When my parents were little, their households had telephones. If you wanted to call someone you picked up the phone, talked to the operator to tell them who you wanted to talk to, and the operator used a switchboard to connect the parties.
When I was a boy, we had a telephone. Since we lived in town it wasn't a party line, which is when everyone on a line shared that line and if someone else was using the line you just had to wait your turn. No ours was a single party line. We dialed (and that's the round thing in the old phones that had finger holes and rotated!) 5 digits and could reach anyone in town. Long distance was just something they did in the movies. We also had comics, and one of my favorites was Dick Tracy - a detective. Dick had a two-way wrist TV that he could use to call the chief - pretty cool stuff.
In the 1950s one of my favorite authors, Robert A. Heinlein, wrote about a teenage heroine who talked out loud to dictate a letter and a machine in the room printed out what she said in neat text! Another story described a character whose purse buzzed, she took out her folding phone, got the answer she'd been waiting for, snapped it shut and dropped it back in her purse! Wild imaginings!!
When I graduated from college most homes still had just one telephone per house, although the phone company was heavily adding extension lines within a home. Just one number, but you didn't have to race from one end of the house to answer the phone if you didn't happen to be there with it when someone called.
And the phone had a thing called a cord - the handpiece was tethered to the base unit so you had to stand right there with the phone to use it. So annoying. Later we got neat coiled cords that let you reach all the way across the room! Watch an old movie, you'll see what I mean.
When we lived in Anchorage in the 1980s I had to be in the Philippine's for a few weeks. Wanting to keep in touch I made many phone calls home - talk about long distance! I would speak, stop, and about 10 seconds later Dana would hear what I'd said. She's speak, stop, and about 15 seconds later I would hear what she said (never did figure out why the timing was different). It was amazing that we could talk to each other at all across the massive Pacific Ocean - it was even more amazing when we got a phone bill for hundreds of dollars the next month.
Today everyone has their own personal science fiction portable phone! And we have Siri to take dictation and record it for you. And here I am in Saudi Arabia, more or less two continents away from home, and I can use Skype or FaceTime on my iPhone to talk instantly, with no delay, with full-color video to my family. FOR FREE!! That's a lot of progress for a lifetime, don't you think?
So next time you are casually making a call, appreciate the history of it just a little bit. Not very long ago at all it wasn't cheap, it wasn't quick or simple or easy, and it wasn't clear. But it's always been important, so however you do it, stay in touch.
When I was a boy, we had a telephone. Since we lived in town it wasn't a party line, which is when everyone on a line shared that line and if someone else was using the line you just had to wait your turn. No ours was a single party line. We dialed (and that's the round thing in the old phones that had finger holes and rotated!) 5 digits and could reach anyone in town. Long distance was just something they did in the movies. We also had comics, and one of my favorites was Dick Tracy - a detective. Dick had a two-way wrist TV that he could use to call the chief - pretty cool stuff.
In the 1950s one of my favorite authors, Robert A. Heinlein, wrote about a teenage heroine who talked out loud to dictate a letter and a machine in the room printed out what she said in neat text! Another story described a character whose purse buzzed, she took out her folding phone, got the answer she'd been waiting for, snapped it shut and dropped it back in her purse! Wild imaginings!!
When I graduated from college most homes still had just one telephone per house, although the phone company was heavily adding extension lines within a home. Just one number, but you didn't have to race from one end of the house to answer the phone if you didn't happen to be there with it when someone called.
And the phone had a thing called a cord - the handpiece was tethered to the base unit so you had to stand right there with the phone to use it. So annoying. Later we got neat coiled cords that let you reach all the way across the room! Watch an old movie, you'll see what I mean.
When we lived in Anchorage in the 1980s I had to be in the Philippine's for a few weeks. Wanting to keep in touch I made many phone calls home - talk about long distance! I would speak, stop, and about 10 seconds later Dana would hear what I'd said. She's speak, stop, and about 15 seconds later I would hear what she said (never did figure out why the timing was different). It was amazing that we could talk to each other at all across the massive Pacific Ocean - it was even more amazing when we got a phone bill for hundreds of dollars the next month.
Today everyone has their own personal science fiction portable phone! And we have Siri to take dictation and record it for you. And here I am in Saudi Arabia, more or less two continents away from home, and I can use Skype or FaceTime on my iPhone to talk instantly, with no delay, with full-color video to my family. FOR FREE!! That's a lot of progress for a lifetime, don't you think?
So next time you are casually making a call, appreciate the history of it just a little bit. Not very long ago at all it wasn't cheap, it wasn't quick or simple or easy, and it wasn't clear. But it's always been important, so however you do it, stay in touch.
Very profound thoughts on where we've been and where we are now. Amateur Radio hand-held "walkie-talkies" contributed to today's Cell Phone technology. I remember when stationed at Eielson AFB AK in 1979-1983, we had party lines in base housing. I just ran into my old party line neighbor from 1979 just last weekend at the base exchange, and she reminded me of sharing the phone line back then! Quite a coincidence you would write about this!
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