Telephones.

[model70hunter]

How many of you remember using phones that did not have dials?

One picked up and the operator answered at central and manually processed your call. My old home town went from the old cord board set up to dial phones around 1955.

And heaven forbid, are any of you still on the old system?

I know it is a dead product as many folks have shut them off and use cell phones.

 

[Lee Barner]

on our party line, our ring was two shorts and a long. after we answered there were two little old ladies that would also pick up to listen in. my girl friend and I would make up these stories she would call me with such as a bad wreck or a house fire and such. they would call everyone they knew and tell them all about it. fun at the time. lee

 

[pawngal]

Remember well, 1st had 8 party line then upgrade to 4 party.
I think dial came in the mid 50's. And of course the rubberneckers.

 

[rwsmith]

Being born in the mid 50's...

We had dial when I was around, but many people in certain areas still used the old phones and systems. Of course they were disappearing fast but it didn't happen overnight.

 

[Arik]

How did the switchboard know who to connect you to? Was there a name by each of the plugs? How did they know?

 

[steveno]

if you didn't have the phone number it really didn't matter as all you had to do was tell the operator who you wanted to talk to and you got connected.

when I moved to Colorado in 1978 AT & T gave you dial phones and they were their property. when I finally decided to get touchtone phones the only place to turn in the dial phones was now in Denver. so one day I took them down the place in Denver and the sales person didn't know what a dial phone was or looked like

 

[Salty RI]

In our town we didn't get dial phones until the early 60's, the operator knew everybody, you just told her who you wanted to talk to, I think off Island everyone had dial phones, I know my aunt had a dial phone in 1950 or before.

 

[bearman49709]

We didn't get rotory dial until 1965, got rid of party line in 1974.

 

[Iggy]

2 shorts here on our barb wire network when I was a kid.

By the time we got "real" phones, which I helped put in the 61 miles of lines to ATT standards in 1962. Sold them the lines for $1.00

Every call we made until 2000 was long distance.

 

[Brian41]

We always had the rotary dial but a party line too and had the listeners too. It was early 60s before we finally had a private line. I still have a rotary dial phone on my reloading bench but it stopped working when we switched to cable phone service.
My father-in-law has the old crank wall phone from the family farm in Arkansas on his wall in the living room. I understand it was years before they got rotary phone service there.
Just last night my wife's niece's husband stated he has seen a rotary phone before but never used one. He's mid 30s and was shocked we still have one and used them too.

 

[reddogge]

I seem to remember a plastic device, maybe a pen, you could get with a little ball with a small tab on the end of it to use to work the rotary dials without making your dialing finger sore.

Our first rotary dial phones were owned by the phone company and weighed a ton. I knocked one off of my desk and it cracked the housing but I continued to use it.

 

[Salty RI]

We have a rotary phone in the bedroom.

 

[arjay]

We had a 3-4 party line until 1960 or so,then we had a phone upstairs and one downstairs! My friends thought we were uppity [emoji1]

 

[Dennis The B]

How did the switchboard know who to connect you to? Was there a name by each of the plugs? How did they know?

The operator had a number of pairs of plugs. When she got an incoming signal, she plugged in one of the set from the caller. At first, operators had lists of users. She usually memorized the numbers and users. The operators knew that Sadie Smith was on line 25, e.g., and also knew that Maude Jones was on line 50, etc. She had a switch that she could use to listen in, mostly to check to see if folks were still on the line, but in some cases to just snoop. There were also switches and lines to allow multiple callers on the same call.

As the number of lines grew in each exchange, it was necessary to either hire more operators, which the phone companies did early on. (When the technology changed, and dials came along, the large number of operators diminished, until there were just enough to handle operator assistance.) There were special switchboards when you needed to call outside your exchange. Early on, the local operator connected your call to another switchboard to connect to another exchange. When your call connected to another exchange, the next switchboard operator then connected you to the local exchange, and an operator connected you to your called number, and physically rang the number. When the exchanges were very small, switchboards had long enough wires to connect to multiple switchboard. (Sound complicated?)

As technology changed, party lines became automated, and not operator-run. The party line was wired to make a certain ring pattern by the length of the electrical pulse. Party lines had "coded" rings - two shorts, one long, etc. The ring patterns depended on the number of phones on the party line. Private lines were more expensive since there was a dedicated line for the customer. My grandparents had a two-party line, and their number rang one short and one long. The other party had a long and a short. That was at a time when their exchange had four-digit numbers.

 

[roarindan]

I can remember asking the Operator for the correct time.

Here in my small town the operator had to drive 5 miles to the County Seat to run her switch board. A few yrs back (25?) she had an auction at her home, and as I was a neighbor and friends with her son, she said if there was anything I liked or wanted before the auction, to tell her and she'd have it put aside. She had 2-3 old Oak, crank wall phones that I was drooling over, 'cause I knew what they were worth; but I wanted them to make alot of money at their auction so i didn't say anything. They sold for $150 each.

where do they put all the old phone booths, and wall hung pay phones??

 

[vito]

Growing up in New York City there were already rotary dial phones as far back as I can remember (I was born in 1943) but I do remember relatives who lived in the country saying they were still living with party lines.

I have an old rotary phone that just recently stopped functioning. It wasn't able to dial out for many years but it still rang and you could speak on it. I kept it on my work bench down in the furnace room where I go an hide sometimes. I showed the old phone to one of my grandchildren, who is 8, and she was totally mystified. She absolutely had no idea how to use it and when I showed her how to dial, she thought it was the coolest thing she ever saw. She then said "this seems awfully heavy to carry around the house" and when I explained to her that it needed a WIRE, connected to a wall outlet, she had a look on her face like she had just seen a living dinosaur!

 

[deadin]

I can remember asking the Operator for the correct time.

When I was stationed in Japan we had a guy in the unit that on occasion (usually after a night out) would long distance call the "time" number in New Orleans.
His reason?? He just wanted to hear a real female "Southern"voice.

 

[Rustyt1953]

Our phone number was MUrray 2-4606.
I used to eavesdrop on the old folks as they talked about their bunions and the blonde kid down the road (me) who wouldn't stay out of their peach trees.

 

[shell627]

I remember a 3'person party line.'This was late 50's into early 60's in Detroit.I also remember what A big deal receiving A long distance call was.

 

[THE PILGRIM]

One of my old buds in Colorado once had a ranch outside of Pinedale, WY.
He worked the entire time he was there to get a phone system developed and installed.
The day he moved out the phone system was up and running.

 

[Taurus627]

A bit before my time but I do remember using a dial phone and they all had cords.

I also remember when cell phones were for only for the rich?

 

[Salty RI]

Did anyone use a tin can and a string.

 

[parts]

Born and raised in Bremen GA. We were on a party line but don't remember the ring sequence. Phone number was 2096. Now, I have to dial (press) 10 numbers for a local call.

David

 

[Maddog 521]

Our number was 76 R 3. Line 76--3 rings. When you picked up the phone handset a light would come on on the switchboard. The operator would plug in a cord in the lit terminal. Then the operator would plug in the other cord "the pair" into the number you were calling. The connection was made and the operator would key in your "ring". Your phone would sound and you would answer. Really simple at the time. I worked for an exchange back then that had copper wires on insulators nailed to fence posts. We buried a lot of under ground cable shortly after that. Really upgraded the whole exchange. Who remember's---ROY--G-- BIV---?

 

[wetdog]

Is this the party to whom I'm speaking ?

 

[sheepdawg]

Remember when phone wires ran by every railroad. These glass telephone and telegraph insulators were on every pole and gave us plenty of good targets. Don't see many of these anymore.

 

[shouldazagged]

Remember when phone wires ran by every railroad. These glass telephone and telegraph insulators were on every pole and gave us plenty of good targets. Don't see many of these anymore.

When those lines started coming down in the early '60's people were collecting the glass insulators. The most common color was blue-green. Odd colors like dark amber and clear were sought-after collectibles. The fad didn't last.

Our phone number when we moved to the neighborhood in which I did most of my growing up (if any) was HIghland 6287. Later, with dial phones, it became Glendale 4-6287

When I married the first time, in 1960, we lived in the country in southern Indiana, about 35 miles from Louisville. We were on a four-party line about which I could tell some stories.

 

[arjay]

Our number began with BElmont-7. I can't divulge the rest because its still moms number [emoji1]

 

[Bkreutz]

I remember visiting relatives in Iowa when I was a kid. We would be sitting at the table eating, the phone would ring and nobody moved. Here I am, the kid from Seattle looking around wondering why nobody was answering the phone. So I asked why nobody was answering and the answer was. "It's not our ring" WTH did that mean. This was the mid '50s and all I had ever seen was phones with dials and everyone had a separate number. I had one of my cousins explain party lines to me. That was almost as eye opening as the outhouse was (another new thing to me).

 

[luangtom]

FAirview6 - 4063........will never forget that. Four-party, two-party....private. Still do not have a cell-phone that does photos or games.