Old Tech thread

[Ursa major]

I have two mobile phones:

• A cheapo Nokia non-smart one that I now keep in my car (currently parked in a brick-built garage) for emergencies;
• a smartphone that's in a drawer upstairs while I'm here typing downstairs.

Both are "switched off" and the smartphone is in airplane mode.

At least one of them would have to have a very good microphone to hear the wide repetoire of expletives that I direct (quite loudly) towards those persons on the TV and radio who are lying (and/or inadvertantly displaying their almost total ignorance) in an attempt to attract my vote in the forthcoming election. (I hope anyone listening just now enjoyed my loud playing of a recording of Shostakovich's 5th symphony, which I was inspired to do in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. )

I don't own a rotary land-line phone. My two old push-button instruments are not plugged in (and I'm not sure where they're now "stored"); the (CT1?) radio handsets I use are, obviously, "mobile", so are also easy to place out of earshot. (My asnswerphone answers my calls for me, saving me the bother of shouting, "Spammer!" or "Phisher!" at the majority of the callers.)


I am aware, as the owner of a Samsung smart TV, that those expletives I mentioned are probably being picked up when I'm in earshot (even though I've never activated the voice control); I'm sure anyone listening in will be very familiar with all of them, particularly as I suspect that I'm very far from alone in not being as ignorant as politicians seem to believe members of the electorate are.

 

[Dave]

And there's a phrase that has just about, or will soon have, disappeared: "Oh, I've taken the phone off the hook"...

About 3pm every day we get spam calls from India pretending to be from BT (yes, I have reported it before but makes no difference) and afterwards I sometimes leave the phone "off the hook." After a few minutes there is now a warbling siren to alert you that you have forgotten to put the phone back on the stand. Years ago, back in the 1970's, the operator once called us to tell us we had left the phone off the hook for several days without realising. I doubt they even employ operators now, but then who would go several days without realising now.

 

[-K2-]

I doubt they even employ operators now, but then who would go several days without realising now.

Speaking of:

Note the women's legs sticking out from the narrow desks to the right (from https://time.com ):

This image is pre-pre-recorded time. IOW, a live person spoke the time when called:

K2

 

[Ursa major]

More than 30 years ago, I worked for a company that supplied equipment to Post Office Telephones (later British Telecom/BT).

One of the systems with which I was peripherally involved (no pun intended) was a system that provided operator services in concert with the digital exchanges we were making. Its (I think) immediate predecessor (made by a different company) was called ACRE (my recollection is that this meant Automatic Call Recording Equipment, but it might have been Authorization and Call Routing Equipment). Both systems were being, or had been, developed in close cooperation with the customer, i.e. the Post Office Telecoms.

In those days, liaison officers coordinated this cooperation, and they had, depending on which side they worked, the titles of either POLOs or CLOs (respectively Post Office Liaison Officers and Company Liaison Officers).

I always felt sorry for whoever had been the Company Liason Officer for ACRE: their title would have been CLO ACRE (which, unfortunately, would be pronounced cloaca). I hope the job was better than this title makes it sound.

 

[Pyan]

My Dad (who worked for the BBC all his working life) once told me that there was an "External/Internal Electronic Information Officer" at Broadcasting House, and his office, in the normal BBC style, had a sign on it that read E.I.E.I.O.

 

[Parson]

Amazing Photo's @-K2- As I have it the top photo would be about 1948, the middle one 1962, and the bottom one 1935. In the middle picture I noted the slave drivers/supervisors standing to make sure noone was wasting their time.
When I was about 8 years old we had a crank style phone where you would give the crank a twirl and the operator would come on and you would tell her the number or (believe it or not) the family you wanted to be connected to.

 

[Dave]

The secret Cold War era tunnels underneath Dover Castle that were built to be the Regional Seat of Government for South East England, known as R.S.G.12, include radiation proof telecoms equipment, T.V. and radio studios, living accommodation and an operations centre, and have the feel of that 1960's photo above. The porous chalk above would have offered little, if any, protection against contaminated rainwater percolating down from any nuclear winter at ground level.

Dover Castle & Secret Wartime Tunnels - Beyond the Point

Situated above the White Cliffs of Dover, this iconic castle has guarded our shores from invasion for 20 centuries and is the largest castle in England. Dover Castle is owned by English Heritage and is a Scheduled Monument meaning that it’s “nationally important” and is protected from any...

www.beyondthepoint.co.uk

 

[psikeyhackr]

As it happens, I realised very early on (well before I got one of my own) that mobile phones do provide an escape that, sometimes, the original sort of land-line phones cannot: you can switch them off and/or put them out of earshot. (I'm doing that now.)


** -

There is a different kind of escape that they provide. Remember hanging around waiting for a phone call when you wanted to go somewhere else.

 

[Alex The G and T]

I still carry a flip phone, because it fits in the watch pocket of my jeans. (Does anyone else remember what that little pocket was designed for?) And I don't need a bunch of other crap on my telephone. The flip phone has this amazing capability for actual voice communication.

And yeah. What an amazing freedom to not have to camp by the landline waiting for an important call. I gots schtuff to do outdoors, most of the time.

 

[Vince W]

I thought the little pocket was a place to put coins.

 

[CupofJoe]

or tickets. A good jacket or coat will always have a ticket pocket - if you live in Edwardian England...

 

[J Riff]

Not cellphone OR teevee set owner here... walk down the nearest main drag though - and there are 175 televisions in a 20 block stretch. I counted 'em one day. What used to be 'nightclubs' are now 'sportbars' each with 4-5 of the things on the walls.

 

[mosaix]

Talking of telephone switch boards, I first started work in 1963 and soon became friends with a co-worker. We had a really nice boss who was a bit deaf (lost most of his hearing due to a bomb landing nearby at Dunkirk).

Each desk had two telephones, a black one and a grey one. The black one was internal (desk to desk) and continued to ring until answered. The grey one was connected to the switch board. It rang once and when you picked it up you were connected to the switch board operator, who had a call for you. According to the ring (continuous or just once) you knew which 'phone to pick up.

Anyway, for a bit of a joke, we rang our boss's phone and let it ring just once then ended the call. Of course he thought it was the switch board and picked up the grey phone.

Boss "Hello?"
Switch board "Hello?"
Boss "You rang me."
Switch board "Don't think so."
Boss "You sure?"
Switch board "Yes."
Boss "Must be my hearing. Sorry."

After doing this four or five times over a period of a week or two:

Boss to us "Those girls are always playing tricks."

Switch board operators overheard in canteen "That John N______n's a bit weird."

Three years later at our boss's retirement do I gave a little speech part of which explained what we had done. Much laughter all round but mostly from our boss and the switch board operators.

 

[-K2-]

Check out these monorails stores used as Christmas kid's rides however long ago:

K2

 

[-K2-]

Here are a few other versions (most/all made by Louden Machinery Corp. who made a lot of farm equipment... the monorails taken from barn loft hay hoists):

The back end of that 'Rocket Express' ride:

K2

 

[Danny McG]

Not really 'old tech' but this thread seems the closest to the spirit of this photo:-

 

[Dave]

Well that belt is Bling-bling, and beards are back in fashion, but the antennae never happened.

 

[reiver33]

You sure? I've been wearing one for years...

 

[Alex The G and T]

It's the high tech, elitist version of a Tin Foil Hat.


(And why is his beard only beautiful on one side? The other side looks sparse... weak, I'd say.)

 

[-K2-]

It's the high tech, elitist version of a Tin Foil Hat. (And why is his beard only beautiful on one side? The other side looks sparse... weak, I'd say.)

The far side is either his chops or hair sticking out. Clearly, he's a space hippy.

K2