Remember the days of landline phones?

That

I owned two pay telephones on a busy corner that brought in over $300 per month in net revenue...

Problem was, you'd really need one and they would be vandalized

[link to www.amazon.com (secure)]

before caller i.d. a kid had no worries prank calling

you could just call random numbers and tell 'em to fuck off

And yet sheep would complain if they had to wear an ankle-monitor. Yet they LOVE their phones!

Any yet nobody will answer it anyway. But they have to carry it everywhere "To stay in touch".

Kids today will never understand the pissing in your pants from laughing so hard kinda fun prank calls were

No kidding!

I always have my iPhone (I know, I know) on speaker and hold it away from me when talking. Drives my dad nuts.

We were watching Terminator 2 a few weeks ago.

We got to the scene where Schwarzenegger punches the payphone to get quarters and my youngest son said “What was that?” lol

All you people are giving database OP your personal information, now your IP is linked to an age demographic. Just stop it, I beat my wife when she does dumb stuff like this.

Haha, I remember the 1950s down in the USA. The phone would ring when you were in the back yard or upstairs in the only bathroom taking a bath - we were even on a party line for a while. Ah... memories - like manual typewriters, wringer washers, black-and-white floor model TVs with no remote. You learned to share and be patient. Sometimes I wish we could return to those days.

Still using landline, never trusted any mobilephone.

I have a landline, I have never owned a cell phone and still use the phone booth when on the road to make a call. I was on a party line until I was 35 years old, yes your neighbors listed in all the time and you had to wait for them to get off the line before you could call out.

I remember even the party lines that were shared

I remember when we had girls on velvet swings, and I wonder if they were taping me talking to my cousin about music how many piles of tape there were and did that negatively impact the surveillance budget?

I had to make a call and found my cell phone battery was dead. Looking around I saw a bowling alley so I went in. There was a 19-ish looking girl behind the counter so I asked her if they had a pay phone.

"Pay phone? What's a pay phone?" she asked.

"Well it's a phone you put 50 cents into and it lets you make a call" I told her.

"Hey, that's a great idea" she replied. "You could make a call if your battery is dead. Someone should invent that".

I walked out shaking my head.

That battle is long over. Privacy lost. No one likes it, but...

Disclaimer: I don’t have social media accounts, just a few forums I frequent.

Remember this discussion: “You mean you don’t have call-waiting yet?”

The worst thing that happened is lack of ability to get ahold of anybody any more unless you have their cell number. I used to travel a bit and could look someone up in a phone book and visit with old friends...Or check if my favorite beauty shop was still in business...Now we are fenced in by the having access only to the numbers we have! I really miss "Information".

I have two landlines coming in. They are far from obsolete

Hopefully, you gave the gas station their dime back. It would be about $10000 with interest by now.

.
... ONLY problem with those landlines was that YOU had to go to the PHONE! ... couldn't take the phone with you ...
.

I STILL have a landline...and I don't have a celphone.

Yeah they did. They made us carry beepers.

Yep, and if I ever buy a house again I'll get another if it is still available.

Satellites go down. Towers mess up.

As long as the telco has 48v, the landline stays up. More or less.

Still have one and intend to keep same. I do NOT own a cellphone and likely never will.

Me, too! There were two and three party lines just like Hooterville in GREEN ACRES. We had a really gabby neighbor that royally pissed off my Mom when she would tie up everybody's lines for hours on end. Single lines were hard to get [there were actually waiting lists!] and more expensive than the other two service tiers.

In fact, there was even an afternoon local women's TV show that featured recipes, household hints, and celebrities that visited our town; it was called THE PARTYLINE and was incredibly popular. I watched it as a kid in the mid-50's when I'd be sick at home and had the day off from school. It came on just before my cartoons.

I still remember that show's logo and opening jingle and the name of the host. It had two receivers that were connected by a bunch of twisted cords and had losts of ringing phones under the theme song! Her name was Ethel Jane King and was considered the hottest thing since sliced bread.
Naturally, that show was in black and white since color TV broadcasts were still several years in the future...

...so was stereo radio, come to think about it!

Last Edited by GSB/LTD on 07/11/2019 08:28 PM

A couple of days ago, my buddy pulled out his phone to see how many WiFi connections there were around my townhouse. Up popped about 9 and -somehow- he was even able to pull up their passwords. He laughed at the one my neighbors used until I told him it was the name of their CAT!

Last Edited by GSB/LTD on 07/11/2019 08:06 PM

Hahaha! You think landlines weren't spying on you and listening to you?
The official secrets act prevents me from saying more.

Billy Beater obviously doesn't understand all the role playing that goes on in these data mining threads.