Rotary Phones: the Call of History

[@marbanak]

Oddly, the rotary dial was a digital device, asserting 0/1 status of the phone connection down the line, as the dial rounded-back. Yet the touch-tone is an analogue device, blending two analogue tones, to be detected downstream and interpreted as a digit.

[@sonicdewd]

My dad was a maintenance forman for a huge paper mill. Many times when an event called "Shutdown" (where the machinery, that ran 24-7, was stopped for overhauling) happened, he had to get on the phone to call people in to request them to come in for double time shifts. He actually wore out two model 500 rotary phones where the mechanism gave up. Phones were maintained directly by the phone company (60s early 70s) and when the repair guy came in to replace the phone (hard-wired into the wall), he couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that dad actually wore them out. He had never seen that ever before.

[@herzglass]

That dial must've traveled many miles.

[@Trump2PrisonOn34Counts]

If the job is that important then it's important enough to staff it appropriately and not requiring overtime. In civilized countries US work requirements are frequently illegal. Not as in "Oh, it's a fine", but as in "Go to jail." Looking back, I can't believe I didn't tell more of my employers to shove it right up their [ x x x ].

[@Trump2PrisonOn34Counts]

@@Jack_Russell_Brown Wow. You are clue free. Operating something like a telephone exchange 24/7/365 with an adequate staff is not running a telephone exchange 24/7/365 with one person. Tell us - were you dropped on your head repeatedly or just once from a great height?

[@Trump2PrisonOn34Counts]

@@Jack_Russell_Brown Civilized countries don't require an employee to be on duty for 40 hours straight. Thanks for proving you were dropped multiple times on your head and that mothers should not engender children from their sons.

[@Trump2PrisonOn34Counts]

@@Jack_Russell_Brown I noticed that. I also notice that many employers, past and present, would rather not pay people for the work they require. Which is the point of the post. Employers in the US get away with things that would be jail time elsewhere. Like requiring an employee to work 40 straight hours, then yelling at them for taking a bathroom break, or 80 hours in 5 days, then reprimanding them for being 15 minutes late getting to work on day six. All of which I've had happen.

[@Hucklechuck45]

Being a Western Electric "brat" (both my father and grandfather retired for "The Western"), and a short-time employee at the Indianapolis works in the 1960's, I was extremely impressed with both your accurate description and your correct use of all the terms involved. Bravo your accuracy, thoroughness and watchability!

[@jadesluv]

Almost all correct, the pronunciation is off for the central office can switches always heard it pronounced “Strowger” (long O) and not short O as spoken here. Its Stroooojer

[@Hucklechuck45]

Guess I shoulda spent some time in a central office. All my experience was in telephone manufacturing. Never heard of a strowjer.@@jadesluv

[@jamesslick4790]

@@jadesluv IF one has only READ it and not heard it they could think it's a short "O". I did! and I raised an English teacher, LOL.

[@JackFalltrades]

My father worked for _Western_ and so did I! 😀

[@JackFalltrades]

In the late 50s / early 60s, my grandparents had a phone that _looked_ like a standard rotary phone, but had no dial. You picked up the handset and a voice on the other end said, "Operator." You would tell her who you wanted to talk to, and she would connect you. You could also ask her what time it was. The phone company has highly accurate clocks, and people who set their watches and clocks to them

[@maxpayne2574]

My father was on the last party line in the U.S. Growing up we shared our line with 5 other families. You are so right about the people that mock. How many know how to hook a horse to a carriage, once common knowledge.

[@Sparky-ww5re]

My father had a two way party line late 1983 around the time of the breakup of the bell system, on the farm in rural Michigan sharing with another farmer nearby, two years after graduating high school. His parents grew up during the depression and lived very frugal, from what I've been told it was a little more expensive to have a private line and his parents weren't willing to fork out a couple extra cents per minute or whatever the difference would have been. According to multiple sources the last party line in the US was in Woodbury Connecticut phased out in 1991 although many were phasing out in the 1970s.

[@user-mp3eq6ir5b]

Umm... What's a Horse?

[@happyundertaker6255]

Very nice. When my parents put a lock on the rotary dial of the phone, i learned to call my friends by using the cradle switch.

[@mrkitty777]

When we placed a lock on the fridge because of the cats opening the fridge door, the cats learned opening the lock. They also could jump to open doors.

[@dawnreneegmail]

Hiya, commented on your remark afterwards and said the same about beating the lock! Clever we are!!

[@alexander19681]

Me too!

[@agems56]

In the '60's we discovered that 4109 that roughly rhymed with "phone our own line" would ring our own phone after dialing it and then hanging up, at least here in Calgary!

[@mrkitty777]

@agems56 parents used it to entertain their kids, like hey Santa 🎅 is calling 📞 for Christmas.

[@Randy.E.R]

Who remembers the biggest step in becoming an adult was NOT getting your own place- it was walking out of the phone company with your Western Electric rotary phone and phone book for your new place. There was no greater satisfaction than hooking up your phone in your new place and then making your first phone call. Good times.

[@zyxw2000]

You misremember. (I'm 77.) Phones had to be hard-wired to the little box on the molding near the floor, so they could be installed only by the phone company. And you paid rent on the phone every month. The R11 jack came later, but the phone still had to be installed by the phone company, because they owned the phones.

[@Randy.E.R]

@@zyxw2000 Yes indeed. When I was younger and growing up the phone company did come hardwire the phone inside the home which is where it stayed. If you wanted the phone moved to another location they would have to either come move it for you or install a second line. One thing is certain, when Pac Bell handled the phone service in our area, it was 99.99% reliable, and those old Western Electric phones were bullet-proof. I don’t recall ever having a problem with the phone company our their telephones.

[@RCAvhstape]

For those of us who've used rotary dials, there is something satisfying about the feeling of turning it and then watching and listening to it smoothly rotate back to the start. Even though it took longer to dial than on a push button phone.

[@wmffmw]

Agreed

[@themidcentrist]

It's kinda crude, but as a kid the sound made by the rotary sounded to me like the words "shit-call...shit-call..."

[@weirdscience1]

Until you're in a hurry to dial and you mess up... lol... Hard to win a radio contest. 😅😂

[@20chocsaday]

True, and it certainly helps you control yourself when you are dialling 999. Which service do you require?

[@herrunsinn774]

The Rotar mechanism was almost "kid proof". Being a typical kid, I wasn't content to let the rotar "smoothly rotate back to the start". Instead, I would put my finger in the dial and use all the strength I had to try to force the return rotation to go faster. No matter how much pressure I applied, the speed increase of the return rotation was only negligibly faster than if it rotated on its own... And to top it off... after YEARS and YEARS of this abuse, the dial never broke. Amazing!

[@pt008]

I've known the term "phreaking" for decades and I always assumed it derived from "free" as in making free calls. It just dawned on me that it may have derived from the word FREQuency. It finally "clicked" (pun intended) watching this video. I have one rotary phone in the house and it still works for outdial even though my phone company once says it's no longer supported.... I've watched a lot of telephony videos but particularly enjoyed this one, looking forward to checking out more of your channel, thanks.

[@AC-ih7jc]

There's an old Addams Family episode where Gomez is on the phone, hangs up and is called back by the operator to deposit another dime. He picks up a small gong, strikes it so that the operator can hear it and think that that was a quarter ringing the bell as it entered a payphone, and chirps, "There you go, operator, I gave you a quarter. Keep the change!" Phone phreaking on prime time TV in the 1960s. Granted, the phone company plugged that hole back in the 1940s. (but then again, Gomez was using a candlestick phone...) ;) For further info, see the book _Exploding the Phone_ by Phil Lapsley.

[@jeffsaxton716]

I was a boy in an isolated and sparsely populated area. Also, I'm old. In the 50s, we still had wooden telephones with a crank to get the operator. She'd ask you what number you wanted. When these phones were replaced with "modern" ones, they still weren't dial phones. Lifting the handset summoned the operator. I didn't see a dial phone until we moved to a city. I was 12 then.

[@johnmaki3046]

These phones ACTUALLY, DEBENDABLY WORKED, though!

[@TheOzthewiz]

It must have been heart warming to hear a HUMAN voice when you made the connection. Watching the "Andy Griffith Show'", and hearing Sheriff Taylor say , "Sarah can you get me Barney"? The feeling you get is SO special that it's hard to describe!

[@jimmyday9536]

As a boomer, I fondly remember these phones! The thing I really miss is that handset that was ergonomically designed to be easy to hold, and easy to cradle between your neck and shoulder; so much easier than holding a box the size of a deck of cards to your ear nowadays. 😀

[@LakeNipissing]

I still like using this phone today for exactly the reasons you describe.

[@keithbrown7685]

So much easier in fact, I gave up on that whole flaky idea of holding my candybar phone like it were actually shaped to the side of my face. I just use speaker phone now. No strain on the hands or arms or nothing. Just slap the candybar on the table and talk at it.

[@glennso47]

Phones in offices had accessories that would attach to the receiver to make it more comfortable to hold on your shoulder while not having to hold the receiver with your hand. You could talk on the phone while both hands were free to continue your work.

[@glennso47]

How does a push button phone with pulse dialing differ from a phone with touch tone? They look from the outside to be similar.

[@keithbrown7685]

@@glennso47 I had a push button that had two settings, one for tone dial, one for pulse dialing. It was so one could use a touchtone phone out in the sticks, where the newer tech hadn't arrived yet. You'd set the phone to pulse and use it like normal. It wasn't that fast, but it made things feel faster for people who were sick of the old dial phones.

[@stevejohnson1685]

In the late 1970s, one of my first consulting jobs was to program a "rotary dialler" algorithm using an early microprocessor. It would repeatedly pulse a line to close a relay, which when connected to the phone wires, would dial. This was after DTMF was implemented, but at a time when DTMF wasn't universal. Later, Hayes (and other) modems could be programmed to dial either using DTMF or pulse. The modem commands are still there, and still work.

[@mrkitty777]

In the 80s the REM port of home computers had a on off relais which could be programmed in Basic with Motor On or Motor Off so in basic one could create a pulse dialer. The Amiga 500 could sample all DMTF tones and was just playing the sampled sounds

[@gregorylewis8471]

Recently, one of the charities I support had a telethon (no, not PBS) and young volunteers showed up to staff the phones. Several had never used a desk phone before and they had to show them how to use the phone! Being very old, I remember teaching my grand daughter on how to use a rotary phone back in the '90's when what few pay phones existed were converted to rotary to deter drug dealers in the city centre. Her first attempt was to stick her finger in the number to dial hole thinking it was a 'magic' push button! 😁

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@gregorylewis8471 that's what I did when growing up in the 90s too, until I was told I had to "bring the hole to that silver bit" to "activate" the "button" :) then I figured it out, and loved the feeling of the dial only resisting movement in one direction.

[@detroitredneckdetroitredne6674]

My mother had a lock on the dial to keep my sisters from calling people and I was able to dial the phone by pushing the Hang up button in the proper sequence. We also could dial 3 an the last 4 numbers of the phone number and make a connection as well. I found a cigarette machine in the basement of a local bar There were 3 pennies tape to the cigarettes pack an the book of matches from the 1940s and 50s. It also had the 5 digit Phone number printed on the matchbook. Great video brother, thank you for sharing your knowledge and expertise. I am in a process of gathering hand crank telephone and hooking them up for intercom in my house.

[@emilyadams3228]

My train historian pal had railroad phones in his kitchen, upstairs hall, basement, and garage. They were the kind that used to be in boxes on poles next to the tracks, that crews used to call dispatchers and tower operators. My pal had actually got them from the Erie Railroad in NW Indiana after it was abandoned in 1979, along with the batteries, which were glass jars the size of 5-gallon pickle jars with lead plates in them. These were in the garage. I met him in 1982, and when he moved in 2003, he installed the phones in his new house, where they were still working upon his demise in 2014.

[@porridgeandprunes]

As a telecom tech trained in the late 1960's I'm very impressed by your comprehensive video! There's a lot that I didn't know about the history of telephony.

[@weirdscience1]

My dad has been a telephone system istaller and tech for over 40 years and he had a technical support call for errand 911 calls and the local business kept having police show up for a 911 call. Now this went on for over a month and finally after tracing the number calling 911 it came up as an old unused yet connected credit card line. Well after looking around he found a line cord laying on the ground in a damp corner. As it turns out the cord would lay in dampness and short out constantly and every so often would pulse 911. Talk about a one in a million chance, the business couldn't believe it, they thought for sure they had an upset employee doing it but he said give him a call back if it happens again, well he never did hear back from them. Fiction don't have anything on reality.

[@m9ovich785]

HAHAHAA 37 Years for me 1985-22 I had My fair share of Static making 911 Calls....

[@mrkitty777]

Nowadays people have phones calling 911 e.g. when sweating which casus the screen to register touches

[@CommodoreFan64]

@@mrkitty777 or their young kids grabbing their cell phones while asleep, and hitting the right combo to trigger the emergency function. Happened to my oldest niece a few years ago with my great nephew, and she had 2 police cars show up at her house in the middle of the night lol!

[@wintersbattleofbands1144]

That's a hoot. I always wondered what kind of crazy stories repairmen have. Oh, and I think you meant "errant."

[@pcno2832]

Years ago, I bought a phone with built in programmable buttons for police, fire and ambulance. I set them up as carefully as I could, but each time I keyed in the number, the exchange also dialed it and after an irate call-back from the police, I decided to leave those buttons, which could easily be hit by mistake, deactivated.

[@bf0189]

I'm a millennial and definitely used a rotary dozens of times when I was a kid...however I really appreciate you that you didn't judge the young ones for not learning how to use a rotary. Fantastic video!

[@gabotron94]

Millennial as well; they were so fun to dial

[@AaronOfMpls]

Yah, a few older relatives had a couple around their houses, though they also had touch-tone phones too. And my grandparents had one at their vacation cabin. As a kid, it was kinda fun dialing all ten digits on it, to call home if I was there with my grandparents. (And thanks to the time and the noise, it was probably also a deterrent to us kids making unwanted and expensive long-distance calls, too. 🙂)

[@albertcarello619]

Northern Electric made phones for many Non-Bell Independent phone companies. Also many Non- Bell independent phone companies purchased Western Electric crossbar equipment in order to be compatible to connect to Bell System customers.

[@KevinR-xj4pr]

@@gabotron94 I remember when Touch-Tone (DTMF) dialing was invented. It was so much faster than rotary phones. They were more fun!!! 🙂

[@fredblonder7850]

That was an excellent in-depth overview. I grew up with a model A1 and 302, and was annoyed when the phone company tore them out and replaced them with model 500s. There is a model 500 in the time-capsule buried at Marietta House Museum in Glendale, Maryland. The capsule is pressurized to 5 PSI with argon, and is scheduled to be opened in 2096, so it stands a good chance of making it intact, along with all the other stuff. I recall sometime in the early 1980s when I noticed that the dialing callous on my finger had disappeared. ;-) Up through the 1960s it was common for businesses to distribute plastic sticks for dialing, with their names on them, to save your fingers. What was especially common were pencils with a round red ball at the end, that neatly fit into the finger-hole on a dial. Also note that - given the physical size of the plug-holes on a switchboard - a grid 100 X 100 was about the arm-span of a typical operator, which is why an exchange has 10,000 numbers. Bob Roswell at the System Source Computer Museum in Cockeysville, Maryland has a collection of rotary dial telephone equipment which he plans to assemble into a functioning (but small) stepper exchange.

[@howardsimpson489]

The really annoying thing about rotary dials was how slow they were. If you "helped" them by speeding up the return, mostly they worked faster. But if you made a mistake dialing, you had to start all over again, and the crosser you got, the more mistakes.

[@electronixTech]

Ha, you beat me to it. I was going to say I remember as a kid my parents had a ball point pen from some business with their phone number on it, and it had a plastic ball and disc at the top that fit in the rotary phone dial holes to save your finger.

[@davidgrisez]

I am old enough to remember using rotary dial telephones when I was young and growing up. One of the facts about these old rotary telephones was that the telephone company owned all of these telephones and basically rented the equipment out to users. As a result of the telephone company owning these rotary dial telephones, these telephones were built to be very rugged and last a very long time. It is likely that the old phones shown on this video would still work today if connected to a rotary dial system.

[@JrGoonior]

I have an avocado green one from the late 70’s plugged in and it works. The power went out once, the phone still worked of course.

[@LakeNipissing]

They do still work in 2023. I use this type of phone as "emergency backup" to the cell phone. Bell in Ontario offers a 5 $ a month discount for a rotary dial phone... in 2023 !

[@howardsimpson489]

I have not tried recently but a few years ago in NZ either tone or pulse could be used.

[@cheerleadrheartbreak]

Where I am (rural area) rotary still works. Have the same phone he has on the table use it regularly. In more populated areas home phones still exist but aren't old copper lines and work over cable Internet stuff and don't support pulse tone.

[@igorschmidlapp6987]

@@JrGoonior Phone systems have their own 24V power source along the phone line, separate from the electric power system.

[@InssiAjaton]

As a child, I used at least one time operator hep for calling my godmother, via 2 switchboards. Much later I again needed operator hep for my international calls. That must have been in 1979 to 1983 time frame. The reason was that the local exchange could handle local calls from my rotary phone, but not international ones. In 1984 I moved to my new home and from there I was able to dial international calls directly. And then those started requiring tone dialing... But another little story from the rotary dial era. A friend of mine one winter was at a school as a substitute teacher. The school had one telephone for the principal and another for other teachers. But the second one had the dialing disc removed, so it was intended only for incoming calls. Well, my friend was a radio amateur with plenty of Morse code practice in his "sleeve", so when he needed to to make a call to his wife (for some schedule change), he just used his tapping skills and that was it - no problem.

[@wait4dl]

i am still able to dial like that. retired from at t in 2012. also don't have a girl friend with a lot of zeros in her number. you had to wait for ever.

[@cowboyfrankspersonalvideos8869]

The number on almost all the parts indicate the date of manufacture. In your Western Electric version 500 set, the number on the bottom (12/79) indicate that part (the base) was manufactured in December,1979. Later on Western Electric started using a longer number indicating the year and the day number of the year. You can find the dates on almost all the individual parts even the handsets and the microphones. The Bell System phones with the dial in the handset, were trademarked with the name "Trimline". Copycat manufactures used the name Slim Line. The Bell System also had the name Touch Tone trademarked. A very good book on Phone Phreaking is "Exploding the Phone: The untold story of the phone freakers" by Phil Lapsley. It goes into great detail on the history and some of the people involved. The original Freekers, were not just trying to get free calls, they just wanted to explore, and learn how the phone system worked. It was the bad guys that later started making money from it. The book was researched and written by a member of Telephone Collectors International.

[@edwinclements8112]

I read that book recently. It is very interesting.

[@markevans2294]

Another date code format, common on semiconductors, is week number and year. Thus 12/79 would 19-25th March 1979

[@farmdaze9961]

Just adding a comment to try to help this channel. Amazing place to hang out and listen. Ty for your work.

[@Ericstrains]

I’m something of a telephone history buff and I gotta say that you really did your homework. You hit on everything you should have did a great job explaining it in layman’s terms. Well done!

[@bsadewitz]

Maybe you could tell me why 20 pulses per second never took off in the US. I'm pretty sure crossbars (at least) could handle it, right? In fact, I'm pretty sure panel switches could do 20pps because they sure as hell didn't use 10pps internally.

[@jemcnair76]

This is excellent. I was a Bell Atlantic Systems Tech from 1996. We dealt with MANY rotary sets from subscribers, and I carried a few different rotary but sets until my retirement. The WECO rotary linesman sets were the only sets that told no lies.

[@65gtotrips]

Shwick…ticatica…Shwik ticaticatica…Shwik…ticaticaticatica… For all 7-10 digits…I’ll never forget that sound of dialing.

[@FurtiveSkeptical]

We Used to hurry the rotor back when we were impatient kids... "Schwick--ticaticatica" somehow sounded more like "Schwick-digadigadiga".... all strainy and sped up.🤔 Thank God we never had to hook them up to a modem of any kind. Cheers ✌️

[@jeffsaxton716]

When I was a teenager kids would show off by rapidly tapping the handset switch to send the number. It wasn't that difficult, really.

[@jamesdavis5096]

Its more like “schwick chica chic a chica chic” ffs smh get it right

[@ernestcline2868]

7 or 10? Don't forget 5 digit dialing. I grew up in a small town with only one local exchange, so instead of having to dial XXX-YYYY I dialed only X-YYYY.

[@jeffsaxton716]

Our number was 35J5. You cranked the handle and told the operator a similar one to call someone else on our Beverly Hill Billy-like rural exchange.

[@rayflinn9580]

This the most informative channel I have seen.

[@gordonhard2663]

Dial phones around in the early 1910s? Not in my neighborhood. I don’t think my gramps got one in suburban NYC until the 30s. Then their candlestick phone without dial was replaced by a dial candlestick by what we called Bel Tel. He hid the old ones to use as a house intercom.

[@jkholtgreve]

I like the intercom idea but am shocked AT&T didn’t keep charging him for the damn thing. I heard tell there were still some unfortunate old people being suckered into renting Western Electric phones well into the 90s.

[@jimsteele9261]

My parents had a rotary phone at least until they updated to the new digital service. Dad said the installer asked to see it because he was amazed that it still worked. They'd had it since 1955.

[@ItsAVolcano]

Oh god I remember seeing old home videos of my aunt in the early 80's practically speed dialing with a rotary phone using a pencil to dial and looking like she was drawing on the phone with how fast she moved.😅

[@RedBud315]

She must have had long finger nails.

[@jongeers1954]

I can't find an example now in my current assortment, but during the heyday of dialing there were a couple of common styles of ink pens (usually used as promotional giveaways) having a knob on the non-writing end, specially shaped and sometimes free spinning, designed to fit into phone dial holes. Haven't thought of those in years but your pencil comment triggered the memory.

[@aceroadholder2185]

I have a wooden clothes hangar with a laundry's two-digit phone number printed on it. I still keep my rotary phone hooked up because I can hear it ring all over the house and porch. I did get to show my granddaughters how to use a rotary phone dial. They had also never seen hand cranked door windows in a car.

[@edkonzelman2749]

I too, grew up in Winnipeg. When my daughter was young, I taught her how to make emergency calls by dialing 999 before MTS converted to 911. In the 1970's, I worked for Bristol Aerospace, in the Rocket and Space division, where I worked on the development of a device to prevent making long distance calls from a dial phone in public areas (common rooms, courtesy phones, etc.) by shorting the line loop if the first digit dialed was a 1 (DDD) or a 0 (Operator). My first digital design project. I was never commercialized, touch tone dialing made the product obsolete.

[@yogiperogy]

Hi Ed. My real name is Gord Richardson and I worked in the T & D Lab downstairs from your office! Something about the networks and/or the Toll Restrictors rendered them obsolete and those on hand were scrapped so I snagged one for my collection of telephones and related gear! I certainly recognize your name but it’s unlikely you’ll know mine. What an odd place to encounter you Ed. Take care sir!

[@kenbaird7067]

I am a retired professional telecoms engineer and I designed many Strowger step-by-step, Bell No5 crossbar, and NEC electronic SPC switches during my career with NZPO and Telecom NZ. NZ and Saudi Arabia were the only two countries with a reverse dial. That is, dialing "one" resulted in 9 pulses, not 1 as in USA. A great video, thanks

[@paulguzyk2978]

It's also worth mentioning that when the original long distance area codes were designed, they had to have a one or a zero as the middle digit. "Important" business cities got 1's as the middle digit and low numbers for the first and third digit. i.e. NYC 212, LA 213, Chicago 312, San Fran, 415 etc. Less important cities got zero's as the middle digit and higher numbers and first and third digit, i.e Nova Scotia 902, South Carolina 802 then later 808 Hawaii, 907 Alaska, 906 Michigan Upper Peninsula. The reason? Rotary dialing 906 takes way more time than dialing 212. Business people needing to reach head office or their broker etc didn't want to wait so long....and if you made a mistake you had to start over taking even more time with a "zero middle" area code. Eventually phone networks figured out how to have any digit as the middle digit in an area code and how to overlay area codes in the same region. The advent of touch tone dialing took the same time to enter a 10 digit number no matter what the area code was.

[@tvdan1043]

I remember when we got our first button-dial phone. But our telephone exchange was still entirely pulse so the first touch-tone phones had a switch on the side to indicate "tone" or "pulse". When you hit the "9" button, you'd hear the phone make the tones but then you would also hear it pulse 9 times as it sent an artificial 9 pulses to the exchange.

[@themidcentrist]

When my childhood best friend visited my home with his two young daughters, I showed them my rotary phone and said "I bet you've never used one of these before". Of course, that assumption was correct. In fact, it turned out that they had never used a phone that needed a cord either.

[@johnmaki3046]

The young today are so used to CRAP! Crap is "sold" as "FANTASTIC", but CRAP IS STILL CRAP, no matter how its packaged!

[@igorschmidlapp6987]

And I'll bet they still say "dialing a phone number"... ;-)

[@moaningpheromones]

probably never seen no cord either - have to school them young uns.

[@joshmellott1986]

I was recommended your video about flechettes, and when I saw your video library, I couldn’t hit subscribe fast enough. Your videos are great, and your concise, well written explanations remind me of The History Guy and Technology Connections, two of my very favorite channels. Keep up the great work!

[@3bydacreekside]

I knew as soon as I saw the thumbnail, that id love this channel 💜

[@echohunter4199]

If you’re looking to buy some newly manufactured flechettes, a friend of mine in Medford, OR makes them on the original machines that made flechettes for munitions in the 60’s-70’s, he makes 12 ga. shotgun rounds with flechettes in them, his name if John Flanagan and has a company called FMCO. The way they make them is just a simple nail machine that makes nails out of spools of wire but instead of making a nail head, it stamps the four “wings” in place of a nail head.

[@moaningpheromones]

i went to the doctor with really bad flechettes. it stopped thankfully.

[@edgeeffect]

In the UK we had an "official procedure" for dialing 999 in the dark... you put your ring finger in 0... and you can feel that because it's next to that bit of metal that's right next to 0... you can then easily slip your middle finger into 9...... it's loads easier if you look at one of the explanatory diagrams that were printed in most Post Office Telephones publications.

[@dieseldragon6756]

That was it: _„Feel for the stop: Zero is next to it. Nine is just to its left.“_ 👍 When you think a little bit about that, it makes dialling numbers formed of nines and zeroes by feel much easier compared to numbers formed of ones and twos. (Where you'd have to feel for the stop, then trace along the edge of the dial hoping your finger would then fall into 1.) ☎

[@steviebboy69]

@@dieseldragon6756 And for us in Australia it is 000, so it would have been even more easy.

[@dieseldragon6756]

@@steviebboy69 I know Australian and NZ exchanges use the complete _opposite_ approach to European exchanges when it comes to pulse dialling (In Europe pips sent = digit dialled, Aus/NZ pips sent = 11-digit) so dialling 000 would be 1-1-1 when switchhooked, wouldn't it? 😇 I never understood why that approach was used on the southern colonial systems though. I know you folks are on the other side of the equator, but - Unlike water flow in the toilet - That doesn't exactly change the electrical characteristics, does it? 🙃

[@steviebboy69]

@@dieseldragon6756 You are probably correct about the phone exchange about how it works like when we dialed 1 i remember 2 pips. on a different note we had a major phone carrier go out and it took out everything landline internet and mobiles. didnt worry me as i never needed it that time anyway.

[@conradharcourt8263]

@@dieseldragon6756 Reversed dials were used in NZ, not Australia.

[@ronkemperful]

My grandfather worked for Mountain Bell and one of his jobs was to listen for defective switches in the switching center where he worked. If he heard a malfunctioning sounding switch he would take it off line for rebuilding and substitute a working one. All mechanical. An interesting view of a switch in action is a short scene from DIAL M FOR MURDER a 1954 film by Hitchcock, where a switch is seen ratcheting away as a phone is being dialed. As a nurse working since the late 1970s I had spent hours dialing on rotary dials, developing callouses on my index finger, calling doctors; but I miss the rotary dial just the same.

[@uvideohelicopter]

Excellent! Not too complicated, not too rudimentary ✅

[@JeffHogge-n1f]

So that's the reason for a "MARKER". You're the first one who's finally made it clear to me. The "Step by Step" switch virtually "Wires" the the electrical path as you dial. The "MARKER" in the "PANEL" switch waits until all the pulse information is totally complete then arranges the signal path all at once. (I think). But now I see a distinct difference. Thanks for the insight. Jeff

[@dewiz9596]

The museum of science and technology in Ottawa, Ontario (2100 km from Winnipeg) had an excellent display on how the rotary dialling system worked. They also had an enigma cryptography machine. Food for the inquisitive mind.

[@602br61458]

I find your videos very interesting. Many bring back memories of technology I grew up with. Thanks foe the memories.

[@blondin07]

I also grew up in Winnipeg and had an uncle who was a tech for the Manitoba Telephone System. After visiting him at work a few times I recognized the switching sounds of an old telephone exchange as common sound effect for robots, computers, and various other machines used in many movies & TV shows. It's funny how Hollywood has always felt obliged to make machines make noises even when no physical action is taking place (like text appearing on a monitor).

[@TimPerfetto]

I also grew up in the telephone exchange. Its funny how I had an uncle who felt obliged to make machines and various other machines.

[@rojoeditor]

Star Trek: The Original Series has a computer that speaks in an unpleasant monotone with mechanical noises in the background.

[@darrelray4673]

This is excellent. As a "senior citizen" I used all of this technology over my lifetime but never quite understood how and why it worked. Thanks for this educational episode.

[@artyzinn7725]

when those phones were king, people ran to the phone as soon as it rang, had a sense of dread when it stopped ringing or no one was on the other end. rotatories made a solid schick sound when dialing, and the many clickity noise it made as it sprung back gave you a sense you were getting connected and the time it took gave you mental pause to compose what you had to say. touch tone dialing lost this mystique although people ran to the phones still, until the cellphone made calls mundane and now, a pain in rump.

[@keithbrown7685]

I just tell Google Assistant "hey google"... GA goes "blip"... I say "call Timmy"

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@keithbrown7685 yep. Although I still have my dad's mobile number seared into my memory from childhood (he's had the same one ever since the 07- prefix was introduced!) I just say "call dad on speaker" and it happens.

[@keithbrown7685]

@@kaitlyn__L In a way, imo, things are getting frighteningly easy. This is but one example. Another one is, 'tap debit' or 'tap to pay'. I think it's all good technology, but I feel it's making me lazy as hell, and I don't care either! :-) I just want things to happen fast. And they still rarely happen fast enough. I don't know what the hurry is. It's almost like the tech wants me to hurry up, along with whoever else is using it. 🙂

[@keithbrown7685]

@@kaitlyn__L I don't know if you use the Google Assistant, but you can often get away with saying "hey goo..." and that will get its attention, then one would say something like "I need to download Shazam from the Play Store". And off it would go and open the store app, and almost at the top of the list, is the app you're wanting It's not as good a system as it was, only a few months ago. Now, it's listing ***t like tiktok at the top, even if you didn't ask for that one. It's the advertising... Google has ad money on the brain.

[@elmofeneken4364]

One of the most interesting things I've viewed on You Tube to this day. Well done and extremely informative. I just have to say this - you sure got my number.

[@fairalbion]

GREAT explanation! My late uncle worked for Plessey's Strowger Works on Edge Lane in Liverpool in the UK. In the mid-1970s he took my brother & I on a tour of the factory. I remember him telling us that they knew full-well that the Strowger gear they were building was obsolete, and the future was in electronic switching. But change was slow & difficult to effect with the Post Office in the environment that reigned in that era.

[@dieseldragon6756]

No kidding on that front! I know at least two BT subscribers who didn't even get upgraded to touch-tone until at least 1993, and I _think_ one of them still has a 70s vintage demarcation point! 😲 The crazy thing about all this? They now have 50mbps broadband and I'm using a (10mbps) 3G mifi for Internet access...But I can still do more on my 3G connection than they can! 😋

[@jimparr01Utube]

I was just about to inform you about New Zealand reverse dial installations, but you beat me to it in your dialogue. Quite correct. BTW, "111" is still the emergency number in New Zealand. With the advent of DTMF (Dual Tone Multiple Frequency) three brief pushes of the "1" button signaled Emergency. This became a long-term pain for NZ emergency operators, as this can STILL be easily misdialed on any phone - especially by young kids who are also greatly inclined to poke fork tines into wall power outlets. As a teenager, I was guilty of using payphones on occasion to pulse-dial with the cradle switch and it worked great - for a few years. The trick of course was becoming proficient with subtracting each number you wanted to dial from the value ten. Crossbar exchanges had a rather short history in New Zealand as fully electronic exchanges were very soon after supplanting all exchanges throughout the country (10-20 years). Thanks for the brief walk down memory lane Sir.

[@dgwaters]

Rotary telephones are COOL! I’ve been collecting phones for sixteen years and most are the Western Electrics from the 40’s and 50’s. And they all still work!

[@williamhoward7121]

Growing up in Kentucky my father was the only electronics specialist in the area. He taught me the trick of tapping the phone numbers on a pay phone if I had an emergency and needed to get a hold of someone and had no money. Needless to say I was very popular with anyone that needed to make a call but had no money. I got very adept at quickly being able to tap out phone numbers.

[@zodiaccgh741b]

Here in England you had to put a penny the payphone slot in order to obtain a line exept for a 999 emergency call. At last I know how it was done. Great video.

[@dieseldragon6756]

@@zodiaccgh741b AFAIK the line was always connected when the receiver was off-hook, but I _think_ the revenue control method (At least on older payphones) effectively disabled the dial for any numbers not starting zero or nine. There was one payphone I often had to use (With an 0800 access card) where the keypad never worked, so I'd normally lift the receiver and wait 60 seconds to be connected to an operator. 🧑‍💼 I never tried switchhook dialling on UK payphones, but the fact BT made the switchhooks on newer models deliberately slow and heavy (Which would make the timing hard to get right) suggests to me it might've been possible. 😉

[@gwesco]

That is the reason pay stations were switched to ground start trunks as you didn't get dial tone until you deposited the required amount. But then hackers discovered you could get dial tone by taking off the transmitter cap and grounding one of the contacts inside. Then they started gluing the caps on so you couldn't unscrew them. I was a telco tech for over 30 years and saw it go from mechanical switching to electronic then digital and finally to VoIP.

[@MaximRecoil]

@@gwesco I've never heard of a payphone for which hook switch dialing would do you any good. I've heard of ones where you have to insert a coin before you even get a dial tone, so hook switch dialing won't get you anywhere with those. And the ones in my area when I was a kid in the late '70s and '80s could all be dialed normally and you only inserted money when your call was answered (you could hear them but they couldn't hear you until you inserted 20 cents). Hook switch dialing is pointless for that type of payphone too, because the rotary dial already works fine without inserting money.

[@gwesco]

@@MaximRecoil When you deposit the required coins in those old 3 slots, it would provide a ground to start the ground start trunk and give you dial tone. Many college folks discovered that you could remove the transmitter cap and ground one of the contacts to a metal ground like the booth. That gave you dial tone and you could then hook switch dial. That's why they started gluing the caps on. BTW, I spent 32 years as a telecom tech working on everything from mechanical to VoIP phone systems..

[@SharonC4444]

I am from Saskatchewan. I am 60 years old. This made me feel ancient even though I love technology and loved being a computer technician. I thought our phone number 2197 was because I lived in the middle of nowhere and there just aren't many people. Thank you for explaining the phone system clearly. Waiting for midnight and cheaper phone rates and bbs'ing with my 300 baud modem was so exciting. Were the first three minutes more expensive than the following minutes because it used the switching system only to make the connection?

[@dw3403]

I still remember our number started with waverly. Dont remember the rest though.

[@dieseldragon6756]

@@dw3403 I often like to think that _„Hastings 1066“_ was William the Conqueror's telephone number... 🙃

[@dewiz9596]

You’re a youngster. . . 😉

[@lrueff]

My experience with phones before dials was when we went to Columbus Wisconsin every summer in the 50's for 6 weeks because of my dad's job. They did not have rotary phones yet and a friend I made in the town had a phone number 829. His grandmother who had lived there for a really long time had the phone number 32 !

[@JeffRyman69]

I grew up in a little Kansas town that used an operator until the last part of the 1960s. They joined with several other small towns to form a county-wide telephone company with rotary dial phones.

[@ChristianMcAngus]

In the movie version of 1984, Winston Smith (John Hurt) uses a rotary dial to control his computer terminal in the Ministry of Truth. Nice retro touch.

[@slowercuber7767]

I remember an early (~1977) experience as a coop student working at a Bell company. I visited a "Central Office" (a modest nondescript office building with windows all brinked over for security) which handled switching for quite a number of local customers. As I recall, there were two or three switching technologies in use. Most was crossbar switching and the constant click-clacking was surprising. I think there may have been some older mechanical switching tech, as well. However, the company had begun the installation of some electronic switching systems which were of course quieter and more reliable than any of the mechanical systems. Most dramatically, the electronic systems required a tiny footprint compared to that required by even the crossbar systems.

[@StevieCooper]

This is my new favourite channel. The way the stories are told, the images and then the display of the device really appeals to me.

[@peterzavon3012]

Strowger, who invented the first successful automatic switching apparatus, was one of several brothers born and raised in Penfield, NY. They were known from the beginning as inventors. It was said that on the farm they grew up on, they would spend a day inventing a device to do a chore that they could accomplish manually in a couple of hours.

[@maxpayne2574]

Then the invention would do the chore everyday.

[@rossryder944]

Great video. What this highlights is how companies used to do everything for the customer. They employed many, to run complicated, expensive switch boards and transmission lines, to bring you the ease of just asking an operator for a connection, or later, simply dialing a number. When you subscribed, they came to you, and even provided the equipment. When there was a problem, they would come check it out at no charge. Today, the roles are reversed. You must decipher complicated technology, while computers handle the carrier's job. And when you have a problem, and can actually reach someone about it, their first step is to blame the customer.

[@dieseldragon6756]

Another awesome video here, chap! The UK was a little bit behind the US/Canada in adopting touch-tone telephony, meaning I'm still familiar with these despite being one generation later than the usual. This served me well when the keypad on my own phone broke as - With our exchanges still supporting loop-disconnect/pulse dialling well into the 2000s - I simply switched to dialling via the switchhook instead. 😁 I've seen a few videos of younger folk _trying_ to use rotary phones (One example of a 6-year old girl trying to use her grandmothers rotary phone comes to mind) and these are quite amusing, but what always worries me is; _What if the grandmother had a medical emergency and her granddaughter had been trying to dial 911?_ 😲 It's for this reason I advocate teaching kids about rotary phones, and how to use them to call the emergency services. 👍 Interesting tid-bit: One Canadian city (Alberta, I think) was used for universal emergency number trials in the NANP area after the British development, and they used our same 999 number for this purpose. An outcome of this is that the area may *still* support using 999 to call the emergency operator, but it's the only place in the NANP area where this applies. ☎

[@eily_b]

So many skilled people over here on youtube sharing their knowledge with us. Thank you!

[@richarddeese1087]

Thanks. I've always thought it would be fun to oversee a museum of 'obsolete' technology. I'm glad there are people out there like you who catalog these things for nostalgia, for human & technological interest, & for posterity. I remember in 7th grade taking an elective class in data storage. That was around 1978. By the time I graduated 5 years later, most of that stuff was useless, except for certain industrial or niche purposes. Things change quickly sometimes! tavi.

[@jongeers1954]

There's a corner of my home office that basically represents the museum you describe. Actually two corners - one for stuff that still works, one for stuff that doesn't. Except for one RCA radio and phono that are about 10 years older than me, everything is technology that was brand new in my lifetime and is antique now. I have recently, finally, been able to "cut the cord" and no longer have a land line, but I still smile at the memory of when some friends were visiting just before that happened. We'd gathered in my office and I'd explained the "these things work" corner, near which my friend Al took a seat. He jumped about two feet out of that seat a few minutes later when the Automatic Electric Starlite dial phone on the shelf right next to him rang. "Told you they were working," I said. 🙂

[@richarddeese1087]

@@jongeers1954 Cool! I'd show people how to play a phonograph record with no electricity using construction paper, a pencil, a bent needle & scotch tape. Or how to build a mousetrap radio with dry cell & a razor blade. Or demonstrate a printing press or a clothes wringer. Fun for days. tavi.

[@MrStrangegoo]

God i miss the old rotary dial phone, you realy felt you had acomplished something when you called someone and you remembered phone numbers. The one we had was bakelite, weight at least 10 pounds. Made a great self defence weapon too. Took two men and a boy to rotate the steel rotary dial.

[@FlyingCrow]

I still use my rotary phone built in the 50's almost exclusively. In fact, it is the most realiable phone ever made. I have gone through multiple modern phones, but this one keeps on going.

[@THOMMGB]

My Western Electric #302, built in 1946 still works perfectly on my landline. If I'm talking to someone, sometimes I'll tell them what phone I'm talking on and how old it is. These youngsters are blown away.

[@andrewhall2554]

I remember how unhappy my mother was when some time on the 1960s the phone system in our town switched from five digit dialing to seven digits. How inconvenient! How could anyone be expected to remember all those numbers?!?! On the other hand, this coincided with direct dailing of long distance numbers which was more convnenient the the old method of dialing the operator to place long distance calls.

[@antilogism]

11 digits to call next door in 2023!

[@unadomandaperte]

I once dialed out using a Yamaha DX7 synthesizer. It uses FM signals to generate the tones required for making a call.

[@keithbrown7685]

I always knew those synths were good for something. : )

[@perrybarton]

Cool! I did the same thing with the Hammond organ when I was a teenager. Pushed in all but one drawbar so that each note played generated a sine wave, and was able to get close enough to the right tone combinations to actually dial a number. 🤓

[@loranelizabeth9148]

Oh yeah!! Being an I&R telephone retiree, I LOVED this history! I absolutely remember when the Trimlines were introduced. "Sold" and installled a LOT of them.~~ Thanks for this!

[@jean-pierredeclemy7032]

And the starlings used to imitate them ringing 😆

[@jimprice1959]

Thank you for a very informative video. Having worked for Pacific Telephone back in the 60s, I've seen all of the central offices you mentioned. Boy, that Automatic Electric multi-line phone was sure a kluge. I suspect they had to get around patents.

[@Robb-jf7vg]

I'm a very old "Senior Citizen". And when I was a kid, the old style "Candle Stick" phones were still in limited use. But, right up till about 1995 or so, our ONLY family phone was one of the Rotary Dial "wonders"!

[@ocsrc]

I remember in 1984 the phone company told me they would NEVER have touch tone in my rural area in Pennsylvania. I remember the first cordless phones, AM, on 1.8 mhz Those actually would reach up to a mile from your house if you had a really good external antenna. Before cell phones I would walk around my entire area with my cordless phone and be able to get and send phone calls

[@jhonsiders6077]

I did the same in the early 70s in Miami I bought a cordless phone then ride around on my bicycle till I got a dial tone and made a call !!

[@Roboticgladiator]

The old Western Electric phones worked great. And they were damn near indestructible. The push button dialing update was a welcome addition. Either way, the old analog system voice quality was way better than cellular today.

[@usaturnuranus]

The first 911 call in the US took place in February 1968 in, of all places, the little town of Haleyville, Alabama. And to this day the town is quite proud of that achievement. Rightly so, as their small local exchange beat mighty AT&T to the punch!

[@Sparky-ww5re]

I'm 34 and even though the rotary dial was obsolete long before my time, when I was a child, we lived in a 1940s duplex for a few years until 2001, and the only phones we had were two wall rotary phones hardwired, had a straight cloth cord connecting the handset to the receiver, no phone jacks to plug in a more modern phone, so I and my younger sister had to suck it up and learn how to use it if we wanted to talk to our friends bad enough 😂 My grandmother had a avocado green wall rotary dial in her kitchen until she passed away April 2022 age 96. The phone was likely from the 60s or 70s if I had to guess, since pastel colors for appliances and bathroom fixtures were all the rage at the time, as was vivid colored deep pile carpets. The phone still worked as of August 2022 when the estate was settled and a younger couple in their late 30s brought the house. Something has been truly lost when you can no longer swiftly end a conversation gone sour by saying a few cuss words then slamming the handset down on the cradle, while the person on the other end hears a loud clack followed by the dial tone. And since these old phones were rather heavy and practically indestructible they could serve as a lethal weapon to a would-be burglar that got in the house.

[@OleJacobsen]

Another correction: The 0 through 9 arrangement you show at 19:01 was NOT used in "the rest of Europe" This particular layout was ONLY used in Sweden. There is a third layout used in New Zealand which is entirely reversed and goes from 9 to 0 (where 9 produces ONE pulse and 0 produces TEN pulses). This third layout was also used in the city of Oslo, but NOT in the rest of Norway.

[@okaro6595]

How did it work when you called from Osto to a different city? Should the different systems cause dome confusion or was the number transmitted some other way?

[@OleJacobsen]

@@okaro6595 The dials are mechanically identical, that is to say the number closest to the finger stop always produces ONE pulse, and the one furthest away produces TEN pulses when released. The difference is invisible to users in that it is the SWITCH that interprets the number. The only confusion would happen if someone took an Oslo telephone and moved to to another city and tried to use it there. Of course, "nobody" would actually do that since you didn't own the phones and if you moved the phone company (a national entity) would provide you with the correct equipment depending on your location. So the switches in Oslo were wired (programmed) differently than then switches in the rest of Norway. New Zealand also used the same reverse system. Today, if you want to use such a phone on a VOIP line, you can do that by either using an ATA that supports pulse dialing (the Grandstream ones do and they support all 3 dial layouts [NZ/Oslo, "Normal" and "Sweden"] or you can use a DialGizmo device that translates pulses to tones and has dip switches for the 3 dial layouts. Hope this helps!

[@thorbjrnhellehaven5766]

​@@okaro6595the switch board handeled the translations of pulses.

[@thorbjrnhellehaven5766]

​@@okaro6595eventually all inter switchboard communications used DTMF, and the puls dualing was only available to subscibers for bacward compatibility, if you had a puls dial telephone and not a newer DTMF keypad telephone

[@davidlipscombe916]

It also helped with the old pay phone when you had no money here in NZ to call your parents to pick you up .

[@dougcox835]

I had a pair of those classic phones that I rescued from a house that was being demolished and kept for years but at some point they disappeared. I remember actually connecting a battery to them and hooking them together and they could talk to each other. No dialing though in this case since only two phones were on the circuit.

[@mrkitty777]

I regularly overheard conversations from neighbors due to crosstalk of phone lines.

[@keithbrown7685]

@@mrkitty777 Because of that, we all heard what we wanted to know about the neighbors, until we heard too much. 🙂

[@mrkitty777]

@keithbrown7685 it was at the farm, rural area, mostly about cows, milk, sheeps, catfood, good old days, well they certainly could hear us too but it was one way only, i think an ongoing call could be heard, but they couldn't be spoken too, and the otherway around.

[@charliemagoo7943]

​@@mrkitty777party lines cheaper in rural areas than private lines

[@mrkitty777]

@@charliemagoo7943 in the 80s certainly

[@georgantonischki1188]

quite fascinating video. The city of Nürnberg, Germany has a Museum for Communication, which has (or had) a fully operational telephone system using automated switches. The system had a handful of phones and you could dial each other. I tried this perhaps ten years ago and found the static, when you pick up the machine sounds like in the past, a very distinct sound, giving me a homely, nostalgic emotion. It would be interesting if in other parts of the world similar machinery is kept in an accessible museum. This technology was so important and ubiquitous, it would be weird if it is completely lost…

[@NoahSpurrier]

The operators at the exchanges had special dials that operated faster than home phone dials. They also had special dial sticks so their fingers wouldn’t get sore. My mother was a telephone operator. In one of the Hannibal Lecter movies he used a chewing gum wrapper to dial a prison phone because it didn’t have a dial built in so he could get an outside line. This was totally possible.

[@robertcuminale1212]

I still have some of those mechanical pencils with the roller ball on top. The dials were sped up to 20 impulses a second.

[@TheOzthewiz]

My Mother was a "PBX" operator in Riga, Latvia (Eastern Europe), Before the "Iron Curtain'" went into effect after WW2!

[@jacquesmertens3369]

112 was only introduced in Europe in the early 1990's. The old emergency numbers can still be used though, and some countries e.g. France have a large variety of emergency numbers, depending on the type of emergency.

[@dieseldragon6756]

112 still is (And I doubt it'll ever be removed) supported on UK exchanges alongside 999 for the obvious case of a European visitor needing to summon the emergency services. I keep meaning to ask OpenReach (The UKs telephone infrastructure provider) if modern exchanges also support 911 for the same reasons. 🙂

[@ramluma]

Great video. Great narrator. Great information. No dumb music. No dumb introduction. No dumb sponsorships.

[@vevenaneathna]

ya... your channel is going places lol. great video, great research. thankyou for your time

[@alexkuhn5078]

I used to have some friends who were in a noisecore band. The one singer used a rotary phone as a sort of effects pedal, she'd sing into the mouthpiece and then dial 0 to get a brief choppy effect

[@lawriefoster5587]

I want these days back!! So simple and direct....like a typewriter and these were put together by hand!!

[@RSF-DiscoveryTime]

Model 220 Slimline was also called "The Princess Phone". Neighbors got one in '66, I saw it. Also: Model 500 was made of plastic so tough, you had to literally hit it with a sledgehammer to break it. I've only watched 11min of the video so far, maybe this was mentioned later, I don't know. Highly informative channel, glad I subscribed.

[@ElmerCat]

The Princess Phone predated the Trimline (Slimline) model by several years. Princess phones had standard-sized "G" handset and a full sized dial with fixed finger stop. Trimline phones had the dial built into the handset, so it was a smaller dial with less blank space between the digit 1 and the finger stop. Therefore, the finger stop was designed to move with the dial just enough to add the rotation needed for the digit being dialed. When installed with an external AC transformer, the dials of these phones would light up. The Princess Phone had a "Night Light" switch that would illuminate the dial even when the phone was not being used. The Princess Phone marketing slogan was: "It's little, it's lovely, it lights".

[@maruroyie]

I loved that you brought back the Phreaking part back from beginning mention part, man. I work in voice communication with VOIP systems nowadays so love diving into videos like this one. Thank you for making this video!

[@dpeter6396]

Love it! My working daily desk phone is a 1947 302. Made the same year I was and is the phone I grew up with. POTS.

[@Sparky-ww5re]

Yes, back when things were MADE IN THE USA and it was a normal sight to see a stove, refrigerator/freezer, washer/dryer in service for 30 years if not longer with very little maintenance. Nowadays you're lucky to see your new Samsung washer or refrigerator in use for more than 5 to 10 years. I was born '89 and we lived in a duplex built in the early 1940s during WWII for a few years 1998-2001, and there were two rotary dial phones on the wall, hardwired, no phone jacks anywhere in the home. Something has been truly lost when you can no longer bring a conversation gone sour to an abrupt end by yelling a few cuss words then slamming the handset down on the cradle😂 as well as double as a potential lethal weapon to a would-be burglar who happens to make it inside 😂

[@timmotel5804]

Good Day. I was a Switching Technician for many years in the "long distance" industry (MCI. Sprint etc.) and into the cellular industry. I have seen Step Switches but they were obsolete when I entered that part of the industry. I was an installation and maintenance technician for Southern Bell Telephone Company prior to that. This is very interesting and educational. Thank You so much for posting this. Best Regards.

[@dustypulver1]

The noise in a strauger exchange was unbelievable. If someone was 'freaking' to receive a free call, the different frequeny was obvious and one of the many engineers which a busy exchange required could locate the 'different' switch and disable it

[@rojoeditor]

Tell us about freaking.

[@paulwarner5395]

So was Rotary and Crossbar in the busy hour.

[@whitacrv]

Excellent video. Straight information no drama. This is one of the best presentations of information I have seen on KZbin.

[@JonathanEzor]

The worst thing about rotary dial phones was trying to win radio call-in contests from NJ to NYC, and having to dial 10 digits including a bunch of 9s. Try to be the fifth caller doing that!

[@jongeers1954]

I remember that careful dance - hope they gave you enough warning that you could dial all but the very last digit, then dial just it when the DJ said, but not dial those first digits too soon or the phone system would give up on you after waiting too long for the last digit.

[@charlesbaran1106]

This was entertaining! We still had two working rotary telephones on a "phone company" landline until we moved in 12/2020. Those devices were over 35 years old, and would have lasted forever. I don't necessarily miss dialing all of those pulses, but the handsets were far better ergonomically and sound-wise than a modern cell phone. Somehow, the verbs "dial" and "hang up" persist, such as in medical office automated systems. "If this is a medical emergency, hang up and dial 911." Fun fact about the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York: It retained the phone number made famous by Glenn Miller until it closed in 2020, although it was expressed as 736-5000.

[@TheChipmunk2008]

New subscriber thanks to this video. I love old telephone systems, i am familiar with the same secretarial systems in the UK (the british GPO called them plan systems) The use of vaccuum tubes is incredibly interesting! The AE dial seems very similar to the GPO type...

[@scrambler69-xk3kv]

Back in the 1960's we lived on a farm in a VERY rural area. I remember we had what was known as a party line. Many times, you wanted to use the phone, but if you picked up the receiver to make a call you may hear someone talking and you just had to wait until they were finished.

[@Sparky-ww5re]

In some parts of the country party lines were used well into the 80s, the farm I grew up on had a party line until Dad turned 20 and that would have been 1983, it was a big deal to say the least to have a private line. His parents grew up during the great depression and they were very frugal like many old timers from that era. Party lines were cheaper than having your own line, from what I was told.

[@Roxor128]

The point about making the emergency number hard to dial by mistake is precisely why Australia went with 000 for its one. Can't get any harder than that.

[@fmphotooffice5513]

Excellent presentation.

[@ElementoryMyDearWatson]

That was genuinely fascinating. Thank you so much for all your hard work, and sharing your knowledge

[@antilogism]

All dials are rotary but all rotaries are not dials. A "rotary" was once a system where an incoming line rotated to an open line so that a business could have one number answered by many to avoid busy signals. Another popular option for businesses in those days was the WATS line for cheap long distance.

[@PeopleAlreadyDidThis]

“Rotary hunting,” to be precise. A business could have up to 10 phone numbers wired to one vertical level of a standard Strowger two-motion switch equipped for rotary hunting. The first phone number on the level started the hunting; callers needed no other number. As lines were used, the system “marked” the busy terminals with a voltage. The switch sensed that voltage and stepped to succeeding terminals until it either found an idle line or ran to the “eleventh rotary step,” which connected an all-circuits-busy tone to the caller. There was also a more rare level-hunting switch. It hunted the first level, then could reset itself and hunt the succeeding levels in turn until it found an idle line. It could therefore hunt through 100 lines.

[@moaningpheromones]

Cool . . . as a child I remember dial phones but not how business phones worked - I often find that I'm 50% linked to some of this stuff.

[@johncashwell1024]

I worked for AT&T back in the late 2000s. We had a 20 story building in a moderately sized city that was filled with rotary switching equipment from the bottom floor all the way to the 18th floor. The top 2 floors housed offices and meeting rooms. It was less costly to leave the equipment where it sat than it was to try and empty out that space and somehow renovate it into more useful space. The building was actually designed & built around all that equipment. It was a staggering sight to see all that copper, brass and endless wires, thosands of miles of thin, worthless telephone wire!

[@DavidKutzler]

16:00 Few people these days memorize phone numbers. Boomers like me (I'm 72 YO) can all tell you their first phone number, as memorizing your home phone number was a milestone, like learning to ride a bike. My first home phone number was "GL44135" in the Glenview exchange in suburban St Paul, MN. My mother made me memorize it when I started kindergarten in 1956.

[@airspeedmph]

Mine was 56 13 81, 50 years ago or so.... I had no idea that I still know it, but reading your comment somehow triggered the memory. Weird stuff.

[@stopthephilosophicalzombie9017]

Excellent video. I knew some of this stuff, but you really got into detail at the end I had no idea about.

[@robinj.9329]

The rotary-dial phone is so easy to operate that I was using one to call my grandparents by age 4 or 5. I had watched adults use it and once you understood the whole idea of the "Phone Number", it's incredibly easy! In fact, in 1982 through 1991 or so, my main phone, used daily in our living room was still a standard, rotary-dial phone. Much like the one you show here. If it wasn't STOLEN (guess someone needed a "rare antique?") in 92, I'd likely used for years longer. What I find incomprehensible, is when today's younger people (even 30 years old!) can not TELL TIME with a standard clock!!!!! I find this unbelievable!!!! BUT it happens all the time.

[@dw3403]

I came across my old princess phone that I had replaced with a cordless. I plugged it in to see if it still worked. At first I thought it didnt because there was no background noise when I picked it up. I started dialing and was amazed how the sound on those were so much better than the new ones.

[@maxpayne2574]

They don't teach cursive writing had a kid ask what language I was writing. How long will it be before people stop learning to write because everything works by voice commands.

[@AaronOfMpls]

@@maxpayne2574 The only thing I write in cursive is my signature; otherwise my handwriting is small caps like my (engineer) dad's. I can see why it might be dropped to make room for other things.

[@cleopatracatra2097]

@@maxpayne2574 👌

[@richsackett3423]

@@maxpayne2574 Are you reading a computer right now? That's your answer.

[@BombingFritz]

I am still using one of these (W48) as my landline phone to this day and due to superior german router downward compability technology, it still works without any additional hardware just by plugging it in. And the look on my friends' faces when I pick it up to order a pizza and slam it back on the hook afterwards - with a loud "Guten Tag!" - is just priceless.

[@justinblake7355]

I remember dialing numbers by clicking the receiver switch, mostly just to show off the trick. When they brought out tone dialing there was a cool digital watch released that you could store numbers on then hold up to the mic and it would dial by playing the tones. Regarding the charge of "abstracting electricity", there was a far more literal way to do it. The phone lines carried 12v DV. When I was young our power would often go out when it rained, so I rigged up a small portable B&W television to run on the power from the phone line.

[@Brian-yt8fu]

Here in U.S. telephone lines are 48 volts I surprised there was enough current to power a small tv.

[@transientaardvark6231]

It goes to 80V when it rings though - I don't imagine your little telly would have enjoyed that up it

[@antiquesandlearningtolive4369]

Early pre-WWII 302s had zinc/composite cast metal cases(very desirable and I have). Another historically cool phone is the 5302. Has a body nearly 80% the same as a 500, but incompatible with 500 components, because that case was used to run out old 302 excess parts only. Anyway, apologies for interjecting, but the model 5302 was the first model from Western Electric to only use thermoplastic casing. Late 1930s(introduced 1937) 302s are metal case though. One of my cast metal case 302s is 1937 and the other 1939. And both are in use currently, and even when companies drop pulse dialing, I have an adapter that converts pulse to tone thankfully. Another point: If possible, find a metal case or early thermoplastic with the "4H" dial retun mechanism. Has glorious return clicks. 😃 -Your friendly neighborhood antiques restorer