I Remember JFK

« The Frito Bandito | Main | WLS Radio »

Add to Google

Push-Button Telephones

Classic Pushbutton PhoneThere are a lot of young folks out there who have never seen a rotary-dial phone. In fact, some have never heard a dial tone! That is a pretty amazing fact for those of us who can remember when touchtone phones, or push-button phones as we knew them, were a rare sight.

Rotary phones were the standard, and some of our homes had phones that dated back to the forties or fifties. After all, the phone belonged to the phone company, not us. We had them replaced if they broke. And they were amazingly reliable pieces of technology that simply didn't break.

But seeing how the times were a-changing, the telephone technology itself was modernizing. In fact, entire generations can see quantum leaps of how we communicate by voice over wires. Our grandparents didn't have phones. Our parents had to crank a handle to reach an operator, who would then connect them to the party they sought. We were spoiled, indeed, to merely dial a number.

Today, of course, our kids know about cell phones and VOIP. But touchtone phones were a big deal to us. It was so cool to hear tones play! Songbooks were even released, so we could make music while making calls that, if they connected, reached perfect strangers.

The first AT&T touchtone phones were introduced with numeric keys only in 1963. It took five years for the pound and star keys to show up.

Adoption was steady, but it took a long time for them to appear in some areas. My small town first offered them in the mid 70's.

Nowadays, it's probably been a while since you've called a business and heard a recorded voice say something like "if you have a touchtone phone, you may dial your extension now." And rotary phones won't even work on many phone companies' lines any more.But once upon a time, the touchtone phone was new, cool, and hard to find.

Recommend I Remember JFK to your friends!

Get emailed notifications of new articles!
NOTE: I will not sell any email addresses I receive, and will not send any unsolicited emails, either. If you sign up for new article notifications, that is ALL you will receive, and you can cancel at any time. You have my word.
--Ron Enderland

Your email address:

Comments (3)

We have the rotary phone that we *rented* from Ma Bell back in the 50s and 60s. It still has our original 1952 5-digit number under the 7-digit number that we were forced to use in about 60.

And the voice quality from that phone is better than the new ones.

Those phones were designed to last forever.

Anyone remember "party lines"?

--
Jere

scott:

I'm dating myself, but I indeed remember when you were cool to have a touchtone..I digress to
the PRINCESS phone, the first cool phone by western electric...came out in the late 60's, lightweight, way long cord for teens to talk all over the room, nice oval shape, clamshell
hand-in-glove look and fit. Oh, and the coolest
thing was the numbers were back-lit, which was even a bit sexy.
So cool to make a call when the lights were off at night with the lit numbers, also convenient when the lights were off in the room and not having to turn a bright lite on to make a call.......

scott:

Wanna buy a duck, 'er, I mean Princess phone...
I think these are originals, but they may be remakes..who cares?
I need to outfit the whole house with these damn things....that and
a afro-turf shag rug in
Orange, topped off with
a dogs playing poker pic, and who needs drugs anymore?

Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)


About

This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on January 4, 2007 12:49 AM.

The previous post in this blog was The Frito Bandito.

The next post in this blog is WLS Radio.

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.