Before Cellular Phones

fureverywhere

fureverywhere

beloved friend who will always be with us in spiri
Location
Northern NJ, USA
Probably one of the biggest changes that dates us is remembering what telephones used to be. I was on another site talking about the movie " Wall Street". That came out in 1987. There's a scene where Gordon Gecko is strolling on the beach with his cordless phone. His character is wealthy, so the phone was probably state of the art for that era. The phone was almost bread loaf sized.

Do you remember Princess Phones? Phone numbers that had letters? Party lines? My grandmother lived in small town Pennsylvania. You would pick up the phone, greet the operator and tell her who you wanted to talk to. If you were expecting an important call you had to stay near the phone, you couldn't pick it up and take it with you. Even into the 70's not many people had answering machines.

We take our cell phones for granted now. They record calls, take pictures, connect to the internet, text, do everything except fly...wait there's an app for that...would you have believed it in 1972?
 

I remember everything you mentioned except party lines - guess I'm too young to remember those.

But yes, the early "bricks" were hilariously huge and heavy - I had one of those.
 
fureverywhere said:
Probably one of the biggest changes that dates us is remembering what telephones used to be. I was on another site talking about the movie " Wall Street". That came out in 1987. There's a scene where Gordon Gecko is strolling on the beach with his cordless phone. His character is wealthy, so the phone was probably state of the art for that era. The phone was almost bread loaf sized.

Do you remember Princess Phones? Phone numbers that had letters? Party lines? My grandmother lived in small town Pennsylvania. You would pick up the phone, greet the operator and tell her who you wanted to talk to. If you were expecting an important call you had to stay near the phone, you couldn't pick it up and take it with you. Even into the 70's not many people had answering machines.

We take our cell phones for granted now. They record calls, take pictures, connect to the internet, text, do everything except fly...wait there's an app for that...would you have believed it in 1972?
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Our home had one phone. It was centrally located. This was in Los Angeles just before WW2. We had a three party line. It was only used briefly and for important calls. Soon, all phones in Los Angeles were only allowed if you had a medical or wartime need for one. Things have changed dramatically since those days.
 

Those were the days.

When I was a kid we played outside, a new kid in our block meant a new third baseman on our vacant lot ball park team. A new kid moved in on the other side of our street. This was when I was about 8. The first thing we knew about Herbie was he had a horrible stuttering problem. But he was a good kid and we liked him. Kids didn't use phones then. They were for adults but we usually had no need anyhow. One day Herbie and my brother and I were talking about telephones and herbie asked if we knew our number. Of course we did and told it to him.
Later, that evening my Dad answered the phone and with a big smile called me and said "It's for you Jimmy". I picked it up and said hello and this is what I heard "bett, bett, betja, betja don, don't, betja don't know, betja, betja don't know who this, betja don't know who this is..... " True story.
 
Phil we're almost the same age I think and I remember Party lines very well, we had them right up until I was about 14. We shared the same line with the 2 neighbours. Unlike the later models The party phone had a button on the top as in the picture, and once you lifted the receiver you had to press the button to get a free line, if someone was using the phone , then you could hear their conversation..

j8mecn.jpg


When they phased out the party lines the phones were manufactured without the button...and then following the 746 design came the trimphone in the late 60's t722pred.jpg which was similar in style to the American princess phone ...although lots of people held onto the 746 for a long time, the trimphone became a 60's early 70's icon..


Ooops sorry I'm rambling on....I buy and collect retro phones so I get a bit carried away... :D today they are highly collectable..
 
We didn't have a phone until I was around 15, then it was a rotary dial that my mother said was for important family calls and emergencies only. I had very limited minutes on it to call a friend.
 
Wall phone in the kitchen, princess in the bedroom..

Question:
If you had an emergency at 2AM would your children answer their cell?? Would it be in another room or on their charger?? Do you really think that it would wake them??
 
When I first became a State Trooper, we had no cell phones and therefore we had to use pay phones to call ahead to arrange a visit with any witnesses that we were assigned to visit, interview and take a statement from. Normally, we would do this before leaving the barracks, but occasionally I would get a call from a detective asking me to visit a witness and take their statement while I was out on patrol.

One day while making my appointed rounds, I received a call from one of the detectives asking me to visit a gentleman to take his statement of a fatal crash that he had witnessed. I tried and tried to get his phone number, but to no avail. Finally, I decided to just make the 30 mile drive to his home and hope that he would be home and willing to speak with me. After a 55 minute drive, I arrived at his home and immediately discovered why I could not find his phone number. He was Amish.

I was very young then, but got an education that day.
 
Interesting story, 911 (as all your stories are) :)

I definitely remember party lines, and phones prefaced by 2-letter prefix. (DU2-3456). All phones were black rotary dial in 1950s and 60s. There was a long period of time when we had no phone and went to neighbors to use theirs. I used to listen in on the party lines sometimes. Usually just gossip. My aunt and dad caught me doing it and made me hang up. When I was 16 I got my own phone in my bedroom (birthday gift from mom).
 
oldman said:
Went to London last week. I never seen so many phone booths (boxes).

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Compared to how many red phone boxes we had a few years ago there's relatively few now in the capital. Most have been replaced with Glass booths. Our here in the villages the Red boxes still reign supreme, although some of them have had the workings removed and are being used for other things...one village close by has turned one into a mini lending library like this one, IMG_9695.jpg another a floral display.. many hundreds of people bought them and converted them into something useful in their homes or gardens...like this one..LOL... _48975283_010099860-1.jpg

Still more had them shipped over to other countries and use them in their gardens or homes.....

This is one of our village phone boxes...thank the lord not as dirty as the inner City ones..

DSCF2420.jpg
 
AC the ''trimphone'' as in my picture was a particular angular design popular during the 60's and 70's and a little into the 80's here...but after that came all sorts of other designs.. cordless mainly..and the 'trimphone'' which was corded and had to be plugged into the wall is now a sought after retro item ...and lately this design has been copied by the designer market although now updated into digital form and in pastel colours to use mainly ornamentally in the home
 
In the 30s and 40s we had a phone (one) in the dining room. It did not have a dial, you told the operator what number you wanted and she connected you. A few years later they gave us a phone with a dial. You didn't own the phone, they remained phone company property. Area codes came after that. I tried dialing someone in a different code and it didn't work. Some time later they got our area working.
 

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