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retro futurism

How to Dial a Phone, circa 1930s

For all you whippersnappers out there who never had the experience, here's a primer on how to use a rotary dial telephone. Produced by Big Brother ... I mean, the telephone company ... in the 1930s, the film explained the dial tone and busy signal to consumers used to having the operator connect their calls. Fun fact: AT&T installed the first "automatic phones" in 1915 in Norfolk, Virginia, and removed the last manual phones from the system in 1978.

12:37 PM on Wed Apr 23 2008
By Lynn Peril
2,602 views, 20 comments

Latest by Klebert L. Hall: @flaneuse: Or you could take the bottom off, and put an elastic band around each of the two bells. There are lots of ways to mute the old phones. -Kle. more »