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paradox3 said:
It was a big deal when we got rid of our rotary phones and went to the push button models.
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The gas station where I worked in university had rotary/pulse connection and we had a hand held tone generator we could use if we needed to use tones for some reason. (and this was in 1988). My first internship (1994-95) the phone at the church was a push button but had a switch that could change between pulse and tone settings.
paradox3 said:
And I am old enough to barely remember a party line in our home.
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When I first worked at camp in 1989-91 it was still on shared line (Two connections, ours and the camp next door). No separate ring so we had to answer and if it was for the other place tell them to call back and we would just let it ring.
 
GordW said:
No separate ring so we had to answer and if it was for the other place tell them to call back and we would just let it ring.
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Ouch. At least the party line at the cottage had the separate rings. I always forgot which one was ours, though. :rolleyes:
 
I remember rural areas having separate rings for everyone on the party line. It could be several households in certain cases.

In our house, we didn't hear the rings for the other party. But I can recall picking up the phone to use it and realizing the line was already in use.
 
Phones have changed a lot eh.

I grew up without a phone. There was a public pay phone a short walk away. My dad NEVER lived in a house with a phone but mum had one once she loved alone. (UK).

As a single woman and during early marriage I had a rotary phone. Moving to a farm brought a party line shared with six other families. It became a touch phone, and single line, then portables, then cells.
The thing I notice most about my cell phone is that it rarely rings.
 
Here's the video I mentioned earlier on hold music and the history of telephony, including some high level on how things like party lines worked.

Mendalla

Thread 'Why hold music sounds awful (other than being mindless Muzak) and the history of telephony'

We have been talking about telephones and party lines and such over in Room for All. Coincidentally, I just watched this video from SciShow last night. Executive producer and host Hank Green begins with the question, "Why does hold music sound so terrible?". Not in the sense of being terrible music (which it often is) but in the sense of the sound quality. That sends him off into a history of telephones and the underlying technologies. He stops short of modern innovations like cell phones and voice over IP (which can, in fact, sound better if done right) but it is a fascinating wander...
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My dad used to phone his dad daily. We lived 2.5 hrs drive away. Dad visited weekly to buy groceries for him, but, the check-in was important to them both.

My dad could not understand why people didn't call them when he was older and even more so, when he was alone.
The reason would often be that we did call, but...the phone was off the hook! i would go over to put it back on, or ask his support worker to put it on if she was scheduled to be there.
or...he didn't hear it when it was just him.

and he frequently lost his phone. it was the kind that charged when it was in the cradle. He would put it on the cradle, but, not connecting. Memories of complaints of not getting calls, which were totally related to their/his management of the phone
 
We had a rotary phone and a party line at the cottage well into the 2000s. We kept it long after everyone in our "party" had left, so we were it.

Eventually, I changed my parents over to cell phones about 20 years ago. They were...late adopters.

My mom still can't operate her phone. I dread her phone dying every 5 years or so. It takes her a year to learn to call on the new one. Even if it's the same basic interface. My daughter now does tech support. I don't have the patience.
 
My dad had a cordless phone which got confusing for him at the end of his life. One day he told me it had blown up over Lake Ontario.

One of my kids filled me in about phones "blowing up with messages". I wasn't familiar with this vernacular term and I am pretty sure my dad didn't know it either. In any case, it wouldn't explain the Lake Ontario part.
 
Sounds more like the description of some terrible air disaster or maybe a "fireball" meteor. That said, I have heard of phones blowing up, just not over a lake.

Just got my wife's new cell plan setup. She just needs calling, really, so I found a plan that does that. Have to pay a full year to get the best price but the per month rate works out relatively cheap. And we're not paying for data that she'll never use (she rarely uses her phone and is usually on wifi when she does so does not really need any data). But man, what a PITA. The online ordering process kept blowing up so I had to call support and I was on the phone for probably 40-50 minutes of my lunch counting both hold time and the time for the guy on the other end to complete the failed order. At least it is done now. She wanted it in place for tomorrow.
 
I still remember our old phone number on the family phone....FA-4264 then it changed to 326- 4264.. And we had a party line too and of course people listening in when we got a call.
 
I never heard of party lines until I came to Canada. Never experienced one. If there was several parties - how would you divide up the billing?
 
We would be billed separately for long distance calls if we had any. The local area expanded over the years so a short distance away was actually long distance.

We didn't time anything. If we needed the phone urgently and it was busy, we could break into the other person's conversation. My parents wouldn't do this lightly.
 
We always called the other person "the party line". As in, "I wanted to call you but the party line was using the phone." Never knew her name.
 
There were unique ring patterns for each home. Ours was long-short. And yes, you could snoop on phone calls. You had to listen for a dial tone before dialing out. Sometimes the party line was talking and you'd excuse yourself before trying later.
 
Waterfall said:
I still remember our old phone number on the family phone....FA-4264
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paradox3 said:
My old phone number started with CHerry 4.
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Whereas by my time, the standard seven digit numbers were in place (so were the three digit area codes but you only needed those for long distance then, 10-digit dialling came later), at least in Kitchener where I was. I still remember my family's number from that era. It got changed as part of some Bell number realignment in K-W in the late 80s or early 90s and I never did memorize the new number but that old number that they had through my school and university days is basically burned into my brain. If I ever develop dementia and someone asks my phone number, that's probably the one I'll give them.
 
The 416/ 905 split was a big thing. Early 90's maybe?

The Six is now one of Toronto's nicknames. And both 416 and 905 have overlay area codes
 
chansen said:
I'm not sure that what I do counts as "jokes". I don't really know any jokes. I have a few "bits" I do, but they're generally variations on a theme, not prepared lines or stories. I guess I have anecdotes, but those actually happened and are not so much created as they are recalled.

Overall, I'm exceptionally boring. Ask around.

If I seem funny to the rest of you, that's not good. You people should get out more.
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More scattered like eclectic?
 
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