300 baud was GOOD ENOUGH FOR US!!
Posted on 07/07/2024 4:44:37 PM PDT by DallasBiff
Whippersnapper, you made my jaw drop. Not growing up in a family that didn't have a party line I could understand if you lived in a large city, but never used a rotary phone is shocking to me.
Please don't be offended, because I had a forty year career in telecommunications going back to the mid-1970's and retired from Verizon after 31 years. I'm pretty biased in my assumptions.
Gosh, must have been so very boring staring at your phone back then!
300 baud was GOOD ENOUGH FOR US!!
I was visiting Ft. Concho in San Angelo, TX a few moths ago, and they had a very interesting telephone museum there. Some of those phones looked like they were made for just that.
https://texastimetravel.com/directory/eh-danner-museum-telephony/
Lazy writer: He incorrectly pegged it to the decade rather than every 5 years post-1990 (and doesn’t list a single cellular ‘phone’...).
OURS was mounted on the kitchen wall-— there was a crank to ‘call the number’.
Our “number’ was 2 longs & a short. 20 party line.
I sold my 1953 house in 1993 & the kitchen still had a wall mounted rotary phone.
Do you text with that?
Both my sisters worked for the phone company when we were young and had to work on holidays, since that was the time everybody called family. Then they would come home for a delayed dinner and tell us all the hilarious things people would do and say. This was back when you talked to the operator for a long-distance call.
There was a joke about a guy who wanted twee twee twee twee twee twee twee. No area codes in those days.
Had an inlaw who kept several of his younger days crank telephone “boxes” as they were called. The handle outside cranked a fairly powerful magneto inside the box- sending a dedicated line signal to a central operator (as in “Hello, Central, please connect me to GARDEN 5 2719== or GA 5 2710 for example).
He rigged up a couple of the crank magnetos to baited squirrel stations in the attic made of copper plate wired to the magneto, and the plates when stepped on completed a circuit to a small light downstairs on a panel next to the two boxes. Light came one— a fast crank fried the squirrel, usually throwing it across the attic with an audible thump.
Said it was very satisfying to clean out the pesky squirrels. That was some current. Units in Army radios based on the same principles wires run to HQ in trench warfare.
It’s exhausting! I’m back to a percolator. Grinding beans. They smell so good.
I detested cleaning coffer maker. Took too much time. Vinegar has gotten too high also.
You must have been well off! To even have ANY phone that early was unusual. My family never had any phone until the mid 1960's and then only because of a family emergency that required the communication.
We couldn’t get a phone until my father got hired by the highway department .Since father might be needed to plow snow or other road ergencies his boss told the phone compsny “You WILL extend the line..”
Black rotary desk phone.
Rotary phone dialing was pulse and my first pushbutton phone had to be set on pulse not tone dialing.
My early modems had to pulse dial then switch to digital operation once connected.
What is that?
That, my FRiend, is an acoustic coupler. You stick the handset into the cups and try to ignore the screeching sounds that represent the birth pangs of the Internet. Analog Internet. Ah, those were the days...
Having been born in 1933, unfortunately I have no pictures of the signal fires and blankets...
300 baud? Luxury. We had 75 baud AND WE LIKED IT.
You haven't lived until you've used a rotary phone.
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