A relic of the past.

"XJDano" (xjdano)
03/01/2020 at 18:11 • Filed to: None

as at my uncle’s property this week and and this stuck out at me. Here are a couple more gems. The phone line doesn’t work as it’d be too expensive to rerun another line, and service was over $80/ month or something ridiculous. The house is right in a valley that doesn’t get a cell signal.

Old remedies in a paper from 1992 I think it was.

DISCUSSION (10)

Snuze: Needs another Swede > XJDano
03/01/2020 at 18:21

Those were old when I was a child, but I love them. My folks are tech dinosaurs and we had them well into the 90s when the phone company went digital. But I remember my friends coming over and wanting to stay for dinner and my mom would say "call your parents to see if its okay" and they would just look at the phone, or push on the numbers like they were buttons. Fun times!

smobgirl > XJDano
03/01/2020 at 18:32

There’s a phone booth by H arry Potter at Universal Studios to call the Ministry of Magic. All of the second gen Potter fans need an adult to show them how to dial a rotary phone.

shop-teacher > XJDano
03/01/2020 at 18:48

Phone companies don't support rotary phones anymore. It was within the last few years they stopped, but nonetheless they stopped.

fintail > XJDano
03/01/2020 at 18:54

I recall my grandma’s time capsule early 60s rambler had these as bedroom phones well into the 90s, maybe even into this century. I remember the pink “princess” model in my mom’s old room was the same one she used as a teenager when the house was built and she was in high school - she’s in her 70s now. I think they had a blue one, too. I remember playing with those phones when I was a kid, old even then, the clicks corresponding to the number were entertaining to me.

ranwhenparked > shop-teacher
03/01/2020 at 18:56

Some still do, other wise you can get a pulse/tone convertor

ranwhenparked > Snuze: Needs another Swede
03/01/2020 at 19:00

We had three when I was a kid, up until about 1992. Two Model 500 desk phones (one in the basement rec room, one in my parents’ bedroom), plus one of the wall phone versions with a ca. 200ft cord that reached so much of the house, you almost didn’t need the other ones.

Really well built. AT&T made them like industrial equipment, they were designed to basically last forever - when one broke or wore out, it just went back to the company to be refurbished and sent out to another customer.

Downside is when we moved my grandmother into a nursing home around 2004/2005, we found out she was still paying monthly rent on her kitchen phone to whichever finance company took over Bell Atlantic’s accounts. Paid for that thing probably dozens of time over during 40+ years.

TheRealBicycleBuck > XJDano
03/01/2020 at 19:18

Back then, i f your phone number had more than one 9 in it, you were a social pariah and nobody would call you.

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > XJDano
03/01/2020 at 19:47

Sugar in an open wound and bacon to cure an infection, sounds delicious.

shop-teacher > ranwhenparked
03/01/2020 at 21:36

Oh cool! I didn't know that was a thing.

Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street. > smobgirl
03/01/2020 at 21:59

If they had a webcam I'd watch that all day long.