How to Dial a Rotary Telephone
While on the hunt for something completely different I came across this video on YouTube and offer it up as a public service. Just in case you are befuddled by that new dial on your telephone:
We can laugh about this all we want now, but I remember my grandparents talking about having party lines out in North and South Dakota and what a big deal it was when the rotary dial came in to being and they had an actual phone number they could give out to people, “Hey! You can now ‘direct dial’ me?“
2 Comments
Leave a Comment
About Steve Borsch
Strategist. Learner. Idea Guy. Salesman. Connector of Dots. Friend. Husband & Dad. CEO. Janitor. More here.
Connecting the Dots Podcast
Podcasting hit the mainstream in July of 2005 when Apple added podcast show support within iTunes. I'd seen this coming so started podcasting in May of 2005 and kept going until August of 2007. Unfortunately was never 'discovered' by national broadcasters, but made a delightfully large number of connections with people all over the world because of these shows. Click here to view the archive of my podcast posts.
I remember when a representative of THE phone company came to our small town 4th grade classroom with a pair of phones (wired together with a battery to power them) to teach dialing and phone etiquette. We had scripts to practice with and situations we had to ad lib. The town switch had just converted from 3-digit numbers to 5-digit numbers and many people were flummoxed. (A few years later we got 7-digit numbers and area codes!) As I recall, people beyond the city limits were served by an “independent” phone company and still didn’t have direct dial.
Steve – on a related note – 80 years ago the US Senate considered banning direct-dial phones because it was beneath them “to perform the duties of telephone operators”.
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Senate_Considers_Banning_Dial_Phones.htm
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100919/02284211072/back-when-the-senate-tried-to-ban-dial-telephones.shtml