Tomorrow’s World - Telephone Answering Machines - 1981

[@HappyJigg]

All of the single tape answering machines I know of stored the greeting at the beginning of the tape and fast forwarded through the old messages to get to a blank space, so the greeting would only have to recorded once, and there was no time limit. I wonder if machines like that existed in 1981.

[@kaitlyn__L]

I would guess not, as the computer memory to know when to fast forward to probably priced it above a dual-tape system? After all, it couldn't just go until it detected silence, as next-track skip functions acted on tape stereos, as that might overwrite someone pausing in the middle of a message.

[@alanlittle4589]

I was scanning through subscriptions yesterday and thought you hadn't posted in a while - and now you have! 👍

[@carriageofnoreturn.1881]

I miss the simplicity of the 1980s!

[@irkmcspamtroll2556]

Machines that answer telemaphones. What will they think of next?

[@sanansa4567]

there was a comedian who did the best skit about answering machines..where people talk for a long time really SLOW, and at the very end they say ther phone number to call you back really fast and unclear. So you have to play the message back multiple times just to write down 1 digit. This was before the days were caller ID was common.

[@moogdome2562]

Wow. What will they think if next?. What about, an answering machine built into a phone?.I can't believe how primitive things were compared to tech today.

[@RomanBellic]

OMG your back