standard, stick, and rotary party lines
#21
Power Poster
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Perth, Western Australia
Posts: 10,357
It's amazing the changes we have all seen. I don't think we are dinosaurs, just technology changes and grows so quickly.
What about the old plug and cord switchboards, Does anyone remember them? When I was a teen I did work experience at a Forestry Department office out in the sticks. They had a small one, so I learned how to use it. Years later, in the '80s I worked for the Education Department in the city, our section was working out of an old building. As it was not to be a long term tenancy, no upgrades were done. They had a huge plug and cord switchboard on the bottom floor....I was the only one who knew how to use it, so I had to show the others.
What about the old plug and cord switchboards, Does anyone remember them? When I was a teen I did work experience at a Forestry Department office out in the sticks. They had a small one, so I learned how to use it. Years later, in the '80s I worked for the Education Department in the city, our section was working out of an old building. As it was not to be a long term tenancy, no upgrades were done. They had a huge plug and cord switchboard on the bottom floor....I was the only one who knew how to use it, so I had to show the others.
#23
Super Member
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: A Hop from Heaven, a Skip from Sanity and a Jump from the Good Life....
Posts: 6,665
My 96 year old grandmother still has and still uses her desktop rotary phone... Its super heavy, and pale green.. I love the way it sounds as she 'dials' the numbers.. Ive been searching for one for my house.. But she will not give it up..
I learned on a standard, Hated it and scared me to death but once you learn stick shift it does become soooo much easier with a lil practice.... After I had my lil one, I went automatic.. Figured Id need that extra hand to pick up a dropped binky or bottle.. Yea, Ill stick to automatic..
I learned on a standard, Hated it and scared me to death but once you learn stick shift it does become soooo much easier with a lil practice.... After I had my lil one, I went automatic.. Figured Id need that extra hand to pick up a dropped binky or bottle.. Yea, Ill stick to automatic..
#24
Super Member
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Merced, CA
Posts: 4,188
I still have my dear MIL's old (about 1915 or so, maybe a little older) rotary phone and it still works. When I have company, I plug it in and then go in another room and call it on my cell phone, and yell at someone to "get the phone". It really gives them a blast to use it, and several have wanted to dial their own homes, just to say they had used one.
I learned to drive in an old 1930s Ford, someone had to get out front and turn a crank while I turned things on the wheel to make the contact, but that old car was like a tank, it would go anywhere. Once when Dad was feeling his drinks he didn't get in the swing with the crank and it flew up and broke his arm. It was a huge thing like a hub cap turner...something else we've gotten away from. Sometimes we could park it on a hill and let it go downhill fast enough to get it started, that was always fun to do!!
As a child, when we finely got a phone, it had a little button under the hand set that you had to pull out to be able to be heard. Which really did make it marvelous for overhearing lots of interesting conversations!!! Everyone would, of course, tell everyone to get off the line, they wanted to talk privately. Which of course made it necessary for everyone to glue the phone to their ear!!! I found out more about boys than my Grandma wanted me to know by listening to teens talking up and down the hollows.
I learned to drive in an old 1930s Ford, someone had to get out front and turn a crank while I turned things on the wheel to make the contact, but that old car was like a tank, it would go anywhere. Once when Dad was feeling his drinks he didn't get in the swing with the crank and it flew up and broke his arm. It was a huge thing like a hub cap turner...something else we've gotten away from. Sometimes we could park it on a hill and let it go downhill fast enough to get it started, that was always fun to do!!
As a child, when we finely got a phone, it had a little button under the hand set that you had to pull out to be able to be heard. Which really did make it marvelous for overhearing lots of interesting conversations!!! Everyone would, of course, tell everyone to get off the line, they wanted to talk privately. Which of course made it necessary for everyone to glue the phone to their ear!!! I found out more about boys than my Grandma wanted me to know by listening to teens talking up and down the hollows.
#25
I am not old, only 50 and I learned to drive in a '46 Plymouth coupe (standard on the column), drove a '70 Oldsmobile Toronado (power everything-windows seats etc) the first half of my senior year of high school until my Dad sold it to get a '50 Oldsmobile (one of the early automatic transmissions, ignition button on the dash). Oh, and I remember relatives in Nebraska having party lines when we visited in '71.
I repeat...I am not old. :mrgreen:
I repeat...I am not old. :mrgreen:
#26
the phone we had did not have a dial at all. you just picked up the phone and the operator would say number please. my grandmother's phone number was 392W1 and our phone number was 319J2. :)
#27
Power Poster
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Ontario, Canada
Posts: 17,827
Originally Posted by Chasing Hawk
I remember manual transmissions as being......
3 on the tree
4 on the floor
And I remember the wall phone at home being a rotary. And the sound it made when you dialed each number.
3 on the tree
4 on the floor
And I remember the wall phone at home being a rotary. And the sound it made when you dialed each number.
Rotary phones ... and as QuiltnNan just mentioned, the old crank phones!! :)
#28
Originally Posted by QuiltE
Originally Posted by Chasing Hawk
I remember manual transmissions as being......
3 on the tree
4 on the floor
And I remember the wall phone at home being a rotary. And the sound it made when you dialed each number.
3 on the tree
4 on the floor
And I remember the wall phone at home being a rotary. And the sound it made when you dialed each number.
As for stickshifts not exisitng any more ... oh yes they do!
Rotary phones ... and is no one going to mention old crank phones? :)
#29
Super Member
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: chicago, IL
Posts: 9,589
We just took out the rotary wall phone in the basement, 2 years ago. I knew that the kids friends, as teens, weren't going to use the phone down there....they didn't quite get how to use it. lol (btw, I did save it)
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