I like to carry this in my briefcase, plugged into my (non-smart) cellphone. Always fun to walk down a busy street talking into it.
6 Likes
That makes me think of Maxwell Smart talking into his shoe
1 Like
2 Likes
Stuff like this is why I do not have a credit card tied to my Google Play account. You can’t charge anything against something you don’t have.
3 Likes
Ahem…[digs out flow chart and timeline]…A ‘re-run’ station here is showing WKRP every night. Johnny and Venus keep trying to call Johnny’s bookie to place a bet on a horse named Going Bananas, but they keep getting a busy signal. The audience is getting clued in that the bomb is in the 37-pound Bakelite rotary desk phone. Also, there is a toolbox they can’t unlock. BUT they have a working radio that they use to listen to the horse race they can’t bet on INSTEAD of WKRP which is broadcasting a warning to them to run away. After they hear that Going Bananas won and paid off at an astronomical rate, Johnny uses the toolbox to smash the phone into smithereens - totally, totally unrealistic. Carlson and Andy send the cops (the REAL cops) to get Johnny and Venus out of the transmitter, and drive up fast with the sirens going. Johnny runs off, convinced they’re the Phone Cops come to get him for smashing the phone. Venus has to chase after him on foot because Johnny was his ride.
2 Likes
Too bad that Trump guy Scott Pruitt didn’t get his Cone of Silences from the Instructables guy.
1 Like
Do you live in an 80s time bubble? Can you send me the 80s MTV broadcast if so?
1 Like
You have one? I keep thinking about getting one. Does it work well or have you had problems with it?
One thing I hate about cell phones is the form factor - it’s holding a brick next to your head. That’s the one thing I miss about old school phones, I think.
80s BCE, not AD. 
1 Like
4-wire service? Were you on AUTOVON or something?
I’d love to get my hands on a 3504 set, if only to have a phone with an “FO” button.
1 Like
Heh. I have a rotary-dial Trimline hooked to my Asterisk box (which has an interface card that allows me to plug phones in). It takes pulse dialing just fine, and I can even send * and # by flashing 11 or 12 pulses, respectively.
1 Like
I’m trying to look up what the Hell you’re talking about…Oh, beats me - Autovon is way over my head. I’m talking about the regular plug-in silvery phone cords with the Black, Red, Yellow, Green. Just the fact that the phone had a WIRE was enough to freak the kids out.
I just had a dispute with CenturyWeakLink, and I can send you a photo of my Network Interface Box with only two wires (Blue & Blue/White) in the four-wire screw-down block. Their technician did such a horrific job of ‘fixing’ storm damage, I’m forwarding the photo to my Public Utilities Commission.
Okay - send me a picture of the ‘3504 set’, and I’ll keep an eye out for it. I have a big estate sale coming up at the end of the month.
Like this?:
No problem… in normal use, the yellow and black (or orange/white+white/orange) leads go nowhere (or are used for a second line). Normal landline service is 2-wire, and only the red and green (or blue/white+white/blue) pair does anything. Sometimes, yellow/black were used to power incandescent dial lamps, as on the early Trimline and Princess phones, or to provide a ground lead for selective party-line ringing.
Trunk lines for long-haul transmission used 4-wire circuits, or the equivalent over carrier systems, with hybrids at the local central offices that converted 2-wire to 4-wire and back.
AUTOVON (an old military phone network) used four-wire circuits with separate paths for transmit and receive, all the way to the phone. This eliminated any need for echo suppressors or cancellers. The system also provided multiple priority levels for calls, so more urgent calls could knock off routine communications if needed.
The 3504 was a variant of the classic 2500 Touch-Tone phone, but with a 16-button keypad and (by default) wired for 4-wire operation, but could be converted for 2-wire. The extra column on the keypad produced four extra tones (with the “column” frequency of 1633 Hz) to provide priority preemption for AUTOVON. There have also been some rare civilian 16-button phones as well, with the fourth column labeled A, B, C, D. Analog modems could also send A/B/C/D tones as well.
Your picture is the 3568, for multiline key systems (also with the 16-button keypad). Without a bit of rewiring, it would need a key system with an appropriate card to serve it (and make the blinkenlights blink). The 3504 was a single-line set.
2 Likes
I’ll keep an eye out for anything with 16 buttons, because we can’t sell any kind of phone with a cord…unless it’s a Bakelite phone. There are weirdos who would buy a dog turd if it were made out of Bakelite.
Before a wet, sloppy blizzard knocked out my phone, (my side) of the Network Interface Box WAS wired with all four (Bl, Bl/WH, OR, OR/WH) CAT5 wires screwed down before going into the house. I also had two separate wires going inside, and the technician pulled one loose for no good reason. The technician was just a super-sloppy phone company ‘employee of the month’ who claimed the fault was my phone. Yeah, sure, all FIVE phones quit simultaneously. Anyway, after I saw the all the dangling, stripped wires going every which way, I took a picture for the PUC and put it back to four wires going to four screws - Voila! My phones magically healed and had dial tones again!
My neighbor is a naturalized citizen from Chihuahua, Mex., who says they just use two wires down there, so that’s all I needed to know!
/r/assholedesign is full of infuriating shit like this.
1 Like
There’s a formula for making rotary phones function like * and #, but I only remember the one for ‘report a harassing or threatening call’. Right after you disconnect the problem call, you dial 0011 instead of *11.
Asterisk revolutionized telephony, and none too soon. I keep meaning to install an asterisk box in the basement. Then I could extend my phone service out to the barn with a VoIP phone and a powerline ethernet adapter…
My mother still has a functioning Princess phone by her bedside; my late father put a small transformer in the basement to provide power over the yellow/black pair for the glowy bits. (I keep a spare Princess and associated external ringer box in case hers wears out, but so far it appears to be immortal; in continuous use since 1961.)
1 Like
I don’t have that exact model, sorry. Here’s the one I have, apparently now only available used. It works great.
Yeah… that’s gonna be a no from me, given how gross phones are in general. Oh well. Maybe they’ll remake them sometime.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
