Posted on 09/03/2023 11:43:00 AM PDT by DallasBiff
Some elementary school kids don’t even know what a landline is. Take a trip down memory lane and remember the type of phone you used to use.
(Excerpt) Read more at rd.com ...
There ya go.
Then 2 lines were strung into our town through over 5 miles of woods so there were 2, 12 party lines.
We were one long and two short.
Just remember, the older you get, the fast time goes by.
I have one; it’s connected to the VOIP box, and it’s what rings.
The cordless touch tone things we actually use for talking keep their shrill chirpy electronic “ring” to themselves.
Theoretically I could answer the old rotary when it rings, but it doesn’t show me caller ID or have a mute button. Obviously, it can’t make outgoing calls.
If the wall plate was hooked to anything, the phone would do everything I need a phone to do, despite its age and appearance.
But it ain't.
“Cobra” brand. Funny looking thing. There was a button on it so if you just set it down (or slid it into the wall bracket) it would hang up.
Anyway.... it has a switch on it so you can go from touch tone to pulse dialing if you happen to move to 1974.
-PJ
Hey, when i was a kid my suburban KC phone number was MItchell xxxx before it was MItchell 9-xxxx. I also used/ran an old PBX Edith Ann switchboard at my college dorm
....back in the days of closely trimmed hair with white-walls, Brooks Brothers suits, and thin black ties.
Thanks for the image.
Had a girlfriend in high school and we were somewhat restricted, since neither her parents nor mine wanted us to be together. Where there’s a will, there’s a way: I rigged a telephone line to a disconnected outlet in my room and when I wanted to call her, I’d plug it into the socket, get a dial tone and call her. I disconnected the bell on my phone and when she called me, a red light would illuminate.
The phone served us well through high school and eventually, the phone company investigated and found my pirated line.
My mother was horrified but when the phone folks found out that I was in Vietnam at the time, they let the whole thing drop.
I love it! Your own personal hotline with a red light.
It’s hard to imagine that the monopoly phone company at one time launched investigations like that and prosecuted for people touching or modifying their wires. For decades, you couldn’t even change any of the wiring in your home.
Few people remember those highly restrictive times.
When I was in grade school, my teachers (all nuns) would call my parents every time they were upset with me, which was often. I learned that if you turned the dial one position to the right and inserted a small object between the finger stop and the first hole in the dial (like a pencil eraser), the phone wouldn’t receive calls and just give a busy signal.
Saved me a lot of anguish…
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