We've gotten used to Tat.

[Zoom Zoom]

No Dusty. for real. Besides, using a device to send tones will only work if there is something to receive them in the first place.


No takers on the first place to actually offer TT to its customers?

John Henry 

[oldbike54]

No Dusty. for real. Besides, using a device to send tones will only work if there is something to receive them in the first place.


No takers on the first place to actually offer TT to its customers?

John Henry

 Good point John , and please don't report my , er , indiscretion , was but a boy of 17  . Actually , didn't pay phones have TT before home phones ?

  Dusty

[MGPilot]

The early TV remotes that used radio signals caused all kinds of problems with neighbors' televisions responding to each others remotes. The current infrared units were created to solve that problem as "pairing" wasn't around yet.

[Triple Jim]

The first TV remote control I saw was my uncle's.  It had 4 buttons, each connected to a little hammer that struck a "chime" (for lack of a better term), emitting a sound beyond human hearing.  All you heard was the mechanism cocking the hammer each time a button was pressed.

Now that you mention it, I've seen that type too, probably at a friend's house in that era.  The sound activated remote systems had the advantage of not needing to be line-of-sight to the receiver.  You didn't have to point at the TV and keep the coffee table out of the way.

[charlie b]

I still remember getting a tour of the local Bell office.  Watching all the relays go through a dialing sequence was really cool. 

Of course, everything in that 20,000 sq ft building is now done on a microscopic chip. 

Sound quality was not always good either.  We had lines that had cotton insulation.  Everytime it rained you got a lot of cross talk on the lines and random connections.  Dial across town and you ended up connected to someone in another area.  Long distance was a crap shoot.  Sometimes it sounded OK and sometimes you both had to yell to be heard over the static, and that was within 100mi of each other.  Cross country long distance was really bad sometimes.  And you have to pay a HUGE fee to get the bad service.

[Lannis]

I still remember getting a tour of the local Bell office.  Watching all the relays go through a dialing sequence was really cool. 

Of course, everything in that 20,000 sq ft building is now done on a microscopic chip. 

Sound quality was not always good either.  We had lines that had cotton insulation.  Everytime it rained you got a lot of cross talk on the lines and random connections.  Dial across town and you ended up connected to someone in another area.  Long distance was a crap shoot.  Sometimes it sounded OK and sometimes you both had to yell to be heard over the static, and that was within 100mi of each other.  Cross country long distance was really bad sometimes.  And you have to pay a HUGE fee to get the bad service.

It's interesting to remember that you as the homeowner were not allowed to touch any of the wiring or equipment all the way to the phone, including the phone.   You wanted the luxury of an "extension phone", the phone company installed it.

When you think that AT&T rented every phone in the country (tens to hundreds of millions of phones) to people for $2 a month for 100 years, you realize why they were one of the biggest, richest companies in the world - and why they went bust when that model changed ....

Lannis

[Zoom Zoom]

Dusty,

Old rotary dial coin phones began to be changed out en mass so they would be noticed. Think of it as free advertising. If there was a TT pay phone in an exchange, TT was likely available to its subscribers. These days, collectors covet the old 3 slot rotary coin phones. I suppose the single slot phones are collectable as well, but not as much. Regarding residential service, many were not willing to pay two dollars extra just to have TT. I remember when we began to introduce TT. I looked at the boss and said "what's up with these two extra buttons?" (Meaning the * and #.) "Did someone just not want those spots to be empty?" His reply was "Someday, those are gonna do something!"   

Back to what Lannis and others said, the older equipment was much better built. Before modern plastic, they were made out of bakelite, a very heavy and brittle early type of "plastic". For a very long time, someone could actually repair a phone. Replace the dial, transmitter, receiver. adjust the hook switch or dial contacts, and replace ringers. IMHO, everything about the old stuff was better than much of the junk being sold at discount stores these days. You could actually fix them. Not any more, other than cords, or handset, or the entire phone.

I really don't miss party lines as they were a PITA to work on, particularly with grounded ringing being used, but the rest, yeah I miss it. As technology becomes more and more IP based, the solution to troubles that arise become more difficult to locate. Some little piece of information is missing in a packet of data someplace that can make all kinds of weird troubles. A lot of the transport is being hauled via IP any more, even if the last mile is still analog. ( The last mile is what the last Central Office, CO, to your home, is commonly referred to.)   

John Henry 

[Triple Jim]

It's interesting to remember that you as the homeowner were not allowed to touch any of the wiring or equipment all the way to the phone, including the phone.   You wanted the luxury of an "extension phone", the phone company installed it.

Right, and it's very different now.  I think it's up to $75 if the repair guy is called to your house and he finds that the problem is indoors.  Taking a phone outside to the "NID", disconnecting the house, and plugging the phone in to test the line is pretty much mandatory before calling for a repair.

[Lannis]

Back to what Lannis and others said, the older equipment was much better built. Before modern plastic, they were made out of bakelite, a very heavy and brittle early type of "plastic". For a very long time, someone could actually repair a phone. Replace the dial, transmitter, receiver. adjust the hook switch or dial contacts, and replace ringers. IMHO, everything about the old stuff was better than much of the junk being sold at discount stores these days. You could actually fix them. Not any more, other than cords, or handset, or the entire phone.

Sounds familiar!   That's why I didn't put a "No Guzzi Content" tag on the post .... !

Lannis

[Orange Guzzi]

I wonder how many old people are still leasing their ancient Western Electric phones for an insignificant amount each month, yet paying maybe thousands of dollars for a $12 piece of hardware.

I was going to point this out also.  Wait until the extra lease payment charge shows up on you phone bill.

Our household does not have land line  service and has not for many years.  When we ditched the wire, my Wife was in panic mode and did not want to give up "Her" phone number she had for many years.  I was able to manipulate the phone company system and port our land line number to cellular service.    We are the only people in our exchange to have a local number that is cellular as far as I know.  The monopoly for land lines in our area is ATT.  I went to the ATT store and ask them to port our home phone to cellular.  They did much to my surprise.  After the 1 year agreement was up, we were free to move "our" phone to any service we wanted.  Your phone number belongs to you, not the phone company.  We have since moved the number a couple of times and now are using prepaid cellular service.   Which is actually the cheapest way to buy cellular phone services.

 Most people do not know or believe prepaid is what poor people are force to use because of bad credit.  In reality, cellular post paid plains are just a finance plan for a over price handset.  I am in and have been in the cellular phone business since 1994.  I can buy a new, nice top of the line handset wholesale for $15.00, sell it for $60, activate it and get a $40 commission.   I can get some phones for free and get paid to activate them.  The cellular services providers cost are pretty much flat.  The more customers they can bill, the lower the operating cost is per customer.   Don't tell anyone I told you this. 

Back to your old phone story.  The phone company infrastructure has to be duel platform to handle the old analog and new digital equipment.  I am quite surprised that the companies have not phased the old systems out due to the increased use of power require with the analog.   When I was young, 60's,  we would take the handsets apart and build our on communications system in the house.  connecting  set of microphone s and speaker up to a battery.  It was always on when the battery was connected.  Using a transformer made the system buzz. 

[Orange Guzzi]

I remember my dad and the neighbor having it out over the ham radio and the t.v. signal.  My dad would go pull the antenna cord in two.

[Arizona Wayne]

I think the Fed. Govt. made your ph. # accessible to any phone service source.  That's why your cell ph. # can be from you no matter what area code it says you are in when you are really in another state then.

We use land line for local calls and cell ph. for trips, long distance, and like you pay $15 mo. for it.  I get 200 min./mo. and since we don't use the cell ph. much we have over 5,119 min. left to use on it.   

Then there's that Majic jack that charges you $29.95/year for unlimited local/long distance calling too that they say you can hook up any where on your phone lines.  My son uses that.

[Penderic]

Just replaced my cow with a .....




Next: Replace your old fashion expensive and troublesome human workers with happy cute robots.

[Tom]

I know some you had these type of remote control for th"e tv.  See if this sounds familiar.  " Boy, change the channel!  Go up...go down....okay."  2 minutes later.  " 'ey change the channel....up....do wn...back...down... up".  "Dad....how come I gotta do this?"  "You're turn!"  "Your sister is doing the dishes."  "Daaad.....".  etc.  etc..

The remote control worked best on Saturdays before the cartoon festival.

[Arizona Wayne]

I know some you had these type of remote control for th"e tv.  See if this sounds familiar.  " Boy, change the channel!  Go up...go down....okay."  2 minutes later.  " 'ey change the channel....up....do wn...back...down... up".  "Dad....how come I gotta do this?"  "You're turn!"  "Your sister is doing the dishes."  "Daaad.....".  etc.  etc..

The remote control worked best on Saturdays before the cartoon festival.

Back when men were men and you were but a grasshopper. 

[Tom]

Agreed.  How about this one?  "Wot?.....sit down....you made of glass?"  I've used that one on the youngest when he was small.

[Penderic]

Then you had to rotate the yagi antenna head on the tower just right to get Buffalo and Hamilton to tune to, nice and ghost free. Rabbit ears? Forget about those.

Time for: Soupy Sales! TV Frozen Dinners! Commander Tom! Professional Wrestling! Don Messers Jubilee! Hee Haw!

I think we got 7 channels out of 12 .... not bad eh? UHF 22 was iffy.

[Zoom Zoom]

I know some you had these type of remote control for th"e tv.  See if this sounds familiar.  " Boy, change the channel!  Go up...go down....okay."  2 minutes later.  " 'ey change the channel....up....do wn...back...down... up".  "Dad....how come I gotta do this?"  "You're turn!"  "Your sister is doing the dishes."  "Daaad.....".  etc.  etc..

The remote control worked best on Saturdays before the cartoon festival.

Do you remember that some TV's could be turned on/off, or changed channel by jingling a bunch of keys on a ring? There was no way you could select what was going to happen, but you could affect it. (I believe these were the second generation remotes, just after the ones you refer to.)

John Henry

[56Pan]

Then you had to rotate the yagi antenna head on the tower just right to get Buffalo and Hamilton to tune to, nice and ghost free. Rabbit ears? Forget about those.

Time for: Soupy Sales! TV Frozen Dinners! Commander Tom! Professional Wrestling! Don Messers Jubilee! Hee Haw!

I think we got 7 channels out of 12 .... not bad eh? UHF 22 was iffy.

We only got two.  WHAS and WAVE out of Louisville, KY.  Dad absolutely refused to buy a UHF converter so we could get one more.  Said two channels were plenty for anyone.

[Triple Jim]

Then you had to rotate the yagi antenna head on the tower just right to get Buffalo and Hamilton to tune to, nice and ghost free.

You sure it wasn't a log periodic?

Do you remember that some TV's could be turned on/off, or changed channel by jingling a bunch of keys on a ring? There was no way you could select what was going to happen, but you could affect it. (I believe these were the second generation remotes, just after the ones you refer to.)

Our whistle type could definitely be fooled with keys.  As a kid, I had plenty of energy to experiment.   

[Arizona Wayne]

We never had the electric thingamajib that rotated the antenna for more  clear channels.    We never got a color TV until our `49 16" Hoffman B&W wore out in the late `60s.     'Course by then I was on my own going to college in an apartment, working part time to pay for it, w/o any TV or even a radio. Spring break at the beach?  Are you kidding?  Next stop, Vietnam in the US Navy.

[mgfan]

Hope this never gets out, but in the early days of TT, all the C O equipment came programed for TT. We had to backwards program for dial pulse and then charged people $2 a month to put it back to the way it came! My first TV changed channels every time the phone rang.

[Wayne Orwig]

You sure it wasn't a log periodic?

Yea, usually LPAs. We would put up some Yagis in our area since you were only getting one or two channels anyway, so you didn't need a broad bandwidth.

[Triple Jim]

Yea, usually LPAs. We would put up some Yagis in our area since you were only getting one or two channels anyway, so you didn't need a broad bandwidth.

I made a fairly long Yagi tuned for a particular UHF channel that was marginal at my father's house.  It allowed us to watch that channel by swapping coax from the broadband antenna to the single-channel antenna.  It was a fun but long forgotten (until you reminded me) project. 

[charlie b]

In laws had one of the big satellite dishes when they first came out.  Before the feeds were encoded.  Some of the live news feeds were kinda funny since it was raw stuff from the vans.  People cussing each other out or dirty jokes since they weren't 'on the air' at the station.

[Aaron D.]

Then you had to rotate the yagi antenna head on the tower just right to get Buffalo and Hamilton to tune to, nice and ghost free. Rabbit ears? Forget about those.

Time for: Soupy Sales! TV Frozen Dinners! Commander Tom! Professional Wrestling! Don Messers Jubilee! Hee Haw!

I think we got 7 channels out of 12 .... not bad eh? UHF 22 was iffy.

I remember when the world was that color..

[blackcat]

Still have this one, haven't plug it in for some time but I assume it still works. A little dusty.

[zedXmick]

Those rose colored glasses sure make the past look good. I started working in the telephone industry in 1983 and the party lines and old step by step switching systems were a nightmare to maintain. I was a central office tech and had the misfortune to keep two of the last step by step switches running in the state of WI (for an independent telco)  I was fortunate enough to get my 30 years with the company and retired in 2013. No way would I want to go back to operators and 4 dollars a minute LD calls. We might as well go back to the Stone Age and live in caves, no roads,no electricity, no clean running water...yup them be the good old days.... 

[oldbike54]

Those rose colored glasses sure make the past look good. I started working in the telephone industry in 1983 and the party lines and old step by step switching systems were a nightmare to maintain. I was a central office tech and had the misfortune to keep two of the last step by step switches running in the state of WI (for an independent telco)  I was fortunate enough to get my 30 years with the company and retired in 2013. No way would I want to go back to operators and 4 dollars a minute LD calls. We might as well go back to the Stone Age and live in caves, no roads,no electricity, no clean running water...yup them be the good old days.... 

   

 Yeah , and little guys like me have a tough time sticking one of those old dial phones in a front pocket 

  Dusty

[Arizona Wayne]

Those rose colored glasses sure make the past look good. I started working in the telephone industry in 1983 and the party lines and old step by step switching systems were a nightmare to maintain. I was a central office tech and had the misfortune to keep two of the last step by step switches running in the state of WI (for an independent telco)  I was fortunate enough to get my 30 years with the company and retired in 2013. No way would I want to go back to operators and 4 dollars a minute LD calls. We might as well go back to the Stone Age and live in caves, no roads,no electricity, no clean running water...yup them be the good old days.... 

Combining the old rotary phones with the rest of your stated past is a bit of a stretch.