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DLers who lived in the era before cellphones, how did you regularly keep in touch with people and make plans etc?

Born in 1992 here. Also, do you think there will come a time in the future where we don’t communicate face to face at all?

by Anonymousreply 368August 26, 2019 5:58 AM

By phone, OP.

by Anonymousreply 1August 20, 2019 5:56 PM

Well, before cell phones we had land lines, and pay phones. Then pagers came on the scene and they made things a bit easier.

by Anonymousreply 2August 20, 2019 5:57 PM

I miss those days

by Anonymousreply 3August 20, 2019 5:59 PM

I miss those days

by Anonymousreply 4August 20, 2019 5:59 PM

I remember how space-agey cordless phones were. You could walk outside and still be talking!

I remember calling my answering machines from public phone booths. Or 'reversing the charges' so my parents had to pay for the call!

I also remember my mother composing long letters to relatives. She'd make long distance calls only at the time of day when 'the rates are cheaper'.

by Anonymousreply 5August 20, 2019 6:02 PM

[quote]Well, before cell phones we had land lines, and pay phones.

We also had answering machines which could be accessed from any touch tone phone.

Before answering machines some people had outside "services" that would answer your phone for you and take messages.

Also you tended to call people between 6 & 7 PM when they were most likely to be home - or in the morning before they went out.

People would also send telegrams.

by Anonymousreply 6August 20, 2019 6:03 PM

Smoke signals.

by Anonymousreply 7August 20, 2019 6:04 PM

OP, you did it by phone and I don't recall anybody ever thinking, "There has to be a better way!" Of course, now there is. You don't even need to sit by the phone anymore.

by Anonymousreply 8August 20, 2019 6:05 PM

Semaphore......

that joke never gets old......

by Anonymousreply 9August 20, 2019 6:05 PM

We also blew into hollow conk shells and if we heard a reply we knew there was a dance in the neighbor's barn, down yonder......

by Anonymousreply 10August 20, 2019 6:11 PM

I had a car phone (stupid, expensive, pointless as it was tethered to the car) from late 1987 on. And a pager. And they were Mobile Phones then, despite being Cellular. The Cellphone tag came in the 90s.

Pagers..... now those were the dead giveaway that if you weren't a doctor or lawyer you were either a player or player-adjacent.

by Anonymousreply 11August 20, 2019 6:12 PM

Mattel-O-Phone

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by Anonymousreply 12August 20, 2019 6:14 PM

I remember the phone booth being a popular teen hangout in the early '90s (Mass.), when I was a teen. The adults wanting to use it would get pissed when kids took forever or wouldn't vacate the premise.

by Anonymousreply 13August 20, 2019 6:15 PM

I made plans with my phone or in person.

by Anonymousreply 14August 20, 2019 6:15 PM

I carried a CB Radio with me everywhere I went.

by Anonymousreply 15August 20, 2019 6:16 PM

The problem with cell and cordless phones is that it's almost impossible to end a call with someone. With this baby, you tell the caller "someone's at the door, I have to go," or "I have something in the oven...." or "the bathtub's overflowing, gotta go."

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by Anonymousreply 16August 20, 2019 6:16 PM

R16 say “the cat is on fire, gotta go”

by Anonymousreply 17August 20, 2019 6:21 PM

Remember the party/hookup lines in the 90s where you would press # to skip to the next

by Anonymousreply 18August 20, 2019 6:40 PM

OP: We didn't make plans. We darned socks by the fireplace, waiting, waiting, waiting for a gentleman caller.

by Anonymousreply 19August 20, 2019 6:40 PM

No, but I remember Party Lines, R18.

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by Anonymousreply 20August 20, 2019 6:42 PM

I had a "party line" in college.

Most people knew to hang up when they heard a voice, but not Marylin Dickmann.

She would whine in her obnoxious NJ accent: "Hooooooow loooooooooong are ya gonna be on the phoooooooone? I need to call Jeffrey!"

by Anonymousreply 21August 20, 2019 6:42 PM

R21 who's Jeffery?

by Anonymousreply 22August 20, 2019 6:43 PM

We had FACES (but not FaceTime) then!

by Anonymousreply 23August 20, 2019 6:44 PM

I'd pen the correspondence, then ring for the hot footman to arrange delivery.

by Anonymousreply 24August 20, 2019 6:53 PM

R22 Her boyfriend.

But she said it like it mattered to me -- or that I would know who he was.

What she didn't know was my identity. But I recognized her voice.

by Anonymousreply 25August 20, 2019 6:53 PM

Smoke signals Rose

by Anonymousreply 26August 20, 2019 7:00 PM

Phones: land lines. While access was not as easy,, communication was much better. No comparison. Texting is a very limited way to communicate. So is email. Born in 1953. My social life in NYC in the mid and late 70s in NYC was booked. Evenings were spent on the phone at that stage of my life if I was not out. Some time in there recorded phone machines and answering services became common. They did not really help. Cold calling, trying again if they were not there- simple- and probably more effective than what we have now. Also, when we got together, we did not talk on the phone, nor did we text- think about it! Of course we did not look at a screen at all. When I think about it, I realize how much the world has changed. Our information was less accessible, but accessible enough, and more likely to be accurate.

by Anonymousreply 27August 20, 2019 7:00 PM

There was a service the phone company offered for landlines. If you called someone who didn't answer, you could arrange for a call to be placed after that person next used his landline. So, after the person called someone, then ended the call, his phone would automatically ring and so would yours. It freaked me out the first time someone did it to me. A lawyer friend learned this trick at work and used it when she was trying to reach friends. I don't remember what it was called or how much it cost.

by Anonymousreply 28August 20, 2019 7:12 PM

I hope for your sake OP that you're not as stupid as you sound.

by Anonymousreply 29August 20, 2019 7:25 PM

[quote]Also, when we got together, we did not talk on the phone, nor did we text- think about it! Of course we did not look at a screen at all.

When I was a kid/teen in the '80s/'90s, there was a lot of heads looking down and looking at a screen, but it was mostly associated with kids/teens because it was due to handheld video games. I remember many boys getting their Game Boys confiscated at school. Even in my own family the adults would often tell us to put them away at family functions (e.g., Christmas). Adults would even lament that when they were young, kids were more active and spent time outdoors.

by Anonymousreply 30August 20, 2019 7:25 PM

I was actually a kid in the 90s and couldn't drive, so it was mostly inconvenient. However, I imagine that it was mostly a relief for adults not having to immediately return calls or be reachable at every moment during the day. It seems much more efficient to me to set up a block of time during the day where you would return messages. I also think communication is better over the phone or in person than through text messages. So I think of this as an instance where there were definite drawbacks, but the trade off wasn't worth it.

by Anonymousreply 31August 20, 2019 7:49 PM

One needed a large supply of pencils for dialing .

by Anonymousreply 32August 20, 2019 7:49 PM

I’m an elder millennial. We used the phone. I think I remember using msn messenger (or some other desktop im program) as well before cell phones were widespread. Even after I had a cell, msn messenger was still popular for a while because texting was so basic. Plans were also made by email because you could include links.

by Anonymousreply 33August 20, 2019 7:51 PM

OMG - remember when they introduced Call Waiting? That really took off like a rocket in NYC.

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by Anonymousreply 34August 20, 2019 7:53 PM

I’m not as dumb as I look! r29

by Anonymousreply 35August 20, 2019 8:14 PM

People actually used to write hand-written letters to each other and send them through the mail, OP. You would look forward to getting letters in the mail and opening and reading them.

by Anonymousreply 36August 20, 2019 8:18 PM

I purposely always would meet up with people in (regular) bookstores or card shops, so that if they were late you could spend your time browsing. There was also weird backup plans, If your not there at 6:30 I will check back every half hour at the same spot and then every half hour at another spot after a certain amount of time.

by Anonymousreply 37August 20, 2019 8:22 PM

Pay phones were ubiquitous, just as U.S. mailboxes were. Now it's impossible to find either.

by Anonymousreply 38August 20, 2019 8:29 PM

We didn't give a fuck what people were doing at every minute of everyday. Keeping in touch wasn't "urgent". A vacation was a vacation and no one cared about your pictures. Just like 2019 no one wanted to see them. If someone called and you didn't answer it was because they were doing something that didn't include you. You could call back or leave a message. Way less stressful.

by Anonymousreply 39August 20, 2019 8:29 PM

We also had usual set up call date times like every Thursday at 10:00 PM after the rates changed, or the first Sunday of the month at 1:00 PM.

by Anonymousreply 40August 20, 2019 8:32 PM

[quote]A vacation was a vacation and no one cared about your pictures.

But then there were those people who just had to bore you with their photos/slides of Hawaii or wherever else they went on vacation.

by Anonymousreply 41August 20, 2019 8:33 PM

I don't remember how it came up, but I never truly felt "old" (I'm 44) until I had a co-worker who was in her mid 20's say she had no idea how those phones worked R16.

I will say, she wasn't the brightest, and I imagine most could figure it out, even if you had never used one, but still.

by Anonymousreply 42August 20, 2019 8:33 PM

we left notes

by Anonymousreply 43August 20, 2019 8:34 PM

I'd also add she has no concept of "long distance" charges, as no cell phone company charges for them anymore.

by Anonymousreply 44August 20, 2019 8:35 PM

[quote]no cell phone company charges for them anymore.

How come?

by Anonymousreply 45August 20, 2019 8:40 PM

Bought a little wooden box, sanded it, spent hours refinishing it and then painstakingly cut out a lovely illustration of violets in some grass. I then decoupaged every last grass leaf onto the box cover, and spent another 3 days applying layers of finish, letting it dry, then sanding it by hand.. It's absolutely beautiful and a perfect fit for the android phone I bought and used for three months before it drove me crazy. Maybe I'll turn it on again someday. In the meanwhile, it looks fabulous.

by Anonymousreply 46August 20, 2019 8:44 PM

I don't know how this can be a legitimate question unless OP is a complete moron. You honestly don't know how people kept in contact before cellphones?

by Anonymousreply 47August 20, 2019 8:44 PM

You dialed a number and talked into a speaker and the person on the other end could hear you. Is that what you mean OP? Or do you mean how did one communicate when they have to talk to you Right This Second? NOW! No one cared like they do today OP. We were too busy living.

by Anonymousreply 48August 20, 2019 8:56 PM

They used a phone call the landline. At one point you could dial the phone with a pencil. Thank you next!

by Anonymousreply 49August 20, 2019 8:58 PM

We had Sarah to connect us to Mr Drucker

by Anonymousreply 50August 20, 2019 9:01 PM

The answer seems to be obvious to some of you, but there were plenty of scenarios that were more complicated than ‘Duh just call.”

I remember waiting for a friend on one occasion about 1999: we had made arrangements to meet at a particular restaurant but neither of us knew there were 2 locations. We both waited for an hour for the other one, went home angry, and then later realized what had happened by phone from home. That would never happen now.

You had to be very specific with addresses...

Not to mention traveling with hard copy maps before google maps...

by Anonymousreply 51August 20, 2019 9:02 PM

Smoke signals. The right kind of smoke, if you catch my drift.

by Anonymousreply 52August 20, 2019 9:03 PM

OP we also went out to restaurants and spoke to people verbally across the table while looking them in the eye and giving them our utmost attention with no distractions and we had absolutely no compulsion or wish to photograph our food! Imagine that! I know it's totally mind- blowing!

by Anonymousreply 53August 20, 2019 9:06 PM

[quote] A vacation was a vacation and no one cared about your pictures.

No one cares about your pictures today, either.

by Anonymousreply 54August 20, 2019 9:06 PM

I always made calls to friends during the work day. Easy peasey. I had a landline until ten years ago.

by Anonymousreply 55August 20, 2019 9:11 PM

This is great question. I was always afraid that I would miss a call from a potential gentleman caller with a landline. Pagers took some of the stress away, but then you had to look for a phone to return a call. Probably the best situation was the old flip cell phones. The evolution to Smart phones was a step back in my opinion, at least in response to OP's question. That said, I admit I can't live without my Smart phone either.

by Anonymousreply 56August 20, 2019 9:14 PM

On Sundays, the rates were lowest. Thats when I scheduled my hot n heavy calls!

by Anonymousreply 57August 20, 2019 10:24 PM

Before cellphones was a blissful time. I was happy to get good news anytime I got it, and the bad news could always wait.

I’ll bet there are many people now who would be confused if they heard a busy signal.

by Anonymousreply 58August 20, 2019 10:38 PM

my snoopy phone worked very well

by Anonymousreply 59August 20, 2019 10:46 PM

It was always phone or you sent a letter.

Call Waiting was good and bad, because usually your bitch sister's friends would click in every 30 seconds. Until your parents broke down and got your bitch sister her own Slimline Princess phone.

by Anonymousreply 60August 20, 2019 10:48 PM

Back in those days there was such a thing as the "gay scene" (much nicer than the "LGBT community") with gay bars and clubs and cafes that everyone would go to on a Friday or Saturday night so you knew you was likely to meet your friends/targets. You'd also see other people's friends and ask if they knew if so and so was coming.

If someone called you and you were out then you'd leave a message that they should call you back with the people they lived with.

by Anonymousreply 61August 20, 2019 10:54 PM
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by Anonymousreply 62August 20, 2019 10:54 PM

Of course it was by phone - but we spent a LOT of time on the phone. And, it wasn't cheap either. You could pay a higher rate for calling 5 miles away.

I remember some phone bills in 1986 were $330 in our house (3 teenagers). That's $770 today.

by Anonymousreply 63August 20, 2019 10:58 PM

Notes in a bottle. We used to think 50 years was a pretty good deal.

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by Anonymousreply 64August 20, 2019 11:03 PM

My mother put a lock on our one phone so that my older teenaged sister wouldn’t run up the bill.

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by Anonymousreply 65August 20, 2019 11:04 PM

Yeah, the phone rates were weird and terrible.

I lived in a suburb of a big city, and we could call three towns over for free but not the town next to us. My friend in the town next to us had a phone that his mom paid an extra flat rate for to call into the city.

If we had to make a long distance call we waited until after 7 pm (or was it 9?) and it was always kept to a minimum.

by Anonymousreply 66August 20, 2019 11:04 PM

I remember in the '80s and '90s, it was a rite of passage for a teenage girl to get her own telephone in her room -- or better yet, her own extension. I think many households did this because teen girls love to talk a lot and were hogging up the main line.

by Anonymousreply 67August 20, 2019 11:12 PM

Yes, there was the whole (true) stereotype of the teenage daughter who was constantly on the phone with her friends.

There is a lot of stress today associated with always being contactable but there was a different kind of stress back then if you had a long-distance relationship or your partner was away for awhile. Non-local and international calls were really expensive.

Not being able to contact someone was also a pain if you had arranged to meet and one of you was late. There were a lot of little things like that.

by Anonymousreply 68August 20, 2019 11:18 PM

This was posted somewhere a while back.

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by Anonymousreply 69August 20, 2019 11:20 PM

My mother still pines for the day when people wrote letters and cards.

by Anonymousreply 70August 20, 2019 11:25 PM

R28 - "charlie" you were only born in 1953? I was thinking 1935 by the way you talk here. Now I have more ammunition in case you start going on and on again about your close personal relationship with Hepburn.

by Anonymousreply 71August 21, 2019 1:17 AM

Does anyone remember PHONE BOOKS? Your number and address under your name. Ripe for stalkers, bad dates, bad employers, bad teachers/students to seek out and come over and bludgeon your guts out!

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by Anonymousreply 72August 21, 2019 1:28 AM

R72 you had the option to have it unpublished/unlisted.

by Anonymousreply 73August 21, 2019 1:31 AM

People didn’t flake out. If you made a plan, you stuck to it.

by Anonymousreply 74August 21, 2019 1:37 AM

We just ran to our favorite pigeon and tied our pure-as-snow message onto the bird, then let it flew. Ravens were used when a circuit party was imminent.

by Anonymousreply 75August 21, 2019 1:39 AM

It didn't seem inconvenient because there was no cellphone world to compare it with. It would be hard to go back now because of the security a cell phone provides when you're driving or out and about.

by Anonymousreply 76August 21, 2019 1:41 AM

Two Dixie cups and a long, taut piece of string.

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by Anonymousreply 77August 21, 2019 1:43 AM

R73, that costed EXTRA.

by Anonymousreply 78August 21, 2019 1:46 AM

I don't miss those days at all. Having to find a pay phone could be a real PIA.

by Anonymousreply 79August 21, 2019 1:52 AM

[quote] you had the option to have it unpublished/unlisted.

Which you had to pay some bitch at the phone company an extra buck a month or something to keep it unlisted.

Because that's what it "costed."

by Anonymousreply 80August 21, 2019 1:58 AM

Did you let your fingers do the walking through the yellow pages?

This was considered the holy grail in my childhood home. Do they still print these directories?

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by Anonymousreply 81August 21, 2019 1:59 AM

[quote] Do they still print these directories?

I think they finally stopped in my area. They would deliver them to our building and they'd just sit and rot.

by Anonymousreply 82August 21, 2019 2:01 AM

Cell phones seemed to put an end to serial killers.

by Anonymousreply 83August 21, 2019 2:04 AM

I still remember my MCI calling card number. It was a must, working out of town.

by Anonymousreply 84August 21, 2019 2:04 AM

I grew up in this odd transitional mini-era where no one younger than driving age had a cellphone, but one would often just borrow one of their parents' for the day if need be.

by Anonymousreply 85August 21, 2019 2:04 AM

Do you think people in 1919 were having the same exact conversation but about automobiles and how convenient they were compared to horse-and-buggy or simply having to walk?

by Anonymousreply 86August 21, 2019 2:08 AM

People in 1919 were probably asking how people kept in touch in the era before TELEPHONES.

by Anonymousreply 87August 21, 2019 2:11 AM

It was like a ritual, every day within 10 minutes of being home the phone started ringing, was always John, who then called Derek who then called Jen who then called...this was the mid-later 90s and it was SO MUCH FUN! The constant expansion of the circle of us BS'ing. I also still have some of the notes my friends wrote during school. My mother was shocked at seeing santa with a 6 page schlong was quite entertaining and memories I'll forever remember.

Not to mention we got to enjoy the last of prank calling games. Soon *67/*69 and caller ID killed that one too.

In that, I feel badly for younger generations who don't have that anticipation build throughout the day, having something to look forward to in the right place at the right time. Not to mention texts are much less fun than the oldschool note.

by Anonymousreply 88August 21, 2019 2:12 AM

They relied on the town gossips.

by Anonymousreply 89August 21, 2019 2:12 AM

[quote]I don't miss those days at all. Having to find a pay phone could be a real PIA.

Really? In the USA there were billions of them. Where did you live?

In NYC there was always one within sight....or several.

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by Anonymousreply 90August 21, 2019 2:13 AM

People were taking pictures of the phone booths in Mexico because no one had seen them for years.

by Anonymousreply 91August 21, 2019 2:15 AM

Sometimes it was a pain if you moved into a new house and had to wait a week or so to get connected.

I was looking at a flat in London a few weeks ago and they still had the landline phones connected. The agent was amused when I told him you'd often check to see if a place had a good number because you'd inherit the number when you moved in and often the actual phones.

One house I grew up in we had the same phones for 30 years.

by Anonymousreply 92August 21, 2019 2:17 AM

R91 what people?

by Anonymousreply 93August 21, 2019 2:19 AM

r90 believe it or not the entire world does not revolve around NYC.

by Anonymousreply 94August 21, 2019 2:20 AM

R93 Various tourists, mostly Americans.

by Anonymousreply 95August 21, 2019 2:20 AM

The only people my age I know who have a landline work from home and it's paid for by their company. Everybody else just has a cell phone.

by Anonymousreply 96August 21, 2019 2:21 AM

[quote][R90] believe it or not the entire world does not revolve around NYC.

I didn't say it did, Miss Chippy Flyover.

by Anonymousreply 97August 21, 2019 2:21 AM

Many older people still have landlines. Some apartments/condos require one for the door entry system.

by Anonymousreply 98August 21, 2019 2:22 AM

We still have our red phone boxes in London. But they don't maintain them. They look derelict.

by Anonymousreply 99August 21, 2019 2:24 AM

[quote]Many older people still have landlines.

I still have mine.

I hate cell phones.

by Anonymousreply 100August 21, 2019 2:25 AM

I can hardly remember what it was like to pick up the phone, call someone, make plans and then arrange to meet at a certain place and time. Somehow we did it. What I remember is, there was a certainly mystery about what your friends were up to. Without social media, you really had no idea. Plus, you could totally lose track of someone, which was nice.

by Anonymousreply 101August 21, 2019 2:28 AM

Even in NYC finding a pay phone could be difficult depending on where you were. Many building lobbies didn't have them.

by Anonymousreply 102August 21, 2019 2:31 AM

I don't believe that, R94.

by Anonymousreply 103August 21, 2019 2:31 AM

R66 I forgot all about waiting till after a certain hour! And wasn't Sunday cheaper, too?

by Anonymousreply 104August 21, 2019 2:32 AM

Most teenagers in the 80s had a phone in their bedroom and we would talk on the phone all night long. We would make prank phone calls, and call guys we had crushes on and hang up.

I don't remember answering machines become a thing until the late 80s. People always answered their phones back then. It was an event when the phone rang, and everyone would jump up to be the first one to answer the phone.

by Anonymousreply 105August 21, 2019 2:33 AM

People who still have landlines tell me most phone calls these days are spam calls. My uncle told me the phone rings all day at his house, and it's mostly spammers.

by Anonymousreply 106August 21, 2019 2:35 AM

Haha r104 Yes. A super queen friend of mine used to always end calls with "gotta go, you're wasting my daytime minutes" even years after daytime minutes ceased to be a thing.

by Anonymousreply 107August 21, 2019 2:38 AM

[quote]Even in NYC finding a pay phone could be difficult depending on where you were. Many building lobbies didn't have them.

You just had to step outside, Mary. Look left, look right - THERE was a phone.

by Anonymousreply 108August 21, 2019 2:38 AM

R108 how do you know?

by Anonymousreply 109August 21, 2019 2:40 AM

because I lived there

by Anonymousreply 110August 21, 2019 2:41 AM

If you couldn't leave the building for whatever reasons? It wasn't always possible. And I don't remember pay phones being on every single street, either. Especially if you were downtown.

by Anonymousreply 111August 21, 2019 2:45 AM

Poor OP.

Once upon a time, I lived in a small German village. While I had a phone, most of my friends didn’t. You can imagine the quandary this caused. No? Let me explain. Answering machines were not commonplace in those days.

If you didn’t have a phone, you’d leave a message with a friend. Or you’d send a postgram. A postgram was like a telegram but delivered by the post office. They were delivered as short messages in an envelope to the recipient, like “WILL CALL YOU REG PLACE 9 PM” meaning, I’d call them at the bar down the street at 9 pm on the pay phone. Yes, you could call someone on a payphone back then.

All this pre-arrangement to plan a trip into the city to go drinking and hopefully getting laid.

by Anonymousreply 112August 21, 2019 2:47 AM

When I was a boy, my Grandmother was the after-hours emergency operator for Connecticut Light and Power. Yes, there was one little old lady with a switchboard in her bedroom, who answered night calls coming from anywhere within the entire state, for the power company. Can you imagine that today? One woman? She had, maybe, an eighth grade education.

Miss you, Grammy!

by Anonymousreply 113August 21, 2019 2:48 AM

Funny r107. A super queen friend of mine used to say "gotta talk to the vagina" whenever he had to dial an operator.

by Anonymousreply 114August 21, 2019 2:48 AM

These super-queen friends sound HILARIOUS!

by Anonymousreply 115August 21, 2019 2:50 AM

R114 I don't get it.

by Anonymousreply 116August 21, 2019 2:50 AM

R104 Yes, weekends were cheaper.

by Anonymousreply 117August 21, 2019 2:51 AM

r116 operators were always women.

by Anonymousreply 118August 21, 2019 2:52 AM

[quote][R114] I don't get it.

You're the famous "question troll" - aren't you?

by Anonymousreply 119August 21, 2019 2:55 AM

When I was small we would vacation near this little town in Florida. I'm sure it's been gone for thirty years or more. The cop would park his squad car beside the phone booth. This is as barebones as it gets.

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by Anonymousreply 120August 21, 2019 2:57 AM

In the little rust belt town I lived in during the early 90s, I knew several queens who had apartments near the main drag. They'd get the pay phone numbers and then call them when some hot guy was walking by.

Scored a few tricks that way, those nasty bitches.

by Anonymousreply 121August 21, 2019 2:59 AM

Funny, the same sort of ol' biddies who used to complain that the telephone killed letter-writing, now complain that texting and emails mean people never talk on the phone anymore. My 80something mother has been out of hand ever since she got a cell phone. She can barely work it, but she loves calling people at any time, for any reason. If she's on the way to meet you somewhere, she calls every 15 minutes to give you an update.

As an elder myself, I for one am GLAD nobody talks on the phone anymore. Good riddance. I love texting. I cringe when the phone rings, can't get off the call fast enough.

by Anonymousreply 122August 21, 2019 3:02 AM

OP, let me digress a bit. I have a letter from my 5th Great Grand Aunt in Newport, RI, to her sister, my 4th Great Grandmother in Boston, MA, c. 1800. It was written with a quill pen by candlelight.

My Aunt spends half the letter describing how she will give the letter to Mr. So-and-so, since he’s going to ride to Boston in a few weeks and has promised to hand deliver the letter to her sister, and he is reliable. She fusses a lot about this.

She also discusses visiting. The 70 miles makes it an overnight trip by horse carriage. She arranged to stay midway with the family of a parishioner of her husband’s. In those days, with little entertainment, visits from reputable strangers was a welcome reprieve, especially if they brought news of the world with them.

In another letter, she announces that she is now to old to make additional trips, “and that is that!” Today, it’s maybe, a 90-minute drive.

The letters were discovered in a Baltimore flea market and bought for a song. I have no idea how they got to Baltimore!

by Anonymousreply 123August 21, 2019 3:03 AM

That’s really interesting, Yankee Doodle. I remember reading about how people would pay calls on other people and it was a form of entertainment. Interesting to know they set up overnight visits with relative strangers, friends of friends, in advance. Jane Austen mentions that.

Mark Twain described traveling in the U.S. and said the lodgings were very poor. You had to share a bed with a complete stranger. The bed might have lice or bedbugs or anything. The food was also notoriously poor on the road, just the cheapest things you could get. No wonder someone would arrange to stay with a private family.

by Anonymousreply 124August 21, 2019 3:28 AM

I'm too young to have been in the professional working world before cell phones became ubiquitous, but not being able to be reached by work 24/7 must've been HEAVEN. Now, you can't get away from the office. Even if you're on vacation, if you don't text back or answer the call right away, you could get in trouble.

by Anonymousreply 125August 21, 2019 3:34 AM

R125, up to a point, true, but they did have your home phone number ... which you had to answer because, in the days before caller ID, you had no idea who was calling. It could be your best friend. It could be your mother, calling with a dire family emergency. Or it could be your boss.

In fact, though, you hardly ever called anyone at home for work purposes. It just wasn't done, except in extreme emergencies or between close colleagues. There was definitely a clearer separation between work time and non-work time in those days.

by Anonymousreply 126August 21, 2019 3:42 AM

Here were some disadvantages of the old world:

1. No phone for emergencies away from home. If your car broke down, and there was no public phone nearby, you were in trouble. If you were way out in the country, you had to wait for someone to come by and stop to help you. Or stop to murder you. Or you could murder them. Both were popular.

2. If you were expecting an important call, you had to sit by the phone. Even after answering machines came along, you still had to wait by the phone if you needed to talk to the person. If someone called you while you were waiting, you said, “I can’t talk. I’m expecting a call.” You would then worry obsessively, imagining that the person had called you during the 20 seconds your phone was busy. Doctors and elusive boyfriends were especially notorious for requiring one to sit by the phone. Vicky Carr’s song “Let It Please be Him” was not a metaphor.

Both of these problems were solved in the late 1990s by the simple, old-fashioned cell phone. You could send and receive calls and (later) texts, and that’s it. They were great. It’s the smartphone that has caused all the trouble.

by Anonymousreply 127August 21, 2019 3:51 AM

[quote]If you were expecting an important call, you had to sit by the phone.

And you would chain-smoke in nervous anticipation.

by Anonymousreply 128August 21, 2019 3:56 AM

R105: "I'll get it!"

But then there was the opposite situation. The phone rings. No one is expecting a call. It rings and rings, until: "Will you get up and answer the damn phone!" In the days before answering machines, not answering the phone was unthinkable. Also, the phone would keep ringing until the other person hung up, and a ringing telephone was very annoying.

by Anonymousreply 129August 21, 2019 3:57 AM

I have to "oh, dear" myself. The is "It Must Be Him", and it's [bold] Vikki [/bold] Carr.

How embarrassing!

by Anonymousreply 130August 21, 2019 4:01 AM

^*hangs head* "The [bold]song [/bold] is ..."

by Anonymousreply 131August 21, 2019 4:03 AM

This was a trope for scary movies of old. A stranger’s car breaks down on a country road. He walks to the nearest farm house to ask to use the phone. The farmer tells him that the stranger is lucky to stop at the only farm in the county with a private phone. The stranger makes his call for a service truck, and the two have coffee while waiting for the truck to arrive. When the farmer goes to fetch some fresh water, he happens to see that the phone line had been severed in the previous night’s storm, and the stranger therefore hadn’t actually called anyone!

[italic] Run! [/Italic]

by Anonymousreply 132August 21, 2019 4:11 AM

OP, we got into our horse-drawn carriages, stopped at the homes of friends and relatives, and left our calling cards.

by Anonymousreply 133August 21, 2019 4:12 AM

The biggest difference is that you use to make plans and would stick to them. Today, Unless tickets are involved, everyone is pretty much up for grabs or seeing what other things are going on. People don’t really make plans, they make plans to make plans

Uber and Lyft have also really changed the way young people socialize in cities. Because it doesn’t really matter where groups of people start out, at the press of a button, they can leave wherever they are to come to you or vice versa

by Anonymousreply 134August 21, 2019 4:30 AM

[quote] I remember some phone bills in 1986 were $330 in our house (3 teenagers). That's $770 today.

Us kids (okay, we kids) would have got our asses kicked for that kind of phone bill.

by Anonymousreply 135August 21, 2019 4:30 AM

[quote] The biggest difference is that you use to make plans and would stick to them.

I disagree. There were flakes and no-shows back in the day, just like today.

by Anonymousreply 136August 21, 2019 4:31 AM

[quote]Us kids (okay, we kids) would have got our asses kicked for that kind of phone bill.

Tell us about it. That's how we ended up with a pay phone in the house.

by Anonymousreply 137August 21, 2019 4:39 AM

In college in the late 90s, my roommates and I all shared a landline and voicemail inbox. Around 1999 I think we got separate voicemail inboxes though, along with an outgoing message that gave callers the option of pressing a number on the keypad to reach one of us.

by Anonymousreply 138August 21, 2019 5:05 AM

I can't tell you how many times I answered the phone growing up and the caller on the other end would ask, "Little girl, is your mother home?"

I would huff, "I'm not a girl, and NO she's not!"

Thank goodness my voice deepened as I got older.

by Anonymousreply 139August 21, 2019 5:11 AM

Also remember that cell phones took several years to become ubiquitous. Throughout the 1990s cell phones were not owned by most of the population, even most young people didn't have one. It wasn't until the early 2000s that everybody and their mother had a cell phone.

by Anonymousreply 140August 21, 2019 5:36 AM

My ecstasy dear in college used a beeper.

by Anonymousreply 141August 21, 2019 5:55 AM

I remember if you had a beeper in the 90s and you were in your 20s, everybody automatically assumed you were a drug dealer.

by Anonymousreply 142August 21, 2019 6:02 AM

[quote] would have got our asses kicked for that kind of phone bill.

I did!

My dad was very mellow for the most part but a big phone bill like that was the only time he swung at me (and missed). He was really pissed.

by Anonymousreply 143August 21, 2019 9:54 AM

Glory Holes

by Anonymousreply 144August 21, 2019 10:12 AM

I was always losing my pencil with which I dialed my phone. The Phone Company (TPC) finally sent me a gross of them.

by Anonymousreply 145August 21, 2019 10:26 AM

We still have a land line for our beach house. Cell reception is still spotty out there. It’s come in handy.

by Anonymousreply 146August 21, 2019 11:25 AM

Having an unlisted phone number cost extra. The cheaper option was to have your number listed under another name, e.g., Hester Prynne.

by Anonymousreply 147August 21, 2019 12:21 PM

That’s exactly what I meant r48.

Also that’s pretty amazing r123.

by Anonymousreply 148August 21, 2019 12:43 PM

No one did anything, OP. Also some phone numbers were partly letters determined by the major street near by. My grandmother's number started as WI for Wilkens Avenue in my home town. I still remember it I think. It started WI7.

by Anonymousreply 149August 21, 2019 1:03 PM

Those old New York phone numbers sounded so glamorous to me in the movies. Murray Hill 6500 or whatever. I need to look up the story behind those.

by Anonymousreply 150August 21, 2019 1:18 PM

My grandmother had a party line and one of her favorite hobbies was listening in to the other three lines that rang at her house. It was a small country town and she knew who the people were on the other lines (though they weren't close friends or anything) so she always had a juiciest gossip about these families. This would have been 1960's, maybe into the 1970's. Then they put everybody on their own line - but thankfully they only did this after she passed.

by Anonymousreply 151August 21, 2019 1:21 PM

Not only was I pre-cellphone, I was of the partyline era. I was an expert at eavesdropping without being detected. I knew everything about my neighbors that I shouldn't, and my mom was delighted to have access to her personal neighborhood gossip hotline.

by Anonymousreply 152August 21, 2019 1:25 PM

OP, it wasn't easy.

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by Anonymousreply 153August 21, 2019 1:27 PM

During the cordless phone days I could pick up the calls of some poor lady who had a real cunt of a friend, who would call every day with some unbelievable story about how she'd fucked someone else's husband or boyfriend, and the poor lady just sat there and sighed. One day I guess I made noise because the cunt said "OMG BECKY YOU HAVE FRIENDS LISTENING IN?! I TRUSTED YOOUUU!" and hung up. The lady just sighed again and said "What the fuck" quietly before hanging up.

by Anonymousreply 154August 21, 2019 1:27 PM

Pencils made it all worthwhile.

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by Anonymousreply 155August 21, 2019 1:28 PM

When I graduated high school in 1970 and we all went out separate ways to colleges all over the country we were all prodigious letter writers. We kept in touch that way for a long time, until we'd meet up during school breaks, at least those who came back home during those breaks. I had my letter writing/reading time set aside every night during my first year in college. Getting a letter from a close friend was the highlight of any day.

by Anonymousreply 156August 21, 2019 1:29 PM

Cellphones? Tell me more ......

We have an avocado green princess phone but it's always locked up. Usually, we just use empty Campbell soup cans and string. Not very reliable, but no monthly bill.

by Anonymousreply 157August 21, 2019 1:33 PM

[quote]Those old New York phone numbers sounded so glamorous to me in the movies. Murray Hill 6500 or whatever. I need to look up the story behind those.

We had them in London as well.

Our number was BELgravia.

New York kept them much longer than us though. I went to NYC in the 70s and some numbers were still listed with letters. I was thrilled.

Then one summer I went back and they'd been discontinued. I was so sorry.

From 1978 NY Times >

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by Anonymousreply 158August 21, 2019 1:34 PM

I remember my grandparent's vacation house from the 50s to the late 60s had a party line. Their ring was 2 shorts and 1 long. I remember how frustrating it was to want to make a call and someone would be on the line gabbing. More often than not some of the old biddies who lived on the island full time, gossiping with each other. My grandfather was a surgeon and if he needed to make an important call he would pick the receiver up and if someone was on, he'd tell them "this is Dr. .......... and I need this line" and they'd hang up post haste. The rule with the phone company at the time was that any official call to or from a medical provider had priority over all other calls and if the other party refused to hang up they'd chance having their line removed.

by Anonymousreply 159August 21, 2019 1:36 PM

Our number in Atlanta was BElmont 7-8950.

by Anonymousreply 160August 21, 2019 1:38 PM

An Aldis lamp and pair of binoculars, Rose.

by Anonymousreply 161August 21, 2019 1:47 PM

It was essential in 90s college dorms to mount a dry-erase board and marker on your room door. If you were at class or otherwise out, your friends would write for you to call them or meet them somewhere at a certain time.

I dated a guy in high school whose mom would listen in (from an extension in a different room) to our landline phone conversations. I knew this because she just started commenting on what we were saying one day.

Also, things got complicated when dial-up Internet became widespread. “Get off the phone, I need to go online!”

by Anonymousreply 162August 21, 2019 1:47 PM

My working class parents phone number was "GLendale"

It was the classiest thing about my family.

by Anonymousreply 163August 21, 2019 1:48 PM

Was the there no laws against stuff like listening in to others conversations back then?

by Anonymousreply 164August 21, 2019 1:51 PM

Not if it was your phone line and number.

by Anonymousreply 165August 21, 2019 1:52 PM

🎶 Beechwood 45-789

☎️ You Can Call Me Up

Any Old Time .......

by Anonymousreply 166August 21, 2019 1:53 PM

No laws that I recall. The listeners would just get a piece of the caller's minds (and mouths) if they were caught listening in. The number of households on party lines were limited depending on the number of people having phones. I remember my grandparent's line had 3 houses on it, so if someone was caught listening in it was not that hard to figure out who to accuse. Most of the listening in was done by ignorant children.

by Anonymousreply 167August 21, 2019 1:53 PM

R167 = Donald Trump

by Anonymousreply 168August 21, 2019 1:55 PM

Clap your trap R168. Them's fighting words!

by Anonymousreply 169August 21, 2019 1:58 PM

☎️EC. 2-6809

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by Anonymousreply 170August 21, 2019 2:00 PM

Saying Goodbye to an Old Friend

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by Anonymousreply 171August 21, 2019 2:05 PM

Judy Canova and Grandma Walton in a Hitchcock episode involving a party line....

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by Anonymousreply 172August 21, 2019 2:35 PM

Smoke signals, OP.

by Anonymousreply 173August 21, 2019 2:44 PM

"Sorry, Wrong Number."

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by Anonymousreply 174August 21, 2019 2:48 PM
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by Anonymousreply 175August 21, 2019 2:51 PM

Bitch stole my movie.

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by Anonymousreply 176August 21, 2019 2:52 PM
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by Anonymousreply 177August 21, 2019 2:53 PM
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by Anonymousreply 178August 21, 2019 2:57 PM

I still have a landline and a VCR. So there.

by Anonymousreply 179August 21, 2019 3:14 PM

R154 Whatever happened to Becky? She sounds long-suffering.

by Anonymousreply 180August 21, 2019 4:03 PM

Interesting R158, thanks for posting. I lived in NYC in the 80s and 90s, need to find out what my glamorous numbers would have been. I did live on the Upper East side for a while, but the East Village probably wasn't so glam.

by Anonymousreply 181August 21, 2019 4:03 PM

[quote]When I graduated high school in 1970 and we all went out separate ways to colleges all over the country we were all prodigious letter writers. We kept in touch that way for a long time, until we'd meet up during school breaks, at least those who came back home during those breaks. I had my letter writing/reading time set aside every night during my first year in college. Getting a letter from a close friend was the highlight of any day.

Ditto. I graduated from HS in 1970 as well. I have a box full of lettersthat I received in my college years and beyond in my garage. I'm scared to go through them all as I think it will make me majorly depressed.

by Anonymousreply 182August 21, 2019 4:09 PM

[quote] I lived in NYC in the 80s and 90s, need to find out what my glamorous numbers would have been.

I did too - lived in SoHo and my glamourous number would have been CAnal 6

[quote]I did live on the Upper East side for a while,

I did too - REgent 4

[quote] but the East Village probably wasn't so glam.

No.

by Anonymousreply 183August 21, 2019 4:09 PM

[quote]Those old New York phone numbers sounded so glamorous to me in the movies. Murray Hill 6500 or whatever. I need to look up the story behind those.

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by Anonymousreply 184August 21, 2019 4:10 PM

R182 why would it make you depressed?

by Anonymousreply 185August 21, 2019 4:10 PM

[quote]When I was small we would vacation near this little town in Florida. I'm sure it's been gone for thirty years or more.

The TOWN isn't there anymore? What happened to it?

by Anonymousreply 186August 21, 2019 4:11 PM

[quote]People in 1919 were probably asking how people kept in touch in the era before TELEPHONES.

Many people in 1919 didn't have telephones yet. There's a famous story about a magazine (Literary Digest?) that did a phone poll for the presidential election in 1932 (I think) that predicted Hoover would win. The reason for the faulty results? The majority of people who had phones then were well-off and thus more likely to vote Republican.

by Anonymousreply 187August 21, 2019 4:13 PM

If you were having an argument with someone, it was extremely gratifying to yell, "And don't ever call me again!" as you physically slammed the phone down. It's just not the same with a cell phone.

by Anonymousreply 188August 21, 2019 4:20 PM

R188 you can always chuck your smartphone across the room.

by Anonymousreply 189August 21, 2019 4:26 PM

[quote][R182] why would it make you depressed?

Yes, R185 is "the question troll" - he's BAACK!

by Anonymousreply 190August 21, 2019 4:26 PM

I have very slight memories of the old fashioned candlesick wall phone in my grandparent's kitchen when I was around 4 (1957). I remember pulling a chair up under it one day so I could get high enough to grab the receiver, but I still wasn't tall enough to be able to talk into the speaker. All the other phones in the house were tabletop phones and they all weighed a ton. When they rang the bells were so loud it would scare the bejesus out of you. They finally replaced that wall phone just before I entered the first grade. I would kill to have that phone today.

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by Anonymousreply 191August 21, 2019 4:31 PM

[quote]Ditto. I graduated from HS in 1970 as well. I have a box full of lettersthat I received in my college years and beyond in my garage. I'm scared to go through them all as I think it will make me majorly depressed.

I graduated from high school around the same time. I eventually just threw out boxes of letters I had received in college, because I knew I wouldn't enjoy re-reading them. It's my sincerest wish that the friends who received the many letters I wrote back then also disposed of them long ago. Some years ago, one friend thought it would be funny to read to me a letter he had gotten from me when we were in colleges many miles apart. It was painful to hear. I pleaded with him to stop. The awkwardness, the insecurity. Revisiting all of that is no fun at all.

by Anonymousreply 192August 21, 2019 4:33 PM

I called my friends on the phone, duh

by Anonymousreply 193August 21, 2019 4:35 PM
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by Anonymousreply 194August 21, 2019 4:40 PM

All my UES relatives had the same exchange when I was a kid - BU, that's BUtterfield. Not so glamorous. I bought my mother an antique candlestick phone for her UES decor 25 years ago, her number started with 74, and I couldn't figure out what the exchange was... until someone told me it was RH - that's RHinelander. Glamorous? Think not.

by Anonymousreply 195August 21, 2019 6:03 PM

RHinelander was always quite chic.

The Carlyle Hotel.

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by Anonymousreply 196August 21, 2019 6:09 PM

R71- you're just jealous because you DID NOT have "a close personal relationship" with Kate, among a whole lot of other things.

by Anonymousreply 197August 21, 2019 6:12 PM

In London the telephone boundaries were very strict (in NYC they were all over the place).

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by Anonymousreply 198August 21, 2019 6:12 PM

I also went to college in the 70s, and not only did I stay in touch with high school friends via letter, I also corresponded with college friends during the summer months. One of them always wrote letters on his family's stationery, which had his parents' address printed across the top, and on the envelopes. About 5 years ago, after having not heard from him in about 35 years, I was surprised to find the same familiar envelope in my mailbox one day. He’d found my address online, of course.

by Anonymousreply 199August 21, 2019 6:25 PM

I went away to college in the 80s and it is crazy to me when I think back how much telecommunications have changed since then. In the dorm there was one payphone at the end of the hall. If someone was nice enough to answer it when it rang, they'd have to bang on the door of the student to see if s(he) was there, and if not had to take a message (usually a sticky on their door).

For me to call home I would have to call collect. My spending money was very valuable to me (beer, pot, pizza) so spending it on phone calls wasn't a priority.

To stay in touch with friends back home, they could call me but even that had to be just an occasional thing as the call for them would be long distance.

We would send letters to each other, sometimes handwritten or other times with a typewriter.

It's so different now with the internet, social media and cell phones that you don't miss a beat of what is going on back home with your friends.

I had forgotten about keeping in touch with the college friends over the summer by mail until I read R199. It was fun to get those letters updating me on their summer jobs and vacations.

by Anonymousreply 200August 21, 2019 6:27 PM

Why be a slave to a phone? The camera is the best thing about a cell phone. You can record racist cops and see that they get away with murder.

by Anonymousreply 201August 21, 2019 6:31 PM

Everything you wrote in the first two paragraphs, R200, was the same in 1971. Except the small amount of money I had was for food - we only got dinner at the school I was in. People gave me pot for nothing (I was cute).

by Anonymousreply 202August 21, 2019 7:08 PM

What's wrong with asking questions?

by Anonymousreply 203August 21, 2019 7:16 PM

Nothing - except when you know the answers and just do it to be annoying and to derail a thread. You're a nutter.

This thread alone:-

R21 who's Jeffery?

How come?

R91 what people?

R108 how do you know?

R114 I don't get it.

R182 why would it make you depressed?

by Anonymousreply 204August 21, 2019 7:24 PM

WIckersham 5-....

by Anonymousreply 205August 21, 2019 7:29 PM

R204, Regarding R182. I'm surprised that people are not more intuitive why reading letters from someone who graduated in 1970 would be problematic. Most likely, as a gay man, there is the possibility that a majority of the letters were by friends and lovers who died of AIDS. Perhaps R182 might be a sole survivor of his friend group and that wall of lose would be too painful and depressing to contemplate.

by Anonymousreply 206August 21, 2019 7:43 PM

R204. I'm an inquisitive person and a lot of the time I have a hard time following people's train of thought unless they're being specific and detailed. That's why I asked those questions, because IMO the posters were vague.

R206 thanks for the explanation. That makes sense.

by Anonymousreply 207August 21, 2019 8:07 PM

A lot of the payphones in NYC were broken - that always sucked.

by Anonymousreply 208August 21, 2019 8:57 PM

I remember them working...maybe you're from a different era, R208.

American payphones were such a beautiful design.

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by Anonymousreply 209August 21, 2019 9:01 PM

You're probably wondering why I say that.

Because pay phones in England looked like THIS >

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by Anonymousreply 210August 21, 2019 9:05 PM

and later on, even worse - like THIS >

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by Anonymousreply 211August 21, 2019 9:07 PM

That reminds me, when I rewatched HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS last Thanksgiving after 20 or so years, I couldn't believe all the payphones and lines of people leading up to them as Holly Hunter walked past during the opening scene at the airport. And this was in 1995. In just five years' time, most adults would have some sort of cell phone on their person.

by Anonymousreply 212August 21, 2019 9:08 PM

My father worked for the New England Telephone Co., and one of the perks was free long distance. We had family from all over the NE, southeast and west, so that saved us a bundle. When Verizon the cheap bastards took over, they reduced it to free in-state calling only.

by Anonymousreply 213August 21, 2019 9:08 PM

We had a party line until our local phone company finally discontinued them. There was no way my parents were going to waste good money on a private phone line.

I also wore 99¢ sneakers, knock- off Keds, from the local D & K Store.

by Anonymousreply 214August 21, 2019 9:22 PM

I remember living in Italy in 1980 and all of the payphones required the use of tokens, which you could only buy at the post office (which also regulated the national phone service.) No coins-- just tokens (gettone.)

by Anonymousreply 215August 21, 2019 9:22 PM

We walked or rode our bikes to our friend's houses, knocked on the door, and had actual conversations, the old fashioned kind were people looked at each other and actually spoke words.

by Anonymousreply 216August 21, 2019 9:29 PM

Before cellphones my town developed an intricate system of string and Dixie cups. We called them "air lines".

by Anonymousreply 217August 21, 2019 9:31 PM

We always wrote letters and sent birthday and Christmas cards to friends and relatives out of town.

My mom is 97, and still sends notes and cards to her surviving friends, nieces and nephews.

by Anonymousreply 218August 21, 2019 9:47 PM

Has anyone mentioned when people used to use phone booths or public phones as their "office"? I saw it movies forever, but only once in real life - a young woman answering a ringing public phone, "this is so-in-so's office" in the old post office on 43rd and Lex in the 1980s.

by Anonymousreply 219August 21, 2019 11:03 PM

I wonder now if long distance charges were a fraud on the part of the phone companies. Were those calls really that much more expensive than calling a few miles away? It's suspicious how eventually you could make unlimited calls for like $30 a month.

by Anonymousreply 220August 21, 2019 11:09 PM

R210/R211 British payphones were rotary dial?

by Anonymousreply 221August 21, 2019 11:14 PM

R221, US pay phones were typically rotary, until 1970 or later.

by Anonymousreply 222August 21, 2019 11:16 PM

R220

I think it had to do with allocating limited bandwidth back then.

by Anonymousreply 223August 21, 2019 11:23 PM

No R220, the call was no more expensive whether it went 3 streets over or from one side of the country to the other. But the equipment to allow those calls to be made was quite expensive. Back in the day all those calls went over hard wire and the longer the distance the more equipment was required. Not only was there the wire, but the poles, right of way purchases, and the various electronic equipment along the way to keep the signal moving on down the line.

by Anonymousreply 224August 21, 2019 11:24 PM

In the 1950s, a call from the mainland US to Alaska or Hawaii was staggeringly expensive—something like $12.75 for three minutes. And that was in 1950s dollars.

by Anonymousreply 225August 21, 2019 11:30 PM

In the old days, each state had at least one area codes, and area codes did not span state borders. This meant that a call next door could be to a different area code, meaning long distance.

A guy who used to work for my Dad would call his mother from work, and then the mother would call his wife to relay the message. From the mothers house, both the man and his wife were local calls, but a direct call from man to wife was long distance.

by Anonymousreply 226August 21, 2019 11:31 PM

Did you hear that Mexico is getting its own phone company? They're calling it "Taco Bell."

by Anonymousreply 227August 21, 2019 11:32 PM

You could actually call an operator at '0' and speak to a human being. 411 was the information number everywhere, and there were numbers to dial for a local forecast and the time.

FREE.

Now yahoos are graduating in droves from those fancy business colleges and need to pay back crippling student loans so they've learned to soak gramps with those electronic handcuffs that follow you everywhere. Computers are bad enough. Skype is spyware, Facebook is infested with troll farm bullshit and Instagram is for ho's.

Time for my nap.

by Anonymousreply 228August 21, 2019 11:40 PM

R220. Before the Green Ruling, there was essentially a single monopoly phone company but 220 separate taxing areas through which calls routed. Consequently, each call - depending on the route it traveled, which varied by time of day, drove up the cost. So, yes it was reasonable that daytime rates were considerably higher than nighttime.

Same holds true for long distance. At the time, the taxation rates were still largely a carryover tax where telephones were a luxury and regulated by World War II regulations. It was only when bulk carrier services and the Green Ruling came into effect that broke up the phone system monopoly that you could do crazy things like own your own phone, choose a long-distance carrier and other improbably acts.

by Anonymousreply 229August 21, 2019 11:42 PM

Fun fact: Every phone call, landline or cell, still travels over the wired telephone network. In cell phone calls, only the "last link" is wireless. Once a cell call reaches the nearest tower, it’s connected to a landline, and routed via the old fashioned wired network to the tower nearest the call recipient, where it then makes the wireless "last link" to the cell phone on the other end.

by Anonymousreply 230August 22, 2019 12:22 AM

The younger folks here might be interested to know that until the early 80's you could not buy your own house phone. The instruments were provided by the phone company and the monthly bill included a rental amount for them. If your phone malfunctioned the phone company would send out repairman. If he couldn't repair it he would simply replace it.

by Anonymousreply 231August 22, 2019 12:24 AM

Carrier Lesbians!

by Anonymousreply 232August 22, 2019 12:27 AM

R230 does that mean that the telephone poles will stay up?

by Anonymousreply 233August 22, 2019 12:28 AM

Up until 10 years ago, I spoke on the phone a lot. Thats all gone now. I see young people talking on their phones all the time but none of my friends over 45 speak on the phone anymore. It sucks.

by Anonymousreply 234August 22, 2019 12:29 AM

Sure, for the foreseeable future at least.

by Anonymousreply 235August 22, 2019 12:29 AM

Good news traveled fast. No texting needed.

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by Anonymousreply 236August 22, 2019 12:38 AM

I still have my landline but I never use it. I leave it on call-forwarding to my cell phone 24/7. But I know it will come in handy when (1) cell service or (2) I need to call 911.

by Anonymousreply 237August 22, 2019 12:39 AM

Then there was "phreaking," which involved scamming the phone company for free long distance calls using homemade "blue box" devices. Pioneered by people like Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs.

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by Anonymousreply 238August 22, 2019 12:42 AM

What was the most efficient means to convey a message to/from the front to HQ, during WWI?

1. Sleigh

2. Crank phone

3. Mule

4. Carrier pigeon

5. Runner

6. Horse

7. Model T

8. Train

The answer is: Carrier pigeon. They eat like a bird. Don’t get drunk and break things, and they’re cheap.

by Anonymousreply 239August 22, 2019 12:53 AM

Back in those days when we would drive to visit people out of town we we had a system to let the hosts know when we made it back home safely. We'd call the hosts collect once we got back home and they would refuse the call. It was a signal to let them know we made it back home safely. The long distance operators had to know what people were up to.

by Anonymousreply 240August 22, 2019 12:54 AM

I don't understand the desperate need so many people have to be available to everyone they know 24/7. I hardly ever give out my cell phone number and look to see who's calling before I answer my home phone, yes I have a landline. There are very few people I care to give my time to. I was at my doctor's office this past Monday and when the office manager or whatever she chooses to be called came in, almost an hour late, she spent the first hour she was there on a personal phone call. I had come in early to have blood work, on an empty stomach, and here it was almost 3pm and I was about to faint and she's glued to her cell phone for the first fucking hour.

Those of you who must be in constant contact with just about everyone you've ever met, why? Don't you like your own company? Are you terrified you'll miss out on something? Why? It was better in many ways before cell phones or even beepers, especially for people who know get tracked down by their employers who think they should be working way past their paid hours. There was a time that if you saw someone walking down the street by themselves and talking out loud you knew they were crazy, not hearing a phone call through a thing in their ear.

The only really good thing I can see in cellphones is for emergencies and that you can call a car service from wherever you are.

by Anonymousreply 241August 22, 2019 12:57 AM

....

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by Anonymousreply 242August 22, 2019 12:57 AM

I'm old, I have had some form of mobile phone since the first monstrosity my company decided I needed in my car back in the 70s. And to this day when someone walks by me in the grocery store either yakking on a cell phone or God forbid talking into the freakin' air using a wireless ear piece, I mutter "idiot" as they pass by.

by Anonymousreply 243August 22, 2019 1:13 AM

[quote] R241: The only really good thing I can see in cellphones is for emergencies and that you can call a car service from wherever you are.

Not good enough. Mobile phones contain GPS apps. I use my phone camera often. I have a few hobbies that I often use my iPad for. I keep my to-do list on my phone.

I used to like to check the weather on my phone before leaving my house in the AM.

I store photos of documents and images of my medical cards and other ID cards. I might not have all my docs online, but I do have all my pictures online.

by Anonymousreply 244August 22, 2019 1:20 AM

I keep all my auto documents and insurance card images on my cell. Even images of my drivers license and car tag. My state now allows car insurance and registration cards on your cell phone.

by Anonymousreply 245August 22, 2019 1:23 AM

"Fun facts" are never fun, R230

by Anonymousreply 246August 22, 2019 1:31 AM

Remember *69 that automatically redialed the last caller, if you happened to miss the call?

And another feature that if you called and the line was busy, you punched in a code and when the person you were calling hung up from their other call, their phone would ring and your phone would ring, and you'd be connected when you both picked up.

Of course, the rich had call waiting and answering machines. And didn't have to call after 9 pm and talk in code for no more than three minutes to save long-distance charges. Good times.

by Anonymousreply 247August 22, 2019 1:35 AM

R241. Are you using a Jitterbug?

by Anonymousreply 248August 22, 2019 1:56 AM

[quote]And to this day when someone walks by me in the grocery store either yakking on a cell phone or God forbid talking into the freakin' air using a wireless ear piece, I mutter "idiot" as they pass by.

Perhaps they're talking to someone at home who needs something at the store. My bf and I do this all the time.

by Anonymousreply 249August 22, 2019 1:57 AM

We did not call it a "landline" then. It was just "the phone."

by Anonymousreply 250August 22, 2019 2:31 AM

Many times if your friend who you were scheduled to meet didn't show up you just said "fuck it" and went and did something else. Many times, you wouldn't reconnect with your friend to find out what happened until several days later.

As others have said, it's amazing to think about how all communication is instant now. Not just verbal, but videos and photos.

by Anonymousreply 251August 22, 2019 2:36 AM

R250 that's called a retronym.

by Anonymousreply 252August 22, 2019 2:37 AM

What a remarkable age this is!

by Anonymousreply 253August 22, 2019 2:38 AM

r206 I have a photo album of friends from the 1980s. I haven't looked at it since the '90s, for the reasons you so eloquently elucidate. I just can't. I'm afraid my heart would break.

by Anonymousreply 254August 22, 2019 2:44 AM

It was just "the phone."

Actually, it was the TELEPHONE.

by Anonymousreply 255August 22, 2019 2:45 AM

r255 Thank you, Sister Thérèse.

by Anonymousreply 256August 22, 2019 2:47 AM

Morse code, naturally

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by Anonymousreply 257August 22, 2019 2:54 AM

I have many photo albums that span decades of my life. I always took lots of photos, thinking how much I would enjoy looking at them as I grew older. I took lots of photos of my parents as they aged, knowing they wouldn't be around forever. I recently retired, so I have all kinds of free time now. And yet I never pull out my old albums. I think looking at them would just make me sad.

by Anonymousreply 258August 22, 2019 3:39 AM

TV and movies often use the fictional phone exchange of KLondike. The K and L are both substituted for 55. KLondike-52365 is therefore 555-2365.

by Anonymousreply 259August 22, 2019 4:30 AM

I never understood why we needed to switch from the named exchanges to All-Digit Dialing. Supposedly it was because there were more number combinations, but you can make a word for any two-number combination there is. So why did we need to do it?

BTW, my childhood exchange was DRake 6-

by Anonymousreply 260August 22, 2019 4:45 AM

The sheer number of replies, shows the the demographics of DL!!! LOL!

But TOLL CALLS!!!!! FUCKIN' TOLL CALLS!!!!

by Anonymousreply 261August 22, 2019 4:52 AM

You used the phone. Left a message if they weren't there. They would call you back.

by Anonymousreply 262August 22, 2019 5:02 AM

R158, thank you for that article. I’m surprised. New York was pretty far behind the times. Were there other regions that were still using alphnumeric phone numbers into the '70s? In DC, they were phased out by the phone company in the early ‘60s, although of course they were still in casual use for a few years after that. When did LA switch over to all digital numbers (no more HOllywood 2 and BRentwood 4)?

by Anonymousreply 263August 22, 2019 7:16 AM

R230, that was a fun fact. I had no idea, although I confess that I had no idea how cell phone calls worked at all. I guess the only calls that are truly non-landline are satellite phone calls, right?

by Anonymousreply 264August 22, 2019 7:18 AM

[quote]I never understood why we needed to switch from the named exchanges to All-Digit Dialing. Supposedly it was because there were more number combinations, but you can make a word for any two-number combination there is. So why did we need to do it?

International dialling.

Many countries didn't have letters on their phones and in fucking England they stop printing the letters on the phones, see stupid ANN (all number numbers, so clever) @ link.

& in America, where they kept the letters on their phones, they they started using them for 800 numbers and the like.

Interesting how it's gone in full circle and now the letters on the dial are used all the time again, for different reasons.

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by Anonymousreply 265August 22, 2019 8:42 AM

American phones were so beautifully designed. The envy of the world.

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by Anonymousreply 266August 22, 2019 8:48 AM

American phones were so beautifully designed. The envy of the world # 2.

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by Anonymousreply 267August 22, 2019 8:49 AM

Mother would just open the basement door to shout down that my lunch was ready.

by Anonymousreply 268August 22, 2019 8:50 AM

Was this your real mother or you dressed as her? R268

by Anonymousreply 269August 22, 2019 8:58 AM

I used smoke signals.

by Anonymousreply 270August 22, 2019 9:33 AM

[quote]American phones were so beautifully designed. The envy of the world.

Fun fact: The Shah Of Iran came to America in the late 70s and said "I want them for Persia!" (or Iran, whatever he called it).

& the big deal was all set with Bell or AT&T, whomever it was - and then he was deposed (or whatever they called it) before it could happen. So the deal was quashed.

God knows what the phone system in Iran was like after that.

by Anonymousreply 271August 22, 2019 9:34 AM

Someone send r270 a smoke signal to tell him that jokes been made about 5 times already.

by Anonymousreply 272August 22, 2019 9:36 AM

You could hire Björk to scream messages only your friends could hear.

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by Anonymousreply 273August 22, 2019 9:40 AM

Henry Dreyfuss, who designed all those stylish American phones (taken totally for granted by Americans, obviously) had a very sad ending.

[quote]SOUTH PASADENA, Calif., Oct. 5, 1972—Henry Dreyfuss, one of the nation's most honored industrial designers, was found dead today along with his wife at their home here. The bodies of Mr. Dreyfuss, who was 68 years old, and his wife, Mrs. Doris Marks Dreyfuss, 69, were discovered in the garage of their home at 500 Columbia Street by Dr. Edward Evans, the family physician. Authorities reported the cause of death as carbon monoxide poisoning.

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by Anonymousreply 274August 22, 2019 10:01 AM

I thought only dogs could hear Bjork’s wailing r273.

by Anonymousreply 275August 22, 2019 10:02 AM

Here in the Bucket (yes it's pronounced Booquay, thank you) residence we have a pink slimline phone with last number redial facility. As the lady of the house in a neighborhood of superior quality homes, nothing less is acceptable.

by Anonymousreply 276August 22, 2019 11:54 AM

Good question, OP darling. Before cellphones, we would :

“Rap on —

your door [*knock knock*],

Tap on your window —

—paayaayaaaaine ...”

by Anonymousreply 277August 22, 2019 12:12 PM

I believe it was Henry Kissinger who reported that he visited the Kremlin at one point in the 1970s and was sitting with the Premier, Alexei Kosygin, when Alexi’s phone rang. Alexi had something like 5 phones on his desktop. The old style, like R267, but with the rotary dial. Alexi proceeded to pickup on handset after another until he found the specific phone that was ringing.

In the US at the time, we had single phones that could accommodate multiple lines. Even my Dad’s small business had such phones. Anyway, it was then that Kissinger realized that the advanced Soviet technology that first put them into space was not filtering down to even the Premier, and that they would never be able to compete with the West.

(When Yetsin was President two decades later, he complained on 60 minutes that even he, President of Russia, oils the get proper medication for his sick mother. I’ll bet it’s still the same for the average Boris, today.)

by Anonymousreply 278August 22, 2019 1:39 PM

Another Soviet story: the French somehow managed to reroute Leonid Brezhnev‘s toilet waste during his state visit to Paris. They analyzed it and found that he had cancer and was going to die rather soon, and that Brezhnev probably didn’t even know it himself at the time. This is why the American President today travels with a port-a-potty.

by Anonymousreply 279August 22, 2019 1:43 PM

[quote]In the US at the time, we had single phones that could accommodate multiple lines.

Yes, I know.

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by Anonymousreply 280August 22, 2019 1:48 PM

In the 1980s, a Navy Admiral had a new attaché who was giving him a briefing on the Soviet submarine fleet capability. The young attaché kept referring to the Soviets as “The Enemy”. After some time, the Admiral had had enough, and interrupted the attaché. He said, “Son, the Soviet Union is not the “enemy”, they are our “adversary”. It is the US Army that is our “enemy”.

by Anonymousreply 281August 22, 2019 1:48 PM

Why would Michael have multiple phone lines? Just to flaunt his wealth?

by Anonymousreply 282August 22, 2019 1:49 PM

[quote]Why would Michael have multiple phone lines? Just to flaunt his wealth?

I'm not sure. But this detail (like so many others) was discussed at some length on a DL Boys In The Band thread.

But, I'm sure Michael was quite a phone yakker and needed a second line. Lots of people had them until call waiting arrived. I know we did.

by Anonymousreply 283August 22, 2019 1:53 PM

We used to use two styrofoam cups connected by string, but technology has come a long way since then.

by Anonymousreply 284August 22, 2019 1:56 PM

One ringie-dingie, two ringie-dingie

by Anonymousreply 285August 22, 2019 2:00 PM

Remember toy walkie-talkies?

They never worked.

They were a swizz.

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by Anonymousreply 286August 22, 2019 2:01 PM

But I'll bet the ones they have today, do.

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by Anonymousreply 287August 22, 2019 2:02 PM

Honestly, it was really lonely. I would just watch boring things on television and I had no friends. I would go all summer long between school years without talking to any friends or seeing them. All I did was hang around my family members who were all over 55.

by Anonymousreply 288August 22, 2019 2:05 PM

R266/R267

The true envy of the world

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by Anonymousreply 289August 22, 2019 2:10 PM

[quote]BTW, my childhood exchange was DRake 6-

My childhood exchange was also DRake, R260. You weren't listening in on my conversations on a party line, were you?

by Anonymousreply 290August 22, 2019 3:09 PM

I must mention how confused I was as a young child dialing the exchange and numbers. I'd get 0 the letter and 0 the number constantly confused, no one used the word "zero" for the number, both were called O. I was five.

by Anonymousreply 291August 22, 2019 3:15 PM

One thing fun was you could prank call people before caller ID. Had some fun times in junior high pranking classmates.

by Anonymousreply 292August 22, 2019 3:27 PM

We lived in a pretty large house back in the '60s-'70s, and had extension phones throughout the house. My father knew about a special number you could dial on one phone that would ring all the others. My room was on the third floor, and my parents would call me up when dinner was ready or a friend was at the door.

by Anonymousreply 293August 22, 2019 3:32 PM

[quote]My father knew about a special number you could dial on one phone that would ring all the others.

In the 201 area code, it was 550-dial tone-7.

by Anonymousreply 294August 22, 2019 4:38 PM

[quote]My father knew about a special number you could dial on one phone that would ring all the others.

In what is now the 805 area code, it was 11955.

by Anonymousreply 295August 22, 2019 6:43 PM

[quote]When Yetsin was President two decades later, he complained on 60 minutes that even he, President of Russia, oils the get proper medication for his sick mother.

Come again?

by Anonymousreply 296August 22, 2019 6:45 PM

[quote] Come again?

Maybe he was trying to say Yeltsin was having trouble finding a good degreaser for his mother's innards.

by Anonymousreply 297August 22, 2019 6:48 PM

Me too, R293.

We bought a novelty phone, and I plugged it in, on the third floor of my house. I recall getting a couple calls from Earnestine at the phone company, who was telling us we were acting illegally! Though, it stopped with complaints, they didn’t go further.

My Dad installed a buzzer on the first floor that rang in the basement, where the pool table was, so as to not have to yell. Mom would yell anyway, “Dinner!”. It worked on the dog, at least!

by Anonymousreply 298August 22, 2019 9:25 PM

[quote] R278: When Yetsin was President two decades later, he complained on 60 minutes that even he, President of Russia, couldn’t get proper medication for his sick mother.

Fixed it for me.

Thank you, R296!

by Anonymousreply 299August 22, 2019 9:29 PM

Another Soviet story. A man worked at a shipyard. He would regularly leave at the end of the day with a wheelbarrow filled with dirt. The guards knew he was smuggling something, so they poked, and sifted, and examined the dirt, for whatever it was. They could never find anything, but they searched and searched.

After the USSR fell and the shipyard closed, the guard ran into the worker at a bar. Over vodka, the guard finally asked, “Comrade, I know you were smuggling something, what was it?” The worker replied, “wheelbarrows”.

by Anonymousreply 300August 22, 2019 9:37 PM

I can’t find the sub thread so I’m gonna drop this here.

Sub commanders play cat and mouse with other subs to train. They want to know how close and how long they can track another sub without being detected themselves, plus more.

In the late 80s, an American sub limped into port. It was completely covered in a tarp in port, so nobody, and no satellites, could see it in dry dock. The official story was that they hit an underwater mountain and damaged their hull. The gossip was that their hull was covered with platinum scrapes, allegedly from the Soviet sub with the platinum hull. That would be the K-278 Komsomolets.

by Anonymousreply 301August 22, 2019 9:47 PM
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by Anonymousreply 302August 22, 2019 9:53 PM

^^ we had one of those in our house in London - but it no longer worked.

by Anonymousreply 303August 22, 2019 9:58 PM

r290 -- I don't know -- were you in California?

by Anonymousreply 304August 23, 2019 3:44 AM

I was somewhere today that had two black dial wall phones. And they were still functioning. I'd love to take some young kids there ask them if they know what to do with them.

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by Anonymousreply 305August 23, 2019 3:45 AM

Something to consider: There are not many people around who grew up before television. Even the Baby Boomers grew up on TV.

by Anonymousreply 306August 23, 2019 4:12 AM

People were more on time. 4 o'clock was 4 o'clock. None of this back and forth about running late or finding the right place. Chronic latecomers always existed but we're less annoying without constant updates by cell.

by Anonymousreply 307August 23, 2019 4:50 AM

Somebody give them a pencil!

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by Anonymousreply 308August 23, 2019 5:08 AM

r286 When I was a kid my grandma gave us her old cordless house phone. It was ancient but my parents didn't have one yet. It somehow worked with our walkie talkies. You just turned it on and it was a third walkie talkie.

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by Anonymousreply 309August 23, 2019 5:16 AM

R267, we had that phone (Western Electric Model 2500) - so did practically everyone else, since there were only a few models available - in that same red color. It was the upstairs extension, so it was "my" phone.

Those old phones were so well-made that the audio quality was better than anything today, and the connections were almost always crystal-clear.

by Anonymousreply 310August 23, 2019 8:35 AM

Honey most of the people posting on DL were around before the invention of fire r306!

by Anonymousreply 311August 23, 2019 8:59 AM

[Quote] Those old phones were so well-made that the audio quality was better than anything today, and the connections were almost always crystal-clear.

Among the reasons why cellphone audio is not as clear is because unlike landline phones there is no feedback of your own speaking into the listening component. Perhaps some one more tech savvy can explain this better.

It is also the reason why one speaks more loudly than necessary on ones cellphone.

by Anonymousreply 312August 23, 2019 9:04 AM

[quote][R267], we had that phone (Western Electric Model 2500) - so did practically everyone else, since there were only a few models available

I sometimes forget this is an American site, so when I admire something that was so mundane to Americans they must think, WTF?

But, if you compare what you had to what we had in England (see link) two tone grey and not even touch tone, pulse, you'll see why American phones looked so cool to us.

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by Anonymousreply 313August 23, 2019 11:17 AM

also Touch Tone was available in the USA from 1963! The rest of the world didn't get it as standard, until the late 80s.

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by Anonymousreply 314August 23, 2019 11:21 AM

Those two halfwits at 308 are perfect examples of how stupid millennials are.

by Anonymousreply 315August 23, 2019 11:59 AM

[quote]Those two halfwits at 308 are perfect examples of how stupid millennials are.

Right. Wind up record players were before my time but I think I'd know how to work one pretty quickly if I was presented with one.

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by Anonymousreply 316August 23, 2019 12:57 PM

[quote]R290 -- I don't know -- were you in California?

Nope, on the East Coast, R304. DRake seems like an unusual exchange to have been used in more than one state.

by Anonymousreply 317August 23, 2019 1:38 PM

I still have a model as shown in R267. I recall throwing away the rotary dial model because it was completely obsolete, but I kept the push button model. It’s my emergency model when my cordless land model breaks, which happened briefly as recently as a few weeks ago.

by Anonymousreply 318August 23, 2019 2:53 PM

I think a lot of DLers would have joined the anti-digit dialling league.

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by Anonymousreply 319August 23, 2019 2:56 PM

[quote]I still have a model as shown in [R267]. I recall throwing away the rotary dial model because it was completely obsolete, but I kept the push button model. It’s my emergency model when my cordless land model breaks, which happened briefly as recently as a few weeks ago.

I do to.

I hadn't used it on so long when I tried a few weeks ago - the tones sounded weird when I pressed the buttons, like the phone was saying "Oh, fuck off! Ignore me this is what you get!" I was very upset. BUT, I persevered and it's in fine fettle now.

I've had it since 1983! - when I got my first apartment.

by Anonymousreply 320August 23, 2019 3:01 PM

[quote]Nope, on the East Coast, [R304]. DRake seems like an unusual exchange to have been used in more than one state.

Chicago had DRexel

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by Anonymousreply 321August 23, 2019 3:04 PM

The other ones in my area were CLifford, YEllowstone, ATlantic, TEmplebar, LOmbard, MUlberry, THornwall

by Anonymousreply 322August 23, 2019 3:09 PM

As late as 1979 in Ptown, you could dial 4 digits to call within town. I moved there in 1980 and everybody kept telling me to dial with 7 digits, because it just changed.

by Anonymousreply 323August 23, 2019 3:37 PM

I remember dialing local numbers with five digits. If you were calling outside your local calling area (but within the same area code), you'd have to dial 1 then the seven digits.

by Anonymousreply 324August 23, 2019 3:41 PM

The conversion to touch tone (push button) too a long time because the phone lines had to be converted. I recall buildings in NYC in 1982 that could only use rotary (dial) phones in the offices.

"I recall throwing away the rotary dial model because it was completely obsolete, but I kept the push button model."

Before the AT&T divestiture in 1983-84 - AT&T OWNED all of the equipment and internal phone lines - and you rented from them. The monthly amount was hidden inside your bill from Baby Bell, in my case, New York Telephone. It continued unless you bought your own equipment which had became an option.

R306, what does growing up with/without TV have to do with TELEPHONES?

by Anonymousreply 325August 23, 2019 4:33 PM

My father would go ballistic when we dialed 411 to get a phone number because we'd get charged for it.

THAT'S WHAT THE PHONE BOOK IS FOR!

by Anonymousreply 326August 23, 2019 7:37 PM

Does anyone remember there was a phone number for the Weather Bureau? Instant weather updates! My mother was addicted to it, and I became a weather freak from the exposure.

by Anonymousreply 327August 23, 2019 9:38 PM

WE 6- 1212

by Anonymousreply 328August 23, 2019 9:44 PM

The number for the recorded weather announcements in San Francisco spelled POPCORN.

by Anonymousreply 329August 23, 2019 11:17 PM

It was W-E-A-T-H-E-R in Boston.

by Anonymousreply 330August 23, 2019 11:25 PM

No, POP-CORN in SF was the time.

by Anonymousreply 331August 23, 2019 11:34 PM

[quote]No, POP-CORN in SF was the time.

Jesus, you're right! I am mortified. Now that I think about it, was there even a weather number in SF?

by Anonymousreply 332August 23, 2019 11:37 PM

R327, me, too! I used to call that number all the time. Later on, I figured out that many cities used 936-1212 (as it had become by then) for the weather. You just had to add the area code. I called 213-936-1212 occasionally just to hear the exotic weather forecasts for "coastal valleys" and "high deserts" and temperatures in 80s in December.

by Anonymousreply 333August 24, 2019 7:11 AM

It seems silly now, but I used to call 555-1212 frequently for accurate time and temperature. "At the tone, the time will be. . ."

by Anonymousreply 334August 24, 2019 7:26 AM

I remember how answering machines really were a game-changer, especially that you could call in from somewhere else and check your messages and then erase as needed. i always put a lot of effort into making outgoing messages. And the nice thing about the machines - as opposed to voicemail - if you were at home and just screening calls, you would hear the message and could immediately pick up if it was someone you wanted to talk to.

But honestly, half the time I don't even know how we did it. My schedule was always full, and communication always worked, but I don't really remember how.

by Anonymousreply 335August 24, 2019 7:54 AM

[quote]i always put a lot of effort into making outgoing messages.

Which probably annoyed the fuck out of everyone who called you.

by Anonymousreply 336August 24, 2019 8:28 AM

Remember in the early days of answering machines people would do joke messages, use music etc...they were a novelty.

I had a CODE-A-PHONE answering machine - which was top of the range!! It was the first that allowed you to perform all sorts of commands from an external touch tone phone.

by Anonymousreply 337August 24, 2019 8:32 AM

[quote]Remember in the early days of answering machines people would do joke messages, use music etc...they were annoying as fuck.

Fixed.

by Anonymousreply 338August 24, 2019 8:40 AM

Semaphore and smoke signals.

Please stop asking pathetic questions. If you have no idea, you failed at life.

by Anonymousreply 339August 24, 2019 8:46 AM

[quote]Semaphore and smoke signals.

& your lame joke has been made about a hundred times.

[quote] If you have no idea, you failed at life.

But being a cunty little bitch like R339, is success. Take note.

by Anonymousreply 340August 24, 2019 9:35 AM

I’m sorry OP, I truly didn’t think you were so sensitive about this subject matter. I was harsh, and for that, I truly apologize.

by Anonymousreply 341August 24, 2019 9:49 AM

I was in middle school, so I just passed a note 🤷‍♂️

by Anonymousreply 342August 24, 2019 10:04 AM

Are there any smart phones whose battery can be removed?

by Anonymousreply 343August 24, 2019 10:07 AM

You don't NEED to remove the battery, r343.

by Anonymousreply 344August 24, 2019 2:11 PM

R333, That number 936-1212 - That's it! This was the 1960s for me. I think it was free, a government service.

by Anonymousreply 345August 24, 2019 2:43 PM

I remember when I was 12 in 1992, my older brother's friend dared me to call "411" and sing the New England Telephone commercial jingle: ♪ "We're the one for you New England / New England Telephone / Part of the NYNEX family." ♫

So I did and the woman operator immediately said to me, "You know, we can track you down and send over the police." I immediately got scared shitless, slammed down the phone, and went to hide under my bed. I had visions of a SWAT team suddenly breaking through the doors and everything. XD

by Anonymousreply 346August 24, 2019 3:10 PM

I have never had a smart phone that wouldn't let me remove the battery. Sounds like some of that Apple bullshit again. Glad I stuck with Samsung.

by Anonymousreply 347August 24, 2019 4:17 PM

I preferred utilising the services of handsome young pages, but sometimes I did need to resort to carrier pigeons in a pinch.

by Anonymousreply 348August 24, 2019 4:33 PM

We got on just fine before cellphones

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by Anonymousreply 349August 24, 2019 4:42 PM

[quote]It seems silly now, but I used to call 555-1212 frequently for accurate time and temperature. "At the tone, the time will be. . ."

I don't think that was the time & temperature number. 555-1212 was always the long distance information number, and it was preceded by the area code, i.e. 213-555-1212.

by Anonymousreply 350August 24, 2019 5:13 PM

^ and it was free service from payphones

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by Anonymousreply 351August 24, 2019 6:23 PM

Do you suppose they have payphones in museums now? Possibly the Smithsonian? That would be a gas! They used to be so commonplace, no one thought much about them or even gave them a passing glance.

by Anonymousreply 352August 24, 2019 6:25 PM

MOMA has many phones in its collection.

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by Anonymousreply 353August 24, 2019 6:29 PM

So has the Science Museum in London.

There used to be a "Telephone Museum" in London, but that's gone, alas.

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by Anonymousreply 354August 24, 2019 6:33 PM

Before there was caller ID and you had to be on the phone for an extended period with an FBI trace you could call up hot guys and ask them how big their cock is...

Did it.

by Anonymousreply 355August 24, 2019 7:37 PM

We had one of those Swedish style phones with the dial on the bottom back in the early 60s.

by Anonymousreply 356August 24, 2019 7:42 PM

They were called Ericofons.

They were designed in the 1940s.

by Anonymousreply 357August 24, 2019 8:58 PM
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by Anonymousreply 358August 24, 2019 8:59 PM

They look like sex toys.

by Anonymousreply 359August 24, 2019 9:04 PM

I had a Windows smart phone, huge mistake, and once the battery died that was it. There was no sim card. Your info was lost forever. That's when I learned to have a hard copy on paper of everything important.

by Anonymousreply 360August 25, 2019 1:39 AM

Hah r360. I still have a Windows smartphone with two SIM cards! And everything gets backed up automatically to my OneDrive.

by Anonymousreply 361August 25, 2019 11:18 PM

My Windows phone was a cheap piece of shit and didn't work that way once the battery died. Maybe you have a better version of the Windows phone than I did. I went to T-Mobile when my phone died to see if they could change the battery or somehow retrieve my information and they said no, once the battery dies there's nothing that can be done. One of the techs and the manager told me that.

Now I'm not saying there was no way for me to get the information onto my computer somehow. I never tried as I had no idea I could do that. I'm a tech moron. There are probably many things my current Android phone can do that I don't know.

by Anonymousreply 362August 25, 2019 11:26 PM

What's amazing in this age of instant communication is that back in the pre-cell phone days you had no way to reach someone if you didn't know where they were. And if you had a missed connection with a person, and that person and you didn't connect with each other for several days, it was no big deal. Unthinkable today.

by Anonymousreply 363August 26, 2019 1:30 AM

I don't want people to know where I am and always be able to reach me. I keep my phone turned off and just turn it on when I need to use. If I'm expecting someone with something important to me to call like my doctor with test results I'll keep it turned on. I keep my "real" home phone off the hook most of the time too.

My home phone is a cordless one. What I miss the most about true land lines that don't need electricity is that if you're pissed you can slam the phone down in someone's ear. WTF are you going to do with a cordless phone, push the off button down hard!

by Anonymousreply 364August 26, 2019 3:10 AM

I was watching one of those Hollywood Reporter roundtable discussions and I can't remember who said this (it was years ago), but Hollywood screenwriters lamented the loss of answering machines because they were such a great plot device. A character hears a message on a machine they're not supposed to hear which sets the whole plot in motion, a couple interrupted from having sex because of an answering machine message, etc. Once answering machines went out of fashion and nobody used them anymore, writers couldn't use them in plotting stories.

by Anonymousreply 365August 26, 2019 4:10 AM

R364, what I miss about true landline, corded phones was that they worked in power outages. I still have my landline number, but it's VOIP now, so when the power goes out, so does the phone. The smartphone still works, but you have to be so careful not to run the battery down, or else be prepared to go out and charge it in the car if the outage lasts a long time.

If I decide to cut the cord and give up cable TV, I may have the phone company re-activate my regular landline and buy a corded phone to have in outages.

by Anonymousreply 366August 26, 2019 4:40 AM

R365, thriller and horror movie writers have had to struggle similarly because of cell phones and GPS. They get around it with (contrived) reasons why the characters have no service and the GPS "acts funny".

by Anonymousreply 367August 26, 2019 4:42 AM

Also street phones were very cinematic. That's gone.

I am NOT a particular fan of cell phones, but I like other people having them. What I especially like about it is that they go direct to who you want to call - no more having to talk to my ghastly sister-in-law when I call my brother etc...

Another thing - when people go away (abroad) you didn't generally talk to them (not much anyway) until they got back. Maybe once or twice. Leave a message at their hotel. Now they ring you every fucking day.

by Anonymousreply 368August 26, 2019 5:58 AM
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