"Real" Telephones

[Pangloss62]

I never found the trimline comfortable to hold for very long.
Also, I like the feedback of listening while I'm dialing, so the dial or buttons in the handset bother me.

I don't know, Bruce, I like the heft of the Trimline combo handset; that said, one's cheek can hit one of buttons on the TouchTone model while they are talking. Dreyfuss Associates and Western Electric came up with a cool solution for being able to dial all ten numbers with that smaller finger wheel. If you dial a Trimline telephone, you'll notice that the finger stop (that little metal hook at the end of the dial stroke) actually moves about a half-inch at the end of each stroke. That way they could use the standard dial mechanism with a smaller finger wheel.

The first TouchTones had only 10 numbers; there were no # and * keys. Those were added to allow computers to recognize the end of strings of numbers when banks started using telephones for electronic transfers and such. Kinda like a dash or a space in the form of a tone.

Mag:
PicturePhone never really caught on, due mostly to its high cost and the sheer volume of data that was needed to send both voice and picture. But a more human reason was the fact that people actually prefer the physical anonymity of just the voice. You may recall the PicturePhone used by Jane Jetson. Mrs. Jetson would often use a mask of herself looking her best rather than reveal her real, curlers-in-your-hair-shame-on-you visage to the caller. I think the Jetson's # was Venus 1-2-3-4.



I used to work in the archives of one of the post-Ma Bell "baby" bells and we absorbed an entire telephone museum. I learned so much about telephony at that job. And my boss gave me a gift when I left for greener pastures:



The above is a Design Line telephone called Sculptura. The Design Line marked the beginning of the end of AT&T's leasing program. You could buy Design Line phones outright. The build quality was for shit.