Telephones... then and now

[3930dave]

I used a Mot brick as a business phone, early 90's.

An associate of mine (rising star at Intel) was in my car, as we headed to visit a client. He always had the latest/greatest (car, phone.....) but had recently dropped his Mot StarTac (sp?) in a parking lot and it had shattered to bits. He pulled out his wallet, and offered to pay me to use my phone to make a critical call to the States.

I told him I had a good company allowance for cell, and as long as he wasn't going to be on for an hour, go ahead. He made his call, talked for a few minutes, then hung up the phone. I glanced over and asked if the deal was OK, as he was just staring at the brick. His answer "That was the best sounding cell call I've ever made". Told him - "people laugh at my brick, but that is one reason I keep it".

I knew contractors that used the back of the brick to pound (OK, small) nails, the phone never noticed. I was finally trading up to a digital phone one day, and got talking to a contractor at the phone kiosk who was still using a brick. He had the largest brick battery pack on his I'd ever seen, it was over 3" thick ! You'd want to have steel toes on hauling that around, if you dropped it on a regular shoe, you'd be looking at broken bones !

Rgds, D.

 

[Ford850]

Not new I guess, but just now catching on. The Finger Phone.
This wristband turns your fingers into a phone - The Verge
Their goal was $50,000 and they have now raised over $1,000,000.

 

[TemporaryKubotaOwnerMark]

Just to point out 33 years ago today in 1983 the first commercial cell phone call was made with a Motorola "Brick" that weighed 2.5 pounds... average cell phone monthly bill back then was $200 and the "Brick" cost around $4,000

Nope.

The first commercial calls were made in 1969 with phones built by Bell Labs, who invented the cellphone. The first commercial cellular phone call of the "modern" type (AMPS protocol) was made with a phone built for Bell by Oki. It was an installed unit. All of the phones in the first trial market (Chicago) were Oki B1 and B2 models, and that market went commercial in the fall of 83, ahead of schedule, followed by Dallas the next spring, then Los Angeles in June of 84, in time for the summer Olympics there.


There is bad information out there because Martin Cooper is a liar. What his team invented was the first portable cellular phone, not the first cellular phone, but he keeps trying to take credit for inventing the cellular phone. When the FCC approved the AMPS protocol, Cooper's team had to rework the DynaTac phones to work on the AMPS standard, and didn't get them into commercial service until 84.

In fact, the cellular network concept was discussed in academic papers back in the 1930s! It was briefly commercialized by Bell Labs on a commuter train line in New York State in 1969, but that didn't really get off the ground. It was the commercialization of the microprocessor that made the AMPS standard into a practical cellular network as we know them today.

Of course AMPS (a hybrid analog-digital technology) has been replaced by purely digital protocols now.

 

[ultrarunner]

This was a 20 minute news special with lots of file footage including Charles Kuralt making and receiving calls ending by saying you soon will no longer be able to say sorry... I wasn't near a phone to call you...

On October 13, 1983, David D Meilahn placed the first commercial wireless call on a DynaTAC from his 1983 Mercedes 380SL to Bob Barnett, former president of Ameritech Mobile Communications, who then placed a call on a DynaTAC from inside a Chrysler convertible to the grandson of Alexander Graham Bell, who was in Germany for the event. The call, made at Soldier Field in Chicago, is considered by many as a major turning point in communications. Later, Richard H. Frenkiel, the head of system development at Bell Laboratories, said about the DynaTAC: "It was a real triumph; a great breakthrough

Motorola DynaTAC - Wikipedia

 

[k0ua]

We made thousands of telephone calls from our Amateur radio Handi Talkies long before anyone had cellular phones. They were half duplex calls though. It was a simple system where the local repeater had an "Auto-Patch" or Automatic phone patch. You accessed the repeater in the normal way (key up the repeater) then pressed * to get a dial tone, then dialed your digits and pressed the PTT key to transmit and released to listen to the land line side of the call.

Downsides of course were that you could not discuss anything business related due to the restrictions of an Amateur Radio license, and of course the entire world could hear your phone call if they had a receiver tuned to the frequency of the repeater.
There was also a Long distance lockout mechanism so you could not place long distance calls. It even worked in reverse, for those (usually family members) that knew the number to the land line going to the repeater site.

They could call it, and a tone would be transmitted on the repeater output frequency and anyone Amateur Radio operator monitoring the frequency could answer it and ask who/what they wanted.

It was very handy for asking the wife if she needed anything while you were on the way home from work, or calling family members to know you had arrived at a destination etc. We also used it a lot report traffic accidents or suspicious activity to the police and/or fire.

Later on we linked repeaters for larger geographical coverage again using touch tones for control of the linking protocols.

We did all of these things literally decades before the general public had any access to any kind of portable telephony. People would stare at you like you were from Mars when you made a telephone call from a simple handheld radio.

 

[mjarrels]

Old phones didn't set things on fire!

mark

 

[Industrial Toys]

I remember going to Dayton for the first time. A friend dialed up the mobile op on his Icom 02AT and asked for the time. She had no idea he wasn't a ligit user. I was facinated and became a ham!

I bought my first I phone a few months back. I would have thrown the thing away a hundred times already if it didn't cost so much. I got a chinese cast alluminum case (with cap screws) for it, and now that slim sleek phone is another kind of brick!

 

[k0ua]

I remember going to Dayton for the first time. A friend dialed up the mobile op on his Icom 02AT and asked for the time. She had no idea he wasn't a ligit user. I was facinated and became a ham!

I bought my first I phone a few months back. I would have thrown the thing away a hundred times already if it didn't cost so much. I got a chinese cast alluminum case (with cap screws) for it, and now that slim sleek phone is another kind of brick!

The Icom IC02At was a pretty sophisticated radio in its time. I had walkies long before that synthisized little beauty came out. I installed a touch tone pad in my first old Wilson 6 channel 2 meter rig to work the autopatch. I had an IC02at for a long time too. My first two meter "portable" rig was an old Motorola Handie Talkie one of the old beauties shown below.:

MOTOROLA HANDIE TALKIE FM RADIOPHONE, Simpson Ltd

 

[ultrarunner]

The first time I used a cell was in 1983...

I was invited to go sailing on the SF Bay and eager to go.

We were under the golden gate and the phone rang... it was the Motorola Brick.

Anyway... I had lots of questions and the owner said to make a call... so I called home.

I did know people with radio telephones... one sold rural ranch property and said it was the edge that gave him a leg up on the competition... another was a auto wholesaler always making deals from the seat of his Porsche...

I used a marine radio to call home when I had a boat in the early 90's...

 

[hawkeye08]

I had a Motorola bag phone in 1993, was on it 4-6 hours per day (had 11 guys I had to keep busy)... glad the company paid the phone bill. I even had a box that connected to it that gave me dial tone so I could use a modem on it (transmitted repair work orders via modem). We could also use a standard desk phone connected to the dial tone box. I messed with people when I used the desk phone, they didn't know about the bag phone and only saw me talking on the standard handset. Good fun back in the day.