Posted on 07/07/2024 4:44:37 PM PDT by DallasBiff
1950s
The design of the telephone didn’t change much from the ’40s to the ’50s, but the mechanics of it sure did. If you look closely, you’ll notice that the numbers and letters are placed around the rotary so that people could view them more easily when dialing, and it also had an adjustable volume control. This style phone is the Western Electric model 500 Rotary. It was designed by Henry Dreyfus and was used as the Bell System’s mainstay telephone from the 1950s through the 1980s.
(Excerpt) Read more at rd.com ...
I know, I'm getting old, I remember when Readers Digest was on every coffee table.
My first phone looked like that. Bill was $7.65 per month.
I have one of those on my desk at home. It’s not plugged in, as we don’t have landline service.
Growing up in the 80s, we had a rotary dial wall phone. If it ain't broke, don't fix replace it.
ah yes, the phone from the day when phones served you, instead of you serving them. good times.
Remember how long it took to dial a number?
And how pissed you got when you got a number wrong and had to start over?
LOL...I had a boss with an extremely short fuse. He liked to berate people. One day he really lost it, ripped the phone out and threw it across the room, smashing into the wall.
He was a VP at the time and I figured that was the end of the line for him. He went on to become president of the company! It was a sad end for him, though. He contracted a fatal disease in his 60s and killed himself.
Always jealous of the kids with touch dialing.
Be the 10th caller...and here I am with a rotary dial phone.
I have a crank telephone.
My brother has our old one, it weighs a ton! He doesn’t have a landline, it’s for ‘decoration’
(And no, kids. It had nothing to do with partying.)
2500 series desk phones and 2554 series wall phones are still made today in the USA by Cortelco in Corinth, MS. This company used to be owned by ITT, and prior to that if I recall correctly it was owned by the Kellogg Switchboard and Supply company.
I still have the one from the house I grew up in during the 1950s. It’s not hooked up to anything, but it’s sitting on my home office desk and looks exactly like the one that picture.
My friends only had to dial the four numbers 1179 to reach me. The WILSON 7 (947) exchange was not necessary unless someone was calling from another town.
I think the area codes existed, but they were only used by adults making long distance calls.
“killed himself”.
Good! I HATE men who have no impulse control or coping skills. Hate.
I’m sure there are women in that category, too, but I don’t know them.
XD XD... yep.
I didn’t have a phone like the one pictured until the ‘70s. The old early 1950s phone was bulkier, and the numbers where inside the rotary. It also had a brown cloth cord.
That’s exactly what I grew up.
Better days...
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