Small battery backup?

-snip-

For any youngsters that aren't familiar with the WEs-- here's what they look- and sound- like. ['splains why we 'dial' a number, and what a phone 'ringing' means]

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Jim

Reply to
Jim Elbrecht
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Prinicpal: The pal of yours at the school office. Often has a vice principal, and secretary. Principle: How something operates. Or guiding factor in your life. "I don't pay extra, on principle".

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Great link, thanks. You want to see a blank look. Ask someone younger than 20 or so to dial a number on one of these. Most kids simply don't know how.

Me, over 40, well, I learned on these. Anyone remember when the telco owned the phones, and you weren't allowed to move them around the house, or run another socket? I remember my family's first touch tone phone. That was so totally groovy, man. Like, far out!

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Ahh, I've got a 1940's-vintage 164:

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... but once I get it shipped over to this side of the Atlantic I expect I'm going to have to build some kind of box of tricks to hook it up to the US system (although I've not researched that in detail yet... maybe the US system can still "look" like a Strowger exchange as far as the phone's concerned and so is compatible enough)

I've got a 60's type 706 too, which looks almost identical to the repro ones in your link - that one I used to have hooked up in my house when I was living in England. Amazing how long it takes to dial a number compared to a more modern push-button phone!

There's no ringer in my 164 - it hails from the days where that was typically done separately. I do have a wooden wall-mount bell-box though, but the 164 lacks the necessary guts to drive it so I'd have to improvise there...

cheers

Jules

Reply to
Jules

-snip-

My wife was just telling us the other day about her mom painting their phone to match the room. Back when Ma Bell was *the* telephone company- and you got a choice of wall or desk phone- in black.

Mom would paint the phone. Peeling paint would eventually get someplace it wasn't supposed to. The repairman would come out and give her a new phone. . . she'd paint it. . .the paint would peel. . .

We were on an 8 party line for a while. Our ring was 4 shorts. The hard-of-hearing old biddy down the street was 4 longs and she got a million calls a day. Today you could do 8 different 'ring tones' for all the parties.

Jim

Reply to
Jim Elbrecht

Those crazy brits- they put the numbers on the dial backwards.

Yeah- but if the dial breaks, you can just flash with the plunger. try that with touch-tone. The little independent telco I worked for in the 70s had a test number set up so we could flash something like

111-2222 and if it went through we'd know it was a dial problem, not a line problem.

On this side of the pond all those boxes were white oak. What did they make them from over there?

Jim

Reply to
Jim Elbrecht

"You put your fingers in the holes and spin them around for awhile."

Reply to
Sam E

They're the same, aren't they? Both US/UK turn clockwise, with digits 1-9 followed by zero. (I'm not sure what the reasoning was behind the UK's emergency services number being 999 as it takes so long to dial - even longer than 911 in the US)

Oh, brain fart on my part by the way - it's a 162 that I have, not a 164, although it looks identical to that one in the photo above (which I suspect is mislabeled, as apparently the 164 is just a handset, not an entire phone).

True. I think I have a spare dial for my 162, although not for the

706 (although the 706's were made in the millions, so I bet it's easy to get spares still).

It's stuff like that - all the little tricks and tips and "secret" things

- that I find fascinating about old phone systems. I think US systems of old were perhaps more interesting in that regard, given the diversity...

Hmm, I'm not sure. IIRC it's a Bell 1a that I have:

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... but it's hard to tell from that what kind of wood it is just from the grain, and obviously it's stained with something or other and then varnished.

cheers

Jules

Reply to
Jules

Hmm- brain farts here, too, I guess. All that space on the right makes it look different.

-snip-

Neat old box. I can't remember ever seeing anything but light oak- but then I only worked for one rural telco- that had absorbed 2-3 others by 1972. When I got there in 72 we had not yet retired the operator from the last company.

Jim

Reply to
Jim Elbrecht

The "principal" is your "pal" (not really, but for the sake of remembering)

Reply to
HeyBub

(blows razzberry) :^) Yes, I know. Finger memory- I'm no touch typist. If I have to proof everything I throw out here, I'll get even less done in real life.

-- aems ends....

Reply to
aemeijers

Yes, the dial on the WE phones does look to be rotated a little more than the UK ones I've seen - maybe that was common for all 'vintage' US dial phones?

The one I have's a bit beaten up, but then I bet it's pretty old (there's no indication of a date on it, and I've not found anywhere online which says when that style was made - but far as I know it was intended for use with the old "candlestick" style phones, and I think they'd been made obselete by the early '30s)

Incidentally, not sure where in the US folk can see a big old Strowger-type electromechanical exchance working? I bet there's one in a museum or two somewhere (I saw one in a museum out in New Zealand a few years ago and they're pretty fascinating to see and hear clicking away)

cheers

Jules

Reply to
Jules

Echo! Echo!

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

You hear about the old guy who was so, so poor. His hearing aid was on a party line.

I get to tell that one about every five years. Yes, I wear hearing aids. Have, since age 6.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

and "beliefs" contain "lie"s (spelling rule).

Reply to
real1

Well, mine was a bit of a prinic.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Does "bachelor" equal "radical scofflaw"? I may qualify.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Hmm, you need a pressure switch fitted to the bed so power gets to the coffee machine soon as you get up ;-)

Reply to
Jules

Routines suck when they're someone else's.

Reply to
Jules

I don't set clock on my microwave. It sets at times.

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Reply to
arnavhussain431

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