Last summer my then-4-year-old grandniece came to stay with us for a few days and we were on baby-sitting duty a good bit of the time. So my nephew-in-law told me it would be okay to let her watch a bit of television if we were in a pickle, even though she doesn't watch it at home. Daddy and Papa, like most younger people these days, don't have cable television. They do Hulu and Netflix or whatever, and their daughter grew up with an iPad. So while she watches Dora the Explorer et al. on the mobile device, television is not something she has had any experience with.

So, afternoon one, after a long day, I tell her she can watch our TV for a bit, to rest. I turn on Nickelodeon and she's thrilled: Bubble Guppies! I sit down and watch this incredibly goofy show with her. Next afternoon, I need to cook dinner, so I ask her if she'd like to watch TV again. "Oh yes, I want to watch Bubble Guppies!" she says. I reply that I'm not sure if it's on. "Yes it is," she protests, "you had it yesterday." I try to explain to her that on our television there is a schedule, and they show different programs at different times and different days. This is incomprehensible to this otherwise savvy toddler. She doesn't buy it: "You have it!" she says, stomping her foot. "Just press the icon!"

We live in an on demand world, and I still remember that yellow rotary phone we had on our front-hall desk.

My kids severely empathize with me when I tell them there was no "kid's channels" with children's programming 24/7. We had to wait until Saturday morning! and then it was all over by noon! Except Sunday night sometimes on CBC here in Canada there was a Disney movie. That was it. Sometimes if you got up really early you could see some kid's programming during the week, but it was mostly for really little kids.

My kids just shake their head and say, "oh Mommy, that would SUCK!" LOLOL.

They do understand how cable tv works though...since they are old enough to remember (my youngest is about to turn 7).

He used to park himself on the floor right in front of the TV. My whole toddler years pictures are of me sitting on the floor next to my dad - outstretched on the floor in front of the TV. I still remember the dial clicking constantly if he couldn't find a show he liked on all 8 of our channels (we got 8! but that was WITH cable, LOLOLOL I'm too young -heh - to remember before cable - in our house anyway) All he had to do was reach up - clickclickclickclickclick - it drove my mom insane. "Pick a g-d channel!"

to the TV, I'm surprised you and your dad didn't get the perennial, "Don't sit so close to the screen...you'll ruin your eyes!!!" lecture from your mom

It's all my sisters and I ever heard...

for an eye problem I had. My mom asked about TV and he said that kids absolutely can't damage their eyes from sitting too close to the screen. The eyes can get tired is all that will happen. So I never had to hear that one!

to change channels and pick up things that fell to the floor. Also why you spaced them out.

well, you know...

I'd get an eyeroll from my kids when I'd say that...

Remember them? It looks like this

built into the wall. I loved it. Can't remember what we put in the niche, but it wasn't a phone.

Yes, I certainly remember telephone tables! We never had one in my parent's house growing up. We lived in a sort of mid-century modern home built around 1957. In the entry way, my parents put a Danish modern console desk—very up to date for the time—and the telephone sat on that. My parents still live in that same house, and still have a phone there—upgraded to push button! Still looks great. They own a cell phone (though never turn it for receiving calls: arghh!), and they use the cordless phone from the bedroom most of the time.

I'm still using a table almost identical to that one. To hold a phone. A black, bakelite, rotary phone.

"Antique," forsooth!

-- Mal

I have one of those in my guest bedroom, inherited from my late MIL.

I don't know how old it is though

We inherited it from hubby's parents. My wild guess is that its vintage is the 1950s. I remember that style being very common in households in those days. We are old enough to know exactly what it was, a telephone table. And that's where we keep our Panasonic handset/charger/message recorder.

These kids live in a world where nobody talks anymore. I'm glad I don't have to be raised in a world where nobody talks just texts. I never text. It's just not that important to me, and I don't have a "real" cell phone, just a throw away one. Cell phones are the new cigarette. You're addicted to them, and your missing life.

Of course, you probably remember when they all texted in fields.

Even today in 2014, there are some parts of my house that you absolutely cannot make or receive cell phone calls from. Either there's static or the call drops altogether. I'm damn tired of having to go outside to take a call from the cell!

Never have this problem with the landline!

But I can't find one of the 'later' ones from my childhood in the early 80s, only reproductions from the 30s-40s-50s, etc.

And not a reproduction. They're not really very costly. Look for outstanding condition.

I recently bought a first edition touch-tone desk phone for under $10. When I got it, it was like brand new, and made by ATT.

It sits next to my living room chair, and I use it frequently.

Just search for rotary dial phone.

it just doesn't have a rotary dial. It was an updated touchtone one

I have a 30s candlestick phone and an old oak wall phone that's hanging on my kitchen wall. I added a rotary dial to it, inside the door, and it's fully functional. It's funny to watch someone use it, with its separate earpiece and microphone. It confuses most people.

they will seem to me.

I still get an old fashioned feeling when I hear someone's cell phone ring just like a 50s desk phone...I pay attention right away...

phones. Ericofon.

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I found it when I moved into the apartment last year. It still works; I plugged into the wall socket and got a dial tone.

I still have one like that from the '80's. The princess phones were from an earlier time.

The princess had a distinctly oval base, and the handset was the older classic shape.
The fun thing with princess phones was the lighted dial. You could imagine calling people with the lights out, lol.

the princess was an iconic girly phone, more late 50's first half of 60's. I think it only came in pastels and white, LOL. Barbie had one.
I have one somewhere around here too, LOL!

When my husband bought the brown one, I really kidded him! But I grew fond of it and it was pretty compact for a bedside table, which is where we put it. We only stopped using it when we got a much better Panasonic handset, about 4 years ago. We need a landline phone in case of storms...

My how times have changed.

Must just be a kid.

I remember when they went from a dime to a quarter when I was in college.

Personally I dislike cell phone and own a very basic Cricket phone from a few years ago. I just bought a new battery for it at Batteries Plus.

I have a couple of rotary phones in my storage locker. I'll have to see how the neighbor's kids react to one now.

Fisher-Price phone. I'm pretty happy that technology has advanced. When I was a kid, when we finally got phone service we were on an 8 party line.

delightful kids, fun to watch their thinking process.

I never really thought about it, but he grew up in the era of call waiting and voicemail. He's never heard a busy signal in his life!

My kids know how to use a rotary phone though. I still have a fully functional bright red rotary wall phone hanging in the garage with a 15 foot cord. I can't make outgoing calls on it anymore because I have a digital line, but it still answers just fine and I use it on a halfway regular basis (you can buy digital adapters to make rotaries work on modern phone systems, but I haven't bothered yet.) My teenage son can frequently be found out in the garage with that phone attached to his head when his cellphone dies.

I hadn't heard a busy signal in so long, it took me a second to recognize it!

shit. i pick up any old dial tone or rotary from an estate sale i can find. ebayed a few. but mostly use the old dial tones. land line! as long as they have the right cord. once say a crank phone. must have been party line era. or pre dialing. that was cool.
ooh ooh, forgot seeing the switch panel at 1 sale. basements are the best!

those fancy yellow ones!

Also, in my small town, for years we had phone operators (one ringy dingy...). We were very excited when we got dial technology.

did we...and a party line

I loved this!

Oh shit.

My mom worked for Southwestern Bell and got a used pay phone back in the early/mid 70s. No longer requires coins, but that's the phone we had hanging up I the kitchen when I was a kid. She gave it to me a few years ago, it's not plugged in (no landline at my house), but it's hanging on the wall.

Works great. .

I think I have heard other kids today refer to that as dialing also. Surprising that word would survive.

I think the kid said "How do you dial this?"

We had rotary phones most of my childhood. We even had extra ones he used for displays in educational work for his PR job with them. When we got a touch-tone phone, I thought it was sooo futuristic!

You could bounce it down a set of concrete steps and it wouldn't break...made 'em to last for sure...

They were indestructable!

It's terribly old fashioned. Things were made to last in the old days because technology just didn't change very fast. or at least not like today. Things are not made to last now because they don't have to. They will be obsolete before they break...

More money for the manufacturers.

and it still works. 72 years old and it still works, perfectly, every time. And the sound quality is better than any cell phone. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_302_telephone

And, if the phone lines still exist into the future, this phone will be working 72 years from now. Let's see if your new-fangled $400 cell phone will still work in 72 years.

Now get off my lawn.

buddy, this is great . Learn.

There was a thread in DU about it recently... a "testing" program in a ville somewhere in Alabama.

I wouldn't be surprised if in 5 years land-lines were gone for good.

-- Mal

Remember there was also a time when you could rent the phone instead of buying it from the company, so it *had* to be durable...

Now, I'm trying to introduce my mother to a VOIP phone. Agnes is not having a good time.

They are great this time of year, in case the power goes out. Wireless phones seems to have issues working when the power goes out.

Kidding. I know. I still use a Princess phone at home.. though I guess I never use it much. It is hooked up encase of emergency.

Are_grits_groceries

I'm starting to be old - I do remember them, back in the days - I even remember when I was a small kid, we got a phone - mostly because I had severe asma - and was often in and out of the hospital - my dad was not always home, so sometimes they had to call for ambulance to get me to the hospital.... Back then, in the late 1970s, it was still some prioritizing to get a phone - doctors, police officers, elderly and sick people/parents of sick children was given priority over ordinary ones who just wanted a phone - it was not until 1986 that everyone could got a phone - without waiting for years... (Yeah I know - its back in the middle ages or somewhere there) I remember the rotary phone to be black, at least the first one -

later one it was a grey one - and then the first phone with knobs instead of a rotary... And now I am on my 5 or 6th cell phone - (I was rather late to get a cell phone) with all the trimmings and bangs a "smart phone" is known to have...

And I have 4 I'm uncle to - who is thinking I'm as old as the rock when I tell about the past - sometimes I do feel like an old rock.... Its rather depressing somtimes...

Diclotican

you had to spin the lever on the side and tell the operator the number you wanted. I saw Key Largo a couple months ago and they had one like that.

it was considered quite a luxury...this was back in the mid 80s...

my dad had a couple of friends who had them back in the day

This isn't the exact model I'm talking about, but it is similar



The phone in your photo just looks like a conventional cordless house phone of the era...My dad was addicted to cutting-edge technology when I was a kid, and our household was the FIRST in our neighborhood and extended circle of friends to have a cordless phone, too...

so it had to be circa 1985...

I'll never let it go.

their "thinking" and put it in front of kids like this and let them examine how it works, we would get similar comments to

"Slow", and "I wasn't born in the 40's so I don't know how it works", "How........."

Reading comments about this whole Ukraine thing, I am convinced that the thinking of much of the population of the U.S., (but especially those with a little more education, and who have had a little safer life, mostly adequate income, along with their counterparts in Russia, operates like a rotary phone. You can see it in the economy, the conflicts, our lives.

I suspect this group of kids could handle this incident better than the adults on both sides of the ocean. Bet they grow up to be just like us, though

now i feel ancient !!!

"Who in the hell is calling this time of night?"

We have a rotary phone - I bought it in the 80s from the AT&T store - it was the last one they had (demo model). I hated my "new" phone that sounded like a cricket, so I had to search for that old-school rotary. My kids use it when they're in the computer room - they love to show it to their friends.

and it came with a rotary phone, its line screwed into the wall (as opposed to merely plugged into a jack). God, I love that phone. The sound is so rich. Plus, the phone itself is really heavy and like solid as hell. Real quality piece of equipment.

I am on call 24/7/365 b/c my boss can. Things go too fast at times and our lives are lived in a hectic rush. Don't get me wrong, I like being in touch with family and friends, but I need a break from it all sometimes!

a boss who called me all the time, I would probably find myself plagued a lot with "dead battery" cellphone issues...

"This is like the phone my mom used as a kid" about a phone that her grandmother used as a kid.

I'm probably older than that girl's mother (I'm in mid 30s) and the only reason I've ever used one was because my grandparents refused to use any form of new technology and the rural area they lived in kept pulse dialing for forever. I still have their old Western Electric 500T.

Was looking at a Word document with collegues at work. I called the paragraph symbol a "carriage return" around a few 20 somethings and they had no idea what I was talking about. I had to explain old typewritters and how the keys hit at one spot and the PAPER moved when you typed.

I first time I felt REALLY OLD at work.

I went to a business high school, and here's what we used for calculating...







Probably the only thing older was the abacus...

I actually had to Google MICR encoder...


Alright, then...

Up until I left my last job in 1995, I was still using a Kaypro 10 (I had to enter all kinds of specs/descriptions and do customer quotes for industrial machines)

And we had these huge scales to weigh produce and had to know how to read them… big enough to put a watermelon or a baby in to weigh.

Life in a an analog world.

I miss the card catalog in the library.

when tv use to go off the air. They were flabbergasted.Lol!




They said, "omg what did you do?"
I said,"you went to bed"

"What did you do?"

hahahaha



So did your station(s) ever do the "High Flight" signoff?

I used to know it by heart.

Hard to believe now with 24 hour everything.

We are ancient