Do you guys remember rotary telephones?

mikeyfrost said:
Crawfish you are a jerk!!! Let me tell you all what your very own Crawfish has done to me in the last two nights.

First, I can't hear my alarm clock anymore. Had it too long, need to buy a new one. Due to this fact I have to leave my cell phone on ring at night. My girlfriend sleeps in the bed with me. As a man, I hope and pray everynight that "Maria or Eileen" don't call while we are sleeping cause I'm not going to be able to explain that sh*t!!! Now....

Two nights ago Crawfish called me not once not twice but three times consecutively. Well after we had already fallen asleep mind you. Result is my girl telling me to ask my buddy not to wake us up that late since we both work day jobs. Strike 1 against Craw.

I called him yesterday afternoon to let him know this and of course, he doesn't answer. He does call me back about 10 PM though drunk and singing Journey songs on the phone while telling me he's about to burst out in tears he's feeling this song so much. Men should not sing Journey songs to other men. Strike 2 against Craw.

Roughly 2 hours later right about the time of the first post of this thread and after me and my chica have gone to bed, I get the bad news. Another call from Crawfish, by now he's quite hopped up. He just wants to tell me all about this post of his and I literally think my head is going to explode. When people call me that late I gotta fade my woman's curiosity and knowingly answer this bastards call because if I don't he will call again, and call again, and call again! Strike 3 for Crawfish he's out!

Craw, people have voicemail and texts nowadays, use them you muthaf*cker!!!!
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Hey, when Journey hits, you gotta love it. This kind of reminds me of that four call night when you were I think outside on a car or something like that? HHHaaa ha. We were laughing so hard at remembering when you had to call somebody and just let it ring. Man, I'm old. That was some funny shit looking back. You call. No answer. You just had to keep calling. Hysterical. I'll just text you Journey.
 
jay helfert said:
Ha Ha! People did still send telegrams back then as a way of congratulating someone on the birth of a baby or a wedding, or condolences for a death in the family. And a Western Union telegraph person would actually deliver it to your door! "Telegram for Mr. Newstroke", they would announce when you answered the door. And if you weren't such a cheap MF'er you would give him a quarter tip. But I heard you only gave the poor guy a dime! :wink:
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Knock on door: Telegram for Mr. New Stroke from a Mr. Jay Helfert: "Congratulations on the briss of your newest little monkey, Short Stroke."

Thank you very much for delivering this nice message Mr. Western Union man, here, take this nickel for your fine service.

Why Thank You Mr. New Stroke; my family and I can now take that Caribbean cruise we've been contemplating. I guess the theme for the day is 'it's all about 'small-tips'... (((rim-shot)))....

On a serious note, this reminds me of a story that was in the news last year. Medicine and technology, when they work together it can be a wonderful thing. There was a child born with no eyelids who ended up the recipient of a transplant where they were able to take skin harvested during a circumcision and use that skin to make eyelids for the child in need.

It all went perfect but there was one complication. Turned out the kid is cockeyed. (((another rim shot please)))...

Okay really seriously now, I know another story, this one true blue, I swear... :grin-square:

Best,
Brian kc
 
crawfish said:
Me and Runout Rodney just went on a short trip and were laughing about how funny it was to have to keep calling a motherfu#$er until he answered. No cell phones. How fun is it to check a line then, you knockin' motherfu#$ers? I wish you young guys had to deal with that shit just once. There was NO getting the guy. You just kept calling until you got him. Zipp. Wind. Zipp. Wind. Zipp Wind. Then, after six numbers, you finger slips and you gotta start all over. How'ya like it, now? I want a rotary cell phone. Nothing like fu#$in' with a guy tryin' to get the line on someone. Anyone remember? You know you do. Wind, zipp zipp. Wind, zipp zipp. Yeah. Dial that mf for about forty-five minutes.

And, oh fu#$, I got all the numbers right.............. wind, zipp, zipp, and you guessed it. BUSY. The only call waitin' is your dumbass waiting to call again. Good luck. Wind Zipp, Zipp all over. Hope he's home. Hey, hope it's not a good buzz and he left it off the hook. Wind. Zipp Zipp all over again.

Wind. Zipp ZippWind. Zipp ZippWind. Zipp ZippWind. Zipp ZippWind. Zipp ZippWind. Zipp ZippWind. Zipp ZippWind. Zipp Zipp....You youngsters don't know how good you got it. Hell, just fu#$ the line. Can't get the motherfu#$er on the horn, guess you'll have to try even. Wind, Zipp Zipp. Go and get'em.
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I remember back in the '60's my family was in the service station business. For you young bucks, that's what a gas station USED to be! We had a rotary phone on the counter in the front showroom of the station we used to answer calls from customers and an occasional out going call to order parts etc... My Dad opened up the phone bill one month and the night shift guy had made about a hundred dollars in long distance calls on our business line. Dad got hot and had the phone company replace the phone out in the public area with one that had no dial so we could receive calls only. One of my Dad's buddies was in one day and went to make a call on the phone. I told him I'd let him in to our office where he could dial out. He told me "no problem, this one will do fine. He started tapping out the numbers on the "hook button" one tap for 1, two taps for 2 etc... It worked fine as long as you didn't lose count, especially if the phone number you were dialing had mostly small numbers in it. lol

A few years went by and I was in the Navy stationed at Naval Air Station, Corpus Christi Texas. The barracks had plenty of pay phones but in the evenings they'd all be busy. In the area where the pay phones were located there was a "Master at Arms" desk with a dial-less phone on it. Back then the military had what was called WATTS lines which were like an 800 number back then with free long distance! One day while I was waiting for a pay phone to free up I was sitting at the "MAA" desk and for kicks I tried dialing out using the "TAP" method I'd learned back home at the service station. Lo and behold, next thing I knew I was talking to my family
back in Cincinnati. Some of the guys around saw me and thought I was nuts or something but from that time on, I never paid LD fees when I called home. I don't even think the phone company owned a computer back in the late '60's and there was apparently no trace left behind as there would be with todays phone systems. Worked pretty slick. I have a buddy who's home phone broke a few years back and the key pad wouldn't dial numbers. I showed him the TAP trick and he was making calls with his home phone for a couple of weeks until he bought a new phone. I guess the phone lines are still set up for rotary dial phones for this to work.
 
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softshot said:
I remember the rotary wall kitchen phone from the 70's

available in beige or avocado green.. with the 50 foot cord that if you reached its limit on a long call would snap out of your hand and the cord would ball up in this huge gordian knot.. that took several hours and at least two people to render straight again... and the best part hanging the cord of the highest staircase in the house and trying to record the RPM's of the hand set spinning LOL
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LOL! We still have one, beige...not the 50' cord, but a rotary wall phone hangs in our kitchen. Fully functional. It's a laugh riot to watch somebody under the age of 25 try to use it...:thumbup:
 
I also remember the first cell phones and car phones. They were the size of a shoe lol It is funny to watch an old show and see the actors with those giant phones . Was that not cool :rotflmao1:
 
Well if it has not been mentioned, I go back a little farther. In rural county Kansas, farm land, we had a crank phone. Our number was a Long and a Short. Meaning, you dialed a Long ring by one complete revolution of the crank and a half revolution for a Short ring. Not very many numbers on that party line. LOL I think the longest was 4 long rings and a short.

Oh our first rotary phone number was ME 30027. We were living high on the hog. :D

BTW Jay and I have the same Birthday I think mine, is the 17th. Nobody wished me happy birthday and I have more hair! LOL

Rod
 
peteypooldude said:
I also remember the first cell phones and car phones. They were the size of a shoe lol It is funny to watch an old show and see the actors with those giant phones . Was that not cool :rotflmao1:
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I remember those 'portable' cell phones.

I think they were powered by a group 24 12 volt car battery in that foot square shoulder strap carrying case. Not a lot of women were sporting them.

Movie stars /business men/ drug dealers had em-usually with somebody else to carry them.

Nice 'back in the day' thread.
 
I worked for the phone company for 39 years. I remember everything. They used to have PARTY LINES. More than one person shared the same line. Your calls were identified by the number of times the phone rang in succession. People would often listen to other peoples conversations, just by picking up their phones ever so slowly so you couldn't hear the clicking sound the phone would make.
 
crawfish said:
Hey, when Journey hits, you gotta love it. This kind of reminds me of that four call night when you were I think outside on a car or something like that? HHHaaa ha. We were laughing so hard at remembering when you had to call somebody and just let it ring. Man, I'm old. That was some funny shit looking back. You call. No answer. You just had to keep calling. Hysterical. I'll just text you Journey.
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Craw I hope you have that ringer on loud tonight. I will be calling you right before I go to sleep. It's Friday night and I am a lock to be out later than you. In other words, you are getting woken up. I'll sing you your favorite song and talk to you about Childhood Cartoons since you like to reminisce...T..T...T..That's All Folks!
 
I'm so old that I remember phones before they had a rotary dialer... we had to speak to an operator when placing every call... she would always answer... "Number please."... our number was Mayfair 3571.

We also had a party line (saved money from a private line) and if you wanted to place a call sometimes the other party line sharer was already using the line talking to someone else. You had to wait your turn.

That changed when the rotary phone became available. No more party lines. And our number was changed to 627-3571. Area codes came into existance at the same time, iirc.

Trivia question... Anybody remember what the basis of the area code system was? In other words, what determined your area code number?
 
cigardave said:
I'm so old that I remember phones before they had a rotary dialer... we had to speak to an operator when placing every call... she would always answer... "Number please."... our number was Mayfair 3571.

We also had a party line (saved money from a private line) and if you wanted to place a call sometimes the other party line sharer was already using the line talking to someone else. You had to wait your turn.

That changed when the rotary phone became available. No more party lines. And our number was changed to 627-3571. Area codes came into existance at the same time, iirc.

Trivia question... Anybody remember what the basis of the area code system was? In other words, what determined your area code number?
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You got me .That was about the time Mobeydick was still a minnow .
 
I believe your local exchange was determined by the fisr two letters of the city or town you lived in. The area code. I haven't a clue.
 
tom mcgonagle said:
I believe your local exchange was determined by the fisr two letters of the city or town you lived in. The area code. I haven't a clue.
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I don't think so! I remember the phone number my family had when I was a kid was GR for (Grandview) GR1-2025, later just 471-2025. I'm talking about a 1957 time frame, but there wasn't an area in Cincinnati known as Grandview or any of the other names such as WA for Wabash which was another common one in my area. I think the names at least in the Cincinnati area were just "made up" names someone in an office somewhere dreamed up. It could have been different in other areas, I don't know!
 
another bit of phone trivia

A friend of mine has a permanent number as long as he maintains service anywhere in the Bell South system. Doesn't matter if he goes to a different area code or anything else. That was the deal they offered for a very short time a few decades ago. He is the only one that I know of that still has this contract. All of the baby Bells may be bound by this contract but I'm not sure of that.

Hu
 
peteypooldude said:
I also remember the first cell phones and car phones. They were the size of a shoe lol It is funny to watch an old show and see the actors with those giant phones . Was that not cool :rotflmao1:
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Yeah. Didn't they laughingly call those the 'Brick'?
Remember back in the 80's when wearing a pager on your belt was considered cool?
I didn't have much money in those days so when I went out clubbing I would clip my garage door opener to my belt. The chicks thought I had it going on until they got close enough to see the duct tape on it from where I'd dropped it. :)
 
3RAILKICK said:
I remember those 'portable' cell phones.

I think they were powered by a group 24 12 volt car battery in that foot square shoulder strap carrying case. Not a lot of women were sporting them.

Movie stars /business men/ drug dealers had em-usually with somebody else to carry them.

Nice 'back in the day' thread.
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I've still got one of those I took out of my '80 Corvette! If there are any collectors interested I'll make a good deal on it! lol I've heard that there are people who collect just about anything old.
 
cigardave said:
Trivia question... Anybody remember what the basis of the area code system was? In other words, what determined your area code number?
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They were based on population. The most populated area (NYC) got the quickest area code to dial when using a rotary phone (212)

Steve
 
pooltchr said:
They were based on population. The most populated area (NYC) got the quickest area code to dial when using a rotary phone (212)

Steve
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Yep > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Numbering_Plan

A cool thing about those rotary phones was their bell. It takes a bit of juice to get that striker ringing the bell. Every phone line, when ringing, drives the line with enough AC voltage to give one quite a shock if you happen to be working on the line at the time :yikes:
If you hung enough phones off one line, and that line was quite long, your bells would hardly ring if at all. I knew a man who mod'd his rotary, he cut the striker off with sidecutters so people wouldn't bother him ... he could dial out but heard no incoming calls ... his telecomm/datacomm company had to send a courier by his house letting him know when board meetings were scheduled.

These days electronic phones take a way less powerful signal to get them ringing (bleeping, boinging, or however you've programmed them), but I'll bet you still get a big shock from the phone line ... thanks to those long-gone bells.

Dave
 
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