There is a picture of a 1928 “time traveling” woman doing the same thing in Hollywood.
A good explanation is that the device was actually a small tape recorder and the user was accessing some information that had previously been recorded on the device.
I have my doubts about there being “small tape recorders” before about 1960.
That would still be time travelling, because they didnt have portable recorders back then.
I don’t think they had tape recorders in 1928, large or small.🙄
And what magic would they have used to create a small recorder? Lol.
Transistors we’re about a decade away from any kind of consumer level production.
Since tape recorders had yet (1930) to be made they were using sat phones, obviously.
In 1928 there were no small tape recorders. The “wire recorder” came into service just before WWII; and, it was the size of a small suitcase. Only vacuum tube equipment existed in those days. The WWII walky-talkey was the smallest radio transceiver at that time. It was more walky than talkey.