#telephony

[wordfromoursponsor]

"Battle Talk! that is what he handles on this portable switchboard." (1944)

[stone-cold-groove]

The Bell System announces the Call Director. Ad for Bell Telephone System’s new push-button office phone - 1963.

[magnetictapedatastorage]

"Listen to the so-called silence after "the number you have reached", and also in the middle of the number, and you'll see it's not the same silence."

despite being clearly aimed at the most hardcore fans of telephone infrastructure, I think this is one of the most easily accessible of evan doorbell's videos. in it, he explains how the old automated "the number you have dialed... [insert number dialed] is not in service" was able to work using only mechanical analogue methods, and how those technological limitations gave it an almost musical quality, one that's hard to imitate today.

[eforest]

[papawarcrimes]

Lonely payphone at night.

[os2warp]

the strange new worlds episode with the telephones came out today

why did the wire look so weird. why did they have to "strip the ship for copper wire" if pelia has a box of old phones, an atari 2600, and an old car battery in her quarters it wouldn't be surprising if she also had a couple rolls of telephone wire too, it doesn't take up that much space.

and what was with that box she had them connected to? a plexiglass case with chonky insulators on one side and a jumble of wires inside? if she has old phones why couldn't she also have a pbx to go with them.

when the preview came out i kinda hoped they'd have all the phones routed through uhura's station, a reversal of the joke about how in the original series she was "just the telephone operator" by making her actually be the telephone operator.

also i thought for sure the aliens were gonna be some kind of ancient borg ofshoot or something

[humanoidhistory]

1968 videophone demo with Finland's president Urho Kekkonen (left) and Björn Lundvall, an executive with Ericsson of Sweden.

[flock-of-cassowaries]

HOW THE HELL DOES 1897 Collinwood HAVE TWO SEPARATE PHONE LINES ???

That shit was a bougie-desireable dream for me in 1999, and these people just have like… 20% of the total phone lines in the area. I’m assuming. In their house.