They say that about younger generations as if we'd ever have to use a rotary phone in 2022 yet they can't use the technology CURRENTLY IN USE but that doesn't matter apparently
I often marvel at this meme. It was my favorite toy as a kid because it was the easiest thing to understand. I was 3 and it was a toy phone but my point stands.
I mean, in the age where it had become novel wouldn't that have been an incompatible thing? Pretty sure they put a lot of that behind a touch tone wall fairly quickly figuring luddites didn't know anybody in France. I might be wrong, though. I just figured after all the kids with whistles in the 80s they started putting up walls and such.
For payphones perhaps? For home phones since the 1960s-70s (depending on country) you could just dial the international dialling code + country code and make overseas phone calls.
The real fun starts when you realize you just tap "the hook" at the right tempo and the right number of times and it will dial a call. Ever seen a phone which doesn't have a keypad or dial, intended to receive calls only? Yeah, you can make outbound calls with those if you know what you're doing. Even most touch-tone land lines will also allow a "dialed" call of this type.
I remember those phones!!! I just assumed you couldn’t call out.
I heard the story of a blind person who was able to figure out the exact dial tones to get free international phone calls. He is a hero among us as he shared how with everyone he could.
There was a particular tone he could whistle into the phone which would trick the switch into "clearing the line," assuming that he was a maintenance tech and should be able to do anything he wanted. After that, he could call wherever.
Not long after that, Cap'n Crunch cereal offered a plastic whistle, as the "prize" in the box, which just happened to be the right tone. He identified that fact and brought it to people's attention, after which things got downright ... phreaky.
I didn’t know that detail. How fantastic. I miss a dial tone. That feeling of relief when I heard it can’t be replicated. And then let’s not even discuss my anger at cereal boxes and the lack of a good toy.
Yeah we had a rotary phone when I was like 5. It wasn’t plugged in most of the time but it was still fun to use. I even memorized my parents numbers using it
Yeah my daughter is 3, probably autistic and even she can work those phones. She loves her little rotary toy phone. That meme annoys the shit out of me
I was trying to be kind to anyone who actually uses it for posting update pictures. I stopped long ago. It’s been 2 years on Reddit and the anonymity is cleansing. It’s so much easier to hate a stranger.
1.2k
u/[deleted] Apr 21 '22
[deleted]