As a public service, Bell has released this training video.

 

I'm not that old, but I do remember the switch to push button telephones.  If you had a push button phone, you were hot snot on a silver platter.  If you still had a rotary dial phone, you were just cold boogers on a paper plate. 🤣

I still remember using the rotary dial phones.  Then we got the push button units which were really cool.

And to think that there are adults alive now who don't remember a time without cellphones or the Internet.

Man, I'm getting old.

Dave

I remember rotary phones and party lines.  Party lines were awful!  What about good old phone operators and information too.

There are times nowadays that I remember the good old days of no cell phones.  You could actually get the heck away from people for a while.  They are now a necessity for most of us and great in emergencies.  God forbid you had an accident on a back country road back in those days.

1 hour ago, dave2013 said:

I still remember using the rotary dial phones. 

 

Oh yes, indeed. 😁 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 11, 2025Oct 11 by martin-w

13 minutes ago, tdflightsim said:

I remember rotary phones and party lines.  Party lines were awful!  What about good old phone operators and information too.

There are times nowadays that I remember the good old days of no cell phones.  You could actually get the heck away from people for a while.  They are now a necessity for most of us and great in emergencies.  God forbid you had an accident on a back country road back in those days.

 

Oh yes, you went out with nothing except your wallet. These days I'm like..... Garghhh! I forgot my phone, I'll have to go back, what if there's an emergency or I get lost?

The G-men used to listen in on the Mafioso's party line. Today, the hip-hop police are listening! I like how this ends, LOL, "In our leading story...Paris' hangnail"...

 

On the older phones the dial unit was metal, rather thin.  If you could afford to call long distance, your finger would get sore from the pressure on the return spring.  Later we had a wall phone with a plastic dial that was easier to dial.  We would sometimes use a pencil instead of a finger.

 

We did a EE project where we built a device that would read the pulses on a dial phone, convert to digital, and displayed the number called.  Using NAND gates, Schottky triggers etc on a bread board.  Seemed real advanced at the time.

 

Still remember the old number  SUnset2-6402

Edited October 12, 2025Oct 12 by scott967

If you're old enough to remember the old phone books, you may remember this:

Quote

This is the letter I.  This is the number 1.  This is the letter O.  This is the number 0.

Hook

34 minutes ago, LHookins said:

If you're old enough to remember the old phone books, you may remember this:

Hook

For probably at least 32 yrs I've been trying to get my wife to say the number "0" (zero) instead of the letter "O" (oh).  As you can tell, I'm losing🙁  This is the woman who is brilliant smart and had multiple higher level math courses back in the 80's.  She's a rebellious one!  That's why I married her and love her😄

BTW, I hope you're doing okay Hook👍