Who remembers using dial phones ?

Question

If you remember using dial phones...how do you rate / compare that to today's cell phones that text, take photos. Remember trying to be the 8th caller on a radio contest and dialing the number, hanging up and redialing over and over ? (smiles).

Answer 1

Ah, those were the days. You didn't have to worry about people calling you no matter where you were. Telemarketers actually had to work and risk finger injury, instead of a computer doing the work. If you didn't want anyone to use the phone, you put a lock on it. Good times.

The good old days of rotary phones.

Answer 2

You mean rotary dial? The ones without buttons? We had one until 1990. I can't imagine having to use one of those again since dialing took so long and it hurt your finger. A regular push button phone isn't much different from a cell phone to me. You had 'redial' or you could program memory dial if you only wanted to push a button or two. My moms cordless phone looks just like a slightly bigger cell phone so it feels like the same thing.

I have a few really old phones from the 60s that I can't use because they don't have a plug for the phone jack. They have that weird cloth cord with the box of wires on the end.

Answer 3

Oh yes! I can remember back in the 90s when I had a pager, people would try to page me from a rotary dial phone and all I would get is a voice mail with these weird sounds! I can't believe that was over ten years ago! My grandparents I think were one of the last people to get rid of their rotary phones, but not after my neighbor. She still has one!!!

Answer 4

I prefer the old dial phones, and was hoping to inherit my grandparents phone from the 40's or early fifties. Unfortunately, they moved while I was away for an extended period of time, and I was unable to ask them. I don't know what is was about that phone in particular, but I do fondly recall memories whenever I see an old rotary dial phone. I don't even own a phone anymore. Cell or otherwise.

Answer 5

New touch-tone phones are much better. We had one when I was a kid, and I remember it required a little bit of an effort to dial (keep in mind, I was young at the time).

I found one in fire engine red at a flea market for a couple of bucks and it still works. I hooked it up in my library (mainly for incoming calls), but the phone company will still recognize it if I dial out on it. Granted, it takes a moment after you finish dialing before you start to hear ringing, but it looks nice in there.

Answer 6

Oh, it was a great day when the push button became the standard... could call the station faster and win those t-shirts!
My friend found and repaired an old dial phone. It's still pretty cool to use ... as long as valuable prizes are not at stake.

Answer 7

Well, we are showing our age, but yeah, I remember. And remember when you had to be doing something, like changing a baby or stirring something on the stove and the cord wouldn't reach so you couldn't talk? "Hang on, someone is at the door" and you had to lay the phone down? I love my cordless and my cell, they are so much more convenient. Never did win one of those radio contests, durn it.

Answer 8

Oh yeah. And trying to sneak and call my friend in the middle of the night when my parents were asleep, and the noise that thing made! I kinda miss them, though. Still, cell phones are an improvement.

Answer 9

Yes I remember all that. I also remember when there was only one or maybe two phones in the house and cordless phones had not been invented. Oh how simple and wonderful life was then.

Answer 10

Yes, and I never thought that they would become so old fashioned. I still can't talk on the phone walking down the street and I still get surprised when someone starts talking in a store and they're not saying hello to me, but to someone that's not there!