I got this link off a friend’s site the other day, it’s basically a print of a magazine published in 1928 called Telephony, the American Telephone Journal. Doug’s site is here. Doug talks about what’s in the magazine, it’s pretty cool.
I thought it was fun to look at and think how much telephones have changed. The entire way we communicate today is so different than 50 years ago.
My brother remembers when phones had cranks, he’s in his late 70s.
I remember party lines. This is where you had to listen before you dialed because the line was shared with several of your neighbors. They could listen in to your call as you could listen in on their calls. Hence, a party line. If you’re wondering about privacy, it wasn’t a big thing back then. Nosy neighbors were very common back then and if you didn’t get a party line you had to pay a fortune to get a private line.
Telephones cost a lot of money back then as did the monthly service.
It was also one of those huge big black phones. Looking back, it was so heavy and you had a cord to the way then a cord from the phone’s base to the handset. Originally, you could not change any cords, the way it was installed is how you lived with it.
Later, you could buy your own phone and cords. Having a 30 foot cord was great!!
Then, as time went by, we had cordless phones at home. Some worked well and some sucked. But it was our first step to wireless.
Mobile phones happened, but they were so expensive, big and heavy, and didn’t serve a lot of value at the time.
Then we had Nokia phones, flip phones, and Nextel, pretty cold devices.
Then Apple created the iPhone and AT&T agreed to sell it. Life changed. Not right away, and it was so slow and limited at first, but it eventually got legs and was a game changer!!
Today, we love it and it’s the new normal. A smartphone for everyone, or almost everyone. I don’t see a lot of flip phones out there any more.
Evolution baby, it’s so cool yet we all forget how far we’ve come. I don’t mean just in technology, but in life. We quickly forget what life was like 10, 20, or even 30 years ago. Maybe it’s time we look back at ourselves to remember what we were like then and what we’re like now.
We’ve come a long way, haven’t we?