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Today, we were finally able to update our home phone system. We now have phone service through the cable company. It is somehow connected to our home computer and this service required a new cable modem that is about 4 times larger than the old one. I was thinking that as a person born in the late 50s, I've seen quite a bit of changes in telephones. From dial phones to push button, analog to digital, bulky box phones to miniature cell phones. Today is a look at a few phone styles I've seen.
One of my grandmothers had a phone like this although it was a bit dated at the time.
This was a common style I remember from the 1950s, 60s and 70s.
Here's a wall version that no kitchen in the 1950s, 60s and 70s was without.
"Princess Phone" was a popular model.
Then the push button phones became popular and besides models similar to the above but with pushbuttons, other novelty phone designs were becoming popular.
Alf telephone of the 1980s
It started to become commonplace to have call waiting,caller id, call forwarding, and conference calls. Now there are even households that do not have home phone service but exclusively use cellphones. Society is changing and it is virtually impossible to get away from ringing telephones unless you have a musical ring tone or turn the phone off. Phones also store numbers so with one button you can call someone. Let's not forget speaker phone technology too. I think most of us know that it would be hard to post a picture of a representative phone of 2011 because between cellphones and home phones there are phones that connect you to the Internet, have applications that allow you to remotely start your car, watch television and a plethora of other activities too numerous to accurately list.
A cell phone of the 2010s
A home phone of the 2010s
Go here to read more about telephone history.
