• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Vintage cellphone?

strollin

Experienced Member
Joined
Apr 16, 2008
Messages
344
Location
N. California, USA
I saw this on another forum and thought it would get a laugh over here.

VintageCellPhone.jpg
 
You could emulate such a function on modern touchscreen phones... :D
 
The funny thing is, I've seen adult persons that have no idea what a dial like that is or how it works.
 
Isn't there a Bluetooth vintage-style phone like this? It would probably work with a modern cellphone.
 
I use one of hose GE CellFusion bluetooth bridges to connect my older phones to my cell. It's slightly clunky but it will allow for pulse dialing.
 
SparkFun does offer a rotary cellphone--and the dial really works and it even rings using the original ringer.

LOL, wow that would be great if it wasn't so huge. It would have to be a special redesigned one for it to really work out as a cell phone - but I would like to see the reactions if I were to pull out a rotary desk phone in the middle of a crowd and start talking on it, because it would look like it was hooked to nothing and I was talking to myself... hahaha
 
Use the think geek bluetooth handset to get your vintage pc to dial through the cell phone.

2133764.jpg


~Mark
 
Has anyone tried pulse dialing on a cell? I'm only assuming it wouldn't work but I guess there isn't a big reason why not. Then some interesting mods could be really done.
 
Pulse dialing on a cell won't work because they don't dial using pulse or tone. They send their dialing signal purely as data. I suppose if you dialed in to a voicemail or similar system that allowed pulse dialing, you could simulate pulses and see if it works...

But since pulses are actual changes in the raw voltage of the carrier, the cell phone wouldn't be capable of doing that, so it would only work on systems that accept the "sound" of the pulse instead of the pulse itself.
 
Are there any systems that support the sound of pulses? You can dial on an older TouchTone phone by rapidly pressing the handset switch. Pretty cool! :)

I've tried using a Tandy acoustic modem with my WE 500 set from 1955...however, it didn't seem to pick up the very quiet tones from the modem. Any suggestions?

Kyle
 
The phone dials used in the latter years here in New Zealand were arranged differently with the digits starting at 9 and ending in 0. The respectively-assigned pulses are arranged from 1 to 10. So, if you have to tap out the phone number on the switchhook (as we did to circumvent payphones) you have to do the math in your head as you dial. The phones here were simple, they didn't have a damped switchhook like the classic Western-Electric phone and pay phones worked by simply disabling the dial.

The pulses of course break and make the phone's approx 50mA off-hook line load. In late 60's California, when PacBell allowed only their equipment to be used on a phone line, I bought a used $10 bakelite phone from Lafayette Electronics which happened to be French. I hooked it up and within a week noticed the phone company sniffing around the neighborhood. After some quick troubleshooting I found the French phone shorted the line when dialing. Oops.
 
Last edited:
Are there any systems that support the sound of pulses? You can dial on an older TouchTone phone by rapidly pressing the handset switch. Pretty cool! :)

I remember when much of the Bell System was on 5XB switches. After you dialed a number with your Touch-Tone phone, you could hear a long delay and a faint click-click=click as the CO equipment translated your DTMF to pulses...
 
On of the BBC comedy shows in the 80's had a skit on that subject. The subscriber presses the buttons on his fancy new touch-tone phone, which then appear on a mechanical display at the antiquated exchange. The equally-ancient operator reads it and then dials the number manually!
 
Most of the people I know don't know what a rotary phone is, but the telephone I used at home when I was little was there since the beginning of the 80's or before.

I'm happy to have memories of these things, otherwise I wouldn't know what it was.

SparkFun does offer a rotary cellphone--and the dial really works and it even rings using the original ringer.

I've been trying to find an antique telephone like this, and although I don't understand how it works, I always wanted to do this myself, fortunatly someone already had this idea.
 
I've got two rotaries that have been in my shop since they were new. One standard WE 554 wall phone and one Trimline. They both work just fine.

Sigh. Live long enough and you'll be surrounded by antiques.
 
Back
Top