enough to commit murder with" is apparently the stand-out feature of old tech.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 16:38

PhotoKirk: Jul 2, 2007; insert witty text here

Krispy Wafer posted:

As of 10 years ago there were still about 200k phones being rented. Odds are they were old people who didn�t realize they were still paying on a long discarded phone.

That said those old phones were really sturdy. I have an box phone that was meant to look classy on an office desk and even though most of it is plastic (including the fake wood) it�s still pretty heavy. It receives calls via a VoIP adapter, but it can�t dial out.

Young people will never know the satisfaction of slamming down a phone receiver so hard that the bells in the base jingle. The person you hung up on didn't know it, but it felt good.

Also, some of those phones rang loud enough to wake the dead.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 16:41

stevewm: May 10, 2005

A few months ago, the COO as a joke swapped one of the store manager's desk phones with a old 1960s rotary phone.

Joke was on him though... it worked just fine on our phone system! So the store manager used it for a couple of days. (store has older phone system that supports analog phones, pulse dialing also works apparently.)

# ? Aug 6, 2019 16:46

Dick Trauma: Nov 30, 2007; God damn it, you've got to be kind.

Exit Strategy posted:

I continue to be delighted by how "durable enough to commit murder with" is apparently the stand-out feature of old tech.

When you consider that firearms and knives were not invented until 1972 it makes perfect sense.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 16:50

Exit Strategy: Dec 10, 2010; by sebmojo

Dick Trauma posted:

When you consider that firearms and knives were not invented until 1972 it makes perfect sense.

Ah, yes. In the bad old days when people only had ENIAC structural members to beat each other with. Grandpa once held up a five-and-dime with half an unbolted punch card reader.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 16:53

DariusLikewise: Oct 4, 2008; You wore that on Halloween?

Getting noslagic about HTC phones. The first smartphone I got was the HTC Touch Pro, the keyboard rocked and was much better than the BlackBerry I got later. Windows Mobile didn't really have a great app store, in fact I think it was a store run entirely by the carrier, but you could sideload a ton of things into the phone. The only problem is the slider mechanism gave out eventually and the phone wouldn't stay open anymore.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 16:54

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

Exit Strategy posted:

I continue to be delighted by how "durable enough to commit murder with" is apparently the stand-out feature of old tech.

I miss the tactile aspect of metal and mechanical switches.

Everything these days is made of crappy plastic and touchscreens. I want things that go 'click' when you press them and that you can polish with a rag and WD40

All the bits of my car are plastic or controlled by soft buttons. Even my electric drill is made of plastic

# ? Aug 6, 2019 17:05

Exit Strategy: Dec 10, 2010; by sebmojo

Shut up Meg posted:

I miss the tactile aspect of metal and mechanical switches.

Everything these days is made of crappy plastic and touchscreens. I want things that go 'click' when you press them and that you can polish with a rag and WD40

All the bits of my car are plastic or controlled by soft buttons. Even my electric drill is made of plastic

A friend of mine is working on brass caps for his copy of my keyboard design, which uses two solid copper plates and some stained Honduras mahogany as its casing. I tend to build my boards with heavy, clicky switches and steel plates. I know where you're coming from.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 17:09

shovelbum: Oct 21, 2010; Fun Shoe

Shut up Meg posted:

I miss the tactile aspect of metal and mechanical switches.

Everything these days is made of crappy plastic and touchscreens. I want things that go 'click' when you press them and that you can polish with a rag and WD40

All the bits of my car are plastic or controlled by soft buttons. Even my electric drill is made of plastic

My granddad had a metal case electric drill he found in the trash in the 50s and it was my dad's job to knock it out of his hands when the electricity locked them shut on it

# ? Aug 6, 2019 17:45

ynohtna: Feb 16, 2007; backwoods compatible; Illegal Hen

Shut up Meg posted:

I miss the tactile aspect of metal and mechanical switches.

Aye.

Someone please ban all the unreliable squidgy moulded silicon buttons.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 18:09

Johnny Aztec: Jan 30, 2005; by Hand Knit

shovelbum posted:

My granddad had a metal case electric drill he found in the trash in the 50s and it was my dad's job to knock it out of his hands when the electricity locked them shut on it

Sorry your granddad was a mentally-deficient Boomer that just would keep using dangerous equipment rather than fixing or replacing.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 18:14

Iron Crowned: May 6, 2003; by Hand Knit

Exit Strategy posted:

A friend of mine is working on brass caps for his copy of my keyboard design, which uses two solid copper plates and some stained Honduras mahogany as its casing. I tend to build my boards with heavy, clicky switches and steel plates. I know where you're coming from.

How many gears are on his top hat?

# ? Aug 6, 2019 18:24

Exit Strategy: Dec 10, 2010; by sebmojo

Iron Crowned posted:

How many gears are on his top hat?

I mean, sure, I see where you're coming from, but he's going for "compact, heavy high-efficiency board".

# ? Aug 6, 2019 18:39

3D Megadoodoo: Nov 25, 2010

Exit Strategy posted:

I mean, sure, I see where you're coming from, but he's going for "compact, heavy high-efficiency board".

Sure sure but what we want to see is him eating a durian on YouTube.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 19:15

Arsenic Lupin: Apr 12, 2012; This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.

Shut up Meg posted:

I miss the tactile aspect of metal and mechanical switches.

Everything these days is made of crappy plastic and touchscreens. I want things that go 'click' when you press them and that you can polish with a rag and WD40

I miss when computer power switches weren't advisory.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 19:24

mints: Aug 15, 2001; Living on past glories

Did anyone here ever try out or own an AT&T Videophone 2500? I remember for a brief period of time my local mall had an AT&T store and they had demo units where you could try out a video call. It seemed like the future was finally here, until I tried it and realized that everything looked like poo poo. And it was super expensive.

Now I'm getting a wave of nostalgia thinking of the old Qwest ad and thinking of how similar this is to all the streaming services

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAxtxPAUcwQ

edit: attached a photo of the VideoPhone 2500 just in case someone vaguely remembers it.

Only registered members can see post attachments!

# ? Aug 6, 2019 19:27

stevewm: May 10, 2005

mints posted:

Did anyone here ever try out or own an AT&T Videophone 2500? I remember for a brief period of time my local mall had an AT&T store and they had demo units where you could try out a video call. It seemed like the future was finally here, until I tried it and realized that everything looked like poo poo. And it was super expensive.

Its funny how everyone thought in the future every call would be a video call. Then the future arrived. Video calls are possible from just about every cellphone. And a myriad of devices. Yet a good majority of calls are still done audio only.

stevewm has a new favorite as of 19:39 on Aug 6, 2019

# ? Aug 6, 2019 19:32

Iron Crowned: May 6, 2003; by Hand Knit

mints posted:

Did anyone here ever try out or own an AT&T Videophone 2500? I remember for a brief period of time my local mall had an AT&T store and they had demo units where you could try out a video call. It seemed like the future was finally here, until I tried it and realized that everything looked like poo poo. And it was super expensive.

edit: attached a photo of the VideoPhone 2500 just in case someone vaguely remembers it.

Vidphones seemed so damned cool back then, it's a shame that we went for mobile phones instead.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 19:39

FilthyImp: Sep 30, 2002; Anime Deviant

Yeah turns out maybe you want to see your kids, but you usually don't care to see your Nana or boyfriend when you're at lunch or look like warmed over rear end.

Also vidchat requires a lot more attention and presence than we usually alot for calls. Like if you're talking about work and taking motes or whatever you don't want to look like you're preoccupied by not looking at the person the whole time.
It also means you can't zone out when someone is telling a story about their day.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 19:42

Platystemon: Feb 13, 2012; BREADS

stevewm posted:

Its funny how everyone thought in the future every call would be a video call. Then the future arrived. Video calls are possible from just about every cellphone. And a myriad of devices. Yet a good majority of calls are still done audio only.

Audio only, via speakerphone, phone held horizontally at the neckline.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 19:49

Peanut Butler: Jul 25, 2003

the first video conference I saw was a Young Astronauts thing at the Honeywell campus like in 1990 or so, to a similar kids science group in Sweden

it was done over line-of-sight microwave link to the nearest university internet backbone, and was set up as a projector that put the image of the room in Sweden on one entire wall, so it seemed like they were through a window

it was neat and weird

brings me to another obsolete technology: microwave towers!

in the late 70s it became clear that this town needed a microwave tower located downtown next to the AT&T exchange, but the towers are ugly as sin and the exchange is right in the middle of downtown. So this is what the engineers proposed:

and here's how an architect cleaned it up a lil bit

quote:

At the time of the tower�s proposal in the spring of 1978, a Bell spokesman stated that the cable serving Lawrence would be �overburdened� in less than a year, but that the installation of a microwave relay station would be able to handle growth in the area �for at least 20 years�. The need to be close to the central telephone exchange, and tall enough to see relay towers already part of the Bell system dictated a 150 foot tower in the heart of downtown Lawrence.

I used to run distance learning classes over microwave between here and Kansas City, and it worked really well unless the weather wasn't cooperating. We had a ton of regional fiber laid in the 90s, so AT&T was looking to decommission the tower, and they started to remove the microwave equipment around 2000 and were talking about giving the tower to the city to maintain for use as a park... except that Cingular was kicking off and the tower had sight lines to most of the river valley

here it is today, seated among a bunch of other buildings that haven't changed since 1979 (or 1929 or 1879 for that matter)- the other end of downtown has had some new building in the last twenty years, so it doesn't loom over the entirety of the neighborhood anymore- but until 2008 or so it was easily the tallest thing downtown

# ? Aug 6, 2019 19:56

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# ? May 29, 2024 11:54

Powered Descent: Jul 13, 2008; We haven't had that spirit here since 1969.

stevewm posted:

Its funny how everyone thought in the future every call would be a video call. Then the future arrived. Video calls are possible from just about every cellphone. And a myriad of devices. Yet a good majority of calls are still done audio only.

Hell, most "phone calls" these days don't even have audio. Some huge percentage of person-to-person communications are now handled via text.

# ? Aug 6, 2019 19:57

The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > Post the very best in obsolete and failed technology

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