On Tuesday, March 20, 2012 1:12:12 PM UTC-4, PGage wrote: > > On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 9:48 AM, Tom Wolper <[email protected]> wrote: > >> The kids know how to use the Google and Wikipedia. Plus I've been >> watching a fair amount of old TV on MeTV and while obsolete things >> like pay phones, men wearing hats, and social smoking appear, they >> don't keep anyone from figuring out what's going on in the episode. >> > > This is a bit of a tangent, but I have been wondering if there is some > summary of when changes in phone technology began showing up in television > and movies? I was watching an old show with one of my children (youngest > son) and he was amused by (and totally thrown out of the scene) a corded > push button phone. I was a little surprised, as we have a corded phone, but > it is in my office, and he never uses it (we live in an area where cell > service is unreliable, as is the power, so we need a more reliable form of > telephone communication). I told him my memories of when those old, first > generation push button phones first came out, and what a boon it seemed to > be for television shows and films, as they could now depict phone calls > without the agony of waiting for the dial to return after each digit. That > of course elicited a blank stare, so I went into a discussion of rotary > phones, and what those were like (those he has never seen, at least not in > real life). That got me to thinking of what I consider old tv shows and > films, in which there was no direct dialing available, and people had to > make their calls through an operator. My son was able to supply some > examples of films and tv shows we had seen at the dawn of the mobile era, > when they made a big deal of having a mobile (at first just a "car phone"), > and the phone practically required a briefcase it was so huge. > > So I am wondering if there is a summary somewhere of something like the > following, showing the approximate year that various developments in > telephoning appear in popular entertainments: > > Direct Dialing > Push Button Phones > Cordless Phones > Mobile Phones > > > I distinctly remember that Frank Cannon (played by William Conrad on the 1971-76 series "Cannon") had a phone in his car. That startled me as a kid, because I had never seen such a thing. And even though I was only ten years old when that show went off the air, I remember thinking that it was ridiculous - that even if such a thing as a car phone actually existed, it must be so expensive that a private eye like Cannon wouldn't be able to afford it. -Tim
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