TIME MACHINE A Message from “The Phone Company”

[wardmundy]

 

[Halea]

How to make a telephone call instructions in a 1916 phone book. They forgot to mention how to call @wardmundy when the line is "out of order"

 

[wardmundy]

@Halea You could always reach me through the Franklin, NC long distance operator. She was my aunt and taught me everything I know about phones.

 

[kenn10]

My small home town in Virginia had telephone operators until 1968. At that point they put in a Northern Electric NX2 crossbar central office. I still miss the convenience of a small town switchboard. It was like everybody had an answering service. I'd ask for my Dad's office and the phone company operator would say something like "Hon, he's eating lunch at your aunt Winona's. Want me to ring down there?" Our phone numbers were on 16-party party lines. Our phone number was 47F02. Those were the days.

 

[dallas]

My small home town in Virginia had telephone operators until 1968.

@kenn10 you sound like you are about the same age as me. I come from a small Australian town. We didn't have party lines but I knew all about them. My dad was the sole night operator at the manual exchange. The town went from manual to crossbar in the late 60's. I became a telephone technician and worked in both large and small exchanges for many years.

 

[Halea]

Let's go back another decade. Here comes the phone calling rate table from the January 1905 San Francisco, CA telephone directory.
San Francisco to Portland 75 cents for a 45 second call.

 

[wardmundy]

That’s the part we all forget. My roomie and I both had out-of-town girlfriends while in law school. We never had a phone bill under $200. That was the era when a Coke was a nickel and gas was 30 cents a gallon.

 

[KNERD]

Here is an original copy of the ad as posted in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Nov. 17, 1910, eight years before the "Spanish" Flu.

 

[KNERD]

That’s the part we all forget. My roomie and I both had out-of-town girlfriends while in law school. We never had a phone bill under $200. That was the era when a Coke was a nickel and gas was 30 cents a gallon.

I recall the guy who made the encryption software, Pretty Good Privacy (Phil Zimmerman), later came out with another project called PGP Phone. It was an absolute failure because telephone modems could not transmit enough voice data with encryption fast enough.

 

[Halea]

That’s the part we all forget. My roomie and I both had out-of-town girlfriends while in law school. We never had a phone bill under $200. That was the era when a Coke was a nickel and gas was 30 cents a gallon.

A few months back as I was preparing my attic for the AC technician's visit to replace the air handler's motor I came across this box full of memorabilia that somehow ended up there.
There are San Francisco and California maps from Chevron dated 1965, Oldsmobile car brochures from the same period, a Ford Granada user manual (new from the printing press quality) in full color on glossy thick paper from early 1970s (I think it's a European model, not sure where it came from), several Bay Area and New York City phone books in pristine condition (one of them in a plastic wrapper still unopened), but also several paid bills or receipts for all kinds of household goods (like sofa purchase from Sears in 1974), or services (like California Smog Test results for my 1968 Buick Electra 225 convertible).
Among those gems I also found some phone bills with eye popping charges. Apparently we spoke a lot between both costs of the USA and Europe. Local and long distance bills together took a sizeable bite from the household budget.
I also found a bunch of expired credit cards which included my first Diners Club and American Express cards with some black carbon duplicate receipts, and a "brand new" US Sprint FON long distance calling card from the 1980s