[SamAdams76]

I miss the rotary dialer phone in the office. I used to dial phone numbers using my pencil (with the eraser tip). The pencil just sort of hooked into those rotary holes perfectly. Dialing numbers that way yielded a satisfactory "mechanical" feedback as the dial whirred back to home position after each number.

Also, I remember a trick where if you inverted the first three digits of your own phone number and then dialed the next four, you would make your own phone ring. I don't think that works anymore but in the 1970s, it did work and I would fake getting phone calls. Can't remember what value that provided but as a kid, it seemed pretty cool.

Prank phone calls were big in the 1970s. That was before people at home had caller ID so you could have all kinds of fun without getting caught.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

In the 1960s, our phone in rural Iowa was on a party line. There was a crank handle on the phone to ring the attention of the operator.

[Vendome]

So you’re the one who wore the numbers off the face.

[PowderMonkey]

I really don't miss the rotary dial phone myself. The office environment in those days was simply awful. The constant jangling of telephone bells on everyone’s desk alone was enough to drive you crazy. Add to that the sound of hundreds of manual typewriters throughout the building, and the pall of cigarette smoke that hung down three feet from the ceiling, and the blaring PA systems, and the smell of mimeograph copies, and smudgy carbon paper…nope I don't miss the old days at all.

[lacrew]

We used the ringback feature as and intercom in our house.

[Rebelbase]

“Prank phone calls were big in the 1970s. That was before people at home had caller ID so you could have all kinds of fun without getting caught. “

A rite of passage back then.

Do you have Sir Walter Raleigh in the can?

Is your refrigerator running?

What are you specials? Can you repeat that?..again...again...

[P.O.E.]

I used to dial phone numbers using my pencil (with the eraser tip).

No secretary was without one of these dialer pens.