Meme Anarchy

[hobot]

.

 

[chester]

This was the type of phone we used when I was young, the old Bakelite. You could really do some damage if you hit someone with. Nice solid feel. Then we had the crap plastic ones. Now we have shit plastic ones. The original was designed to last. Our current ones (and mobile/cellular) help a disposable societies neophyllia by breaking down often. I suppose when we use up all the rare earths for chips for useful devices like MP3/4/5 and Toilet seat. Then we may start mining all the value added landfill that has seduced our society.

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I win. i grew up in one of the last rural telephone exchanges in saskatchewan. the exchange was in town and occupied the street front of a house. when you entereed there was a wooden phone booth so you could place calls there, a counter and behind the counter was the big phone board being operated by one of three local women who were employed as "operators". all phones were on "party lines" which meant any one of three or 4 households that shared a line could hear the conversation by picking up the recviever. a call was made by picking up the reciever and rotating a crank on the side which signaled the exchange in town, who would respond with "operator, number please" and you would give them the number of the party you wanted to call. the operator would plug a line in the board and use a toggle to send a distinctive ring pattern down the line, you answered the phone when you heard your ring pattern. Our phone number was " 3 ring 1-2" which was line three and our ring pattern was 1-2 or 1 long ring followed by 2 short ones. the rural exchange lasted until about 1972 when it was replaced by an automated system that used typical rotary dial phones where everyone had a typical 7 digit number, ours was 753-2211. they were still partylines for a few years so that we could still other conversation if you picked up and you would wait for the line to be clear before dialing a number. private lines followed a couple of years later, appoximately 1976

 

[130lights]

This was the type of phone we used when I was young, the old Bakelite. You could really do some damage if you hit someone with. Nice solid feel. Then we had the crap plastic ones. Now we have shit plastic ones. The original was designed to last. Our current ones (and mobile/cellular) help a disposable societies neophyllia by breaking down often. I suppose when we use up all the rare earths for chips for useful devices like MP3/4/5 and Toilet seat. Then we may start mining all the value added landfill that has seduced our society.


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Yep, I remember the ‘suitcase’ phones. Seemed so cool at the time

 

[Captain Ketamine]

That's a standard pattern British phone that we grew up with. What's REALLY WEIRD is that the phone number in the middle, Godshill 217 was that of a young girlfriend's parents' house in the Isle of Wight way back when. Getting chills.

I can start sending you photos of other false repressed and true memories of your life with ransom notes, if you’d like….other girl friends numbers…?

 

[Bump-n-Grind]

 

[tane]

I’ve read about gang/party lines in EB White’s essays…does that count?

...those 4 sharers of the line could NOT call each other, of course!

 

[Bump-n-Grind]

 

[Bump-n-Grind]

 

[hobot]

.

 

[SloopJonB]

This was the type of phone we used when I was young, the old Bakelite. You could really do some damage if you hit someone with. Nice solid feel. Then we had the crap plastic ones. Now we have shit plastic ones. The original was designed to last. Our current ones (and mobile/cellular) help a disposable societies neophyllia by breaking down often. I suppose when we use up all the rare earths for chips for useful devices like MP3/4/5 and Toilet seat. Then we may start mining all the value added landfill that has seduced our society.

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I love watching British TV shows from the pre-cell phone era - those red booths out in the middle of nowhere.

Driving along a road in the emptiness of the Yorkshire moors and there's a red phone booth.

I imagine it was the only country in the world that did that.

Now?

Sad - they were iconic. almost as much as the flag.

 

[SloopJonB]

youall Americans of the early affluence probably don't know the, now curious sounding, telephones we had in the forest here well into the 70s: "1/4-phones" ("Vierteltelefone" in Kraut): 4 households were sharing one landline (but everyone had their one phones), so if one of the four was using his phone the others had to wait until they hung up. There was a little button on the set that had to be pressed to get into the line. Was it occupied a little sectored disc behind a little glass window made one small move then stopped, was the line free the little sectored disc jerked more often until you got the line. If one was unlucky one of the other three households, that you were sharing the line with, had a "talker", then sometimes you had to wait for a long time until the line was free. Until somebody discovered that sticking a needle carefully into the cable that ran from a connection box to your phone & shorted the little wires in there "just right", the person using the phone was "thrown out" & you could grab the line. Our cable had many holes & a needle was permanently parked close. Even mother sometimes resorted to it.
Of course these were dialing disc phones!
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one could have one's own 1/1 line, it was just very much more expensive than the 1/4 phone

We called them party lines - great for listening in on the neighbours.

 

[Point Break]

When the cell phones first became established as something that would actually work, the department issued one to each command vehicle. They sucked.

 

[NatruallyAspirated]

Neal

 

[NatruallyAspirated]

Neal

 

[oldsurfer]

We called them party lines - great for listening in on the neighbours.

And hookin up!
Long Beach in the 60's there were phone numbers used by Ma Bell service techs to perform line maintenance/trouble-shooting. Numbers would leak out and they were 'trunk lines' where hundreds of hormone charged kids could be on the line at the same time screaming "what's your number?" hoping to hear one in all the kaos so you could call them and flirt in private. Talk about blind speed dating.....

Another payphone trick, (don't know if it works anymore) take a paper clip, unfold it, stick one end thru the mouthpiece and touch the metal diaphragm and ground the other end into the keyhole for the coinbox and voila free phone calls.

 

[Bump-n-Grind]

And hookin up!
Long Beach in the 60's there were phone numbers used by Ma Bell service techs to perform line maintenance/trouble-shooting. Numbers would leak out and they were 'trunk lines' where hundreds of hormone charged kids could be on the line at the same time screaming "what's your number?" hoping to hear one in all the kaos so you could call them and flirt in private. Talk about blind speed dating.....

Another payphone trick, (don't know if it works anymore) take a paper clip, unfold it, stick one end thru the mouthpiece and touch the metal diaphragm and ground the other end into the keyhole for the coinbox and voila free phone calls.

have you even seen a payphone in the last 15 years? except maybe those closed circuit thingies near baggage claim at airports?

 

[pbd]

I love watching British TV shows from the pre-cell phone era - those red booths out in the middle of nowhere.

Driving along a road in the emptiness of the Yorkshire moors and there's a red phone booth.

I imagine it was the only country in the world that did that.

Now?

View attachment 540309

Sad - they were iconic. almost as much as the flag.

Currently running around Scotland and they still have pay phones on the street???

Who still needed pay phones?

 

[Bump-n-Grind]

Best use of an old UK call box was at the end of Waking Ned Devine

 

[veni vidi vici]

.

 

[Sean]

‘