Was someone screaming the dial tone? WTH? I think this was really a game show to see who would die first in silence. The winner got to stay overnight. 5:20 I think we have a couple of winners!!
6:20 She lost the challenge of slap the slop outta him.
..We used the rotary dial until the 1980's! The was slow technology advancement!
This is great. It's great to see where we were, and where we are. Just think, soon ALL CALLS will be video direct calls where as you can talk to and view, multiple people at the same time, and that will be the standard. WITH OUT WIRES TOO. I mean, look what Email and Electric Fund Transfers are doing to The Postal Service. At the rate things are going, The Post Office will be obsolete.
@nrdesign1991, I don't know. Once we figure out how to break down objects to the Atoms and its most basic structure, and reassemble it again to the original object. It will be no time at all before we're transporting them Via Fiber Optics across to World at the speed of light.
@commonman80 Either that or the concept of "personal manufacturing" will come in use. That means everyone has a 3D printer that can assemble or "print" complete machines, decorative objects, or just about anything else simply by purchasing the plans from the internet and downloading them into the printer. That would even include the printer making replacement parts for itself, or to fully reproduce without the need of a production plant. The only remaining companies produce raws.
@nrdesign1991, True That. Scientist are saying, that at the rate electronic technology is moving, causing everything to be made smaller and more efficient, that in about 100 years or so, Vaccinations will consist of Nanobots about the size of Blood Cells. These Nanobots will remain in the human body throughout a person entire life (Which will be then, on average, about about 150 years) Eradicating diseases and Viruses. Being sick, or getting sick, will be a thing our generation did.
Every single piece of YouTube greatness (such as this) has 2 dislikes. The questions before us are quite simple: who are these two a**holes? Are they the same two a**holes each time? Or is there an endlessly self-generating stable of a**holes fanning out across YouTube "disliking" greatness? And finally, do these same or endlessly self-generating two a**holes reciprocally "like" Justin Bieber videos (et al), in an orchestrated attempt to remove greatness from the world & replace it with sh*t?
It's kind of fun to compare this film to the anime Summer Wars, where the "old fashioned" grandma pulls everybody together by reaching out and actually making phone calls to them.
@kefmedia1 No.. It was an entirely new concept around that time. In fact the dependence and reliance on technology that is so prevalent in our society was not really present at this time. Therefore it wasn't like kids who grow up today with cellphones and tvs and internets and know all about this stuff because it's been in existence and common use since before you were born. Furthermore, that generation was responsible for countless scientific and technological achievements that made us modern.
@kefmedia1 Come on. Think about the time this was presented in. This was state of the art and so they wanted to make sure that every child would be able to understand what they're presenting. For us it's hard to imagine because we grew up with cell phones. But my grandparents didn't even have a phone in their village back then.
Wow, this has been a great education for me. I've always wondered how the people dialed their phone with the two piece phone. The simple answer was, they didn't lol.
@JoaoPessoa86 - I can believe how thin those phone books are. To this day, the Hershey, Pennsylvania phone books are less than 3/4" (2 cm) thick, including both Yellow Pages and white pages. Their covers are chocolate brown and have the Hershey bar logo on them, with the saying, "The Sweetest Place On Earth". Nearby, the Lebanon, Pennsylvania phone book isn't much bigger, but its cover is the standard yellow. Suburban Philadelphia phone books are at least 2" (5 cm) thick if not thicker.
Those telephone sounds are horrible. I don't remember them in my lifetime, fortunately.
Note that their equipment only accommodates 4-digit phone numbers. And that goes along with their skimpy little phone book, which means this small town didn't have a lot of phones.
There were 5 and 6 digit phone numbers where I live until 1968, when I was a teenager. Then they all changed to 7 digits.
I remember using the rotary and didn't want the new touch tone phone. We sort of skipped that and went to the cordelss phone and now just cell phones. Awesome, I like these video's neat to see.
Wow! The dial tone sound sounded like my old telephone mounted in my first apartment. The buzz was to allow someone to enter in to my building which happened to be built in the early 1900's. I had to hold a much older ear piece to my ear and speak into a mouth piece. Although this lady sounds professional I want to stand up and say, "we get the point!" let's move it along! We get the point. Now a days people are trained to adapt much quicker!
Miss White's slightly condescending and smug confidence seems unsuited to the subject matter. But it's endearing anyway. (Maybe because she's such a retro hottie.)
That was so lame. Mrs. White was so condescending and the whole demonstration seemed directed at those with an IQ below 90. So, boring. But, it was funny watching the audience. LOL
EABeaudry, I agree Grandpa was a real jerk. Can you imagine living in the same house with him? The granddaughter was a dream child with incredible patience to put up with him.
WOW.....technology has advanced to much..........One day in 40 or 50 years in the future there gonna be videos in youtube of cds, the release of the ipod and the ipad.....and people in that time maybe gonna say what i say in the begining of this message!!!
I'm guessing late 30's if that's an early installation of Crossbar 1. The dial tone, ringing & busy signals were generated by a buzzer (or a vibrator relay).
wow, i actually have an antique dial phone, the ringer does not work, because back then they used 115Vac for the ringer to operate, but the phone communication function still works & so does the dial function. I've actually had friends push at the numbers on the dial, expecting it to work. it's a great novelty in the home & they still function.
Does have a Mystery Science Theater 3000 feel to it.People were so nice ,polite and courteous in public back then in public if not in private.Course minorities were segregated ,discriminated ,and lynched sadly
Remember an episode of Lost in Space when Will was transported back to Earth in 1997.The Vermont town he was in looked like a small town in 1951. Phones with no dails so you had to tell the operator the number.Where were the cell phones if it was 1997?How is it if you can send a family to Alpha Centauri at light speed of faster and still have a town that was behind the times as Will said?
There are always going to be backwards places, as late as 1965 Walkerville Michigan still didn't have dial phones.
Besides, "Lost in Space" was looking at the late 90's from the 60's. NO ONE was predicting cell phones in the 60's (and no, Star Trek's communicator wasn't a cell phone, it was a short range subspace radio, more like a super walkie talkie, but it wasn't a telephone)
@JeffDeWitt so what's the difference between a telephone & a walkie talkie? ---other than one has a monthly fee & the other does not. What's the difference between a walkie talkie & a cell phone? Both use radio waves.
I don't know when this movie was made. I guess it's the late 40's or early 50's. But I see that Bell Labs/AT&T were very visionary. Looking at the column of lights, you can see that 10 numbers are represented. That is the same configuration we have today.
A sequence of 10 numbers yields 1.3 Billion telephone numbers. This at a time when there were probably less than 40 million telephones. The infrastructure costs to support the extra billion unused numbers would never happen today.
Notice that the letters are not present on the dialer. At the time, telephone numbers consisted of only 4 numbers. It was believed that people could only remember about four sequential numbers.
When it became necessary to add the prefix numbers, the phone company used code words to represent the prefix (switch) number. So "Diamond- 8284" would be 342-8284. The letters were added then added so people could dial direct, bypassing the operator.
Omg, This woman explaining the new dialing is wearing a snood. And @ 9:29, the old gent's new phone is Western Electric 202 with an oval base and an E1 handset. God Speed landlines. Hang in there.
@grafonolafavorite ---and my phone has a sticker on the bottom which says...
"Property of Bell System" , but beware, the whole phone weighs about 15-20 pounds & still works in a landline (but not the ringer, as that required 115 volts) still i find it amazing & love talking to family on it.
My mom didn't sit around knitting and my dad didn't sit and read a newspaper wearing a dress shirt and tie; instead my parents would fight and scream at each other with dad almost certainly drunk and he'd be wearing some kind of wifebeater tshirt and dirty jeans. Oh and sis was out getting laid with who knows.
Imagine if you had to dial 10 digits on a rotary phone like it is today with all the gazillions of area codes. I bet there would've been a lot of the Western Digital 302 and 500s that would've been badly dented from being tossed across the room!
gee that is a horrible dial tone. the phones ring different here in australia, like a ring ring,. hard to believe 4 digit numbers too. things have changed a lot since then. overseas calls sound as good as calling a friend across town.
So you had to get your phone equipment only from bell labs? Wow, that sucks, I sure am glad that 100 years later they finally gave that up...(looks at my iphone 3gs)...oh...wait a minute...
@noxvet Your master now is the cell phone and much more insidious than the old rotary dial or push button simple telephone. How much you are enslaved to a technology or just let it serve you is up to the user.
Funny thing about the dial tone. Even now I have to remind my wife "wait for the dial tone" because I may be on the other extension and she blindly tries to make a call before listening. Excuse me? Some people are slow to learn I guess. Or back when our city was hit by a tornado. People said "the phone's dead" I had to tell them. Wait. The dial tone will come. Eventually. Then you're good to go. I tell ya, some people forget more than I do.
@UglySean - My 82-year-old mother, who would have been a little girl when this was made, has the same problem of dialing without listening for the dial tone. I told her that she's been taught from the time she was little to "listen for the dial tone" and after more than 70 years (she lived in the city of Philadelphia 70 years ago), she should be used to it by now.
@UglySean It didn't sound that bad, the audio is obviously compressed in this Youtube video and this was recorded in AM radio quality if even that! :)
As recently as the 1960s and 70s, when you saw a movie or TV character place a call, the "ringing" at the other end would be almost as bad--an unpleasant sound like a sleeper snoring. I was around then, but I've never heard anything but a ring much like today's.
Most dial tones and busy signals sounded like this until the 60s. Some lasted until the 80s. They were generated by the "tone plant" in the CO by rotating electromechanical oscillators.
When Touch-tone (tm) was rolled out in the 60s, switches were retrofitted with electronic oscillators so as to not interfere with the DTMF receivers. Those oscillators were similar to what in the 70s became called "ESS Dial tone."
Today, all the major switches generate the same generic sounding ESS tones.
And shorly before they released these newfangled telephones, the phone company struck a deal with Bell System, who agreed to sell the telephones only to this company in exchange for a kickback. The telephone company then proceeded to charge an extra $15 a month only to those who carried these new Bell System phones. Fortunately there were some who figured out how to change the phones to work with a different phone company.
The Bell System was the phone company for many people. Back then the phone company manufactured and owned the telphones too. Customers did not own phones, they just rented by the month.
this film is really ancient...I am 54 years old and "never" remember a dial tone like that. Based on her cloths, hair style etc I am going to guess this is about 1949
We still use the 4 digit phone number, the phone company just added a prefix and then an area code to it as things grew. But back in the 20's they had a 4 digit # and if you needed to call out of your prefix, you'd call the operator.
I've heard similar stories from my relatives. The exchange was only 4 numbers and then as the number of people who used telephones increased, the added the first 3 numbers and then area codes for direct-dial long distance. Now with cell phones, faxes, Internet-only lines, etc. The phone companies keep running out of numbers. We've come a long way in a short time.
Way, way back smaller towns had shorter phone numbers, depending on the total number of users. Really small towns had 4-digit phone numbers, or sometimes 3-digit phone numbers.
The town I go to up north in the summer had permissive 4-digit dialing until 2000. The town was small enough that it did not need all 10,000 numbers it its 906-341 exchange. 4-digit numbers with the first three digits matching the exchange of a nearby town (e.g. 283*) were not assigned, and other exchanges in the area code did not conflict, since you needed the 1-906 anyway. Today, one needs to dial the 341.
Now there are no more - just cells and 1-800 etc. Push 1 for English and 4 hrs. you get a recording or you have to start over cause all lines are busy. This system tho manual was much more efficient.......Why the computers didn't duplicate it is a mystery of big money.
am i the only twisted guy that about a little romp in the hay with this hottie? ... though, now that I think about it, she's probably close to a hundred by now. uhm ... nevermind.
you have to imagine that they didn't had any dials before...back then wasn't everybody equiped with a telephone...and that was totaly new like the internet in the late 80's
My grandma tells me stories about back when she was young, they had the 'party line' phone service, and instead of numbers, people had seperate ring tones. Example; her ring tone was 'one long, two short' [the phone would go "riiiiing... ring ring", and that's how you know the phone was for you. haha she she and her brother used to listen to other people's conversations, and they'd get belted if they were caught lol...
man, I was born in '85, but i wish i could experience those days first hand.
At 6:20 Grandpa cuts Mrs. Berthbottom with a deadly glare--for this was the day of the party line. My late neighbor used telephones in the early 1920s. He said that in his community, the party line was all they had, and eavesdropping was the hobby for the Mrs. Berthbottoms of the day; eavesdropping was called "rubbering" the line, back in the days of Ray's youth in rural North Dakota.
Dial tone? Sounds like a dial "buzz". Still for it's time this was an amazing advance (and a cost cutting measure for Bell, who must have laid off operators). The "audience" in the film look totally dumbfounded. What would they do with a computer? Thanks for the old film, fun to watch.
Was someone screaming the dial tone? WTH? I think this was really a game show to see who would die first in silence. The winner got to stay overnight. 5:20 I think we have a couple of winners!!
6:20 She lost the challenge of slap the slop outta him.
..We used the rotary dial until the 1980's! The was slow technology advancement!
trinasmi 1 week ago
That chick is hott! Well she was.
yoshmon 2 weeks ago
So, wow, you mean, when my parents saw this on Youtube, that's how they learned how to .... :-)
voicetube 4 weeks ago
This is great. It's great to see where we were, and where we are. Just think, soon ALL CALLS will be video direct calls where as you can talk to and view, multiple people at the same time, and that will be the standard. WITH OUT WIRES TOO. I mean, look what Email and Electric Fund Transfers are doing to The Postal Service. At the rate things are going, The Post Office will be obsolete.
commonman80 1 month ago
@commonman80 I won't be too soon, you still can't transfer wares via means of a computer.
nrdesign1991 1 month ago
@nrdesign1991, I don't know. Once we figure out how to break down objects to the Atoms and its most basic structure, and reassemble it again to the original object. It will be no time at all before we're transporting them Via Fiber Optics across to World at the speed of light.
commonman80 1 month ago
@commonman80 Either that or the concept of "personal manufacturing" will come in use. That means everyone has a 3D printer that can assemble or "print" complete machines, decorative objects, or just about anything else simply by purchasing the plans from the internet and downloading them into the printer. That would even include the printer making replacement parts for itself, or to fully reproduce without the need of a production plant. The only remaining companies produce raws.
nrdesign1991 1 month ago
@nrdesign1991, True That. Scientist are saying, that at the rate electronic technology is moving, causing everything to be made smaller and more efficient, that in about 100 years or so, Vaccinations will consist of Nanobots about the size of Blood Cells. These Nanobots will remain in the human body throughout a person entire life (Which will be then, on average, about about 150 years) Eradicating diseases and Viruses. Being sick, or getting sick, will be a thing our generation did.
commonman80 1 month ago
I'd feel pretty disappointed every time I dialed a number. Sounds like an "incorrect answer" tone you'd hear on a gameshow.
Yppiti 1 month ago
Every single piece of YouTube greatness (such as this) has 2 dislikes. The questions before us are quite simple: who are these two a**holes? Are they the same two a**holes each time? Or is there an endlessly self-generating stable of a**holes fanning out across YouTube "disliking" greatness? And finally, do these same or endlessly self-generating two a**holes reciprocally "like" Justin Bieber videos (et al), in an orchestrated attempt to remove greatness from the world & replace it with sh*t?
erp65 1 month ago
It's kind of fun to compare this film to the anime Summer Wars, where the "old fashioned" grandma pulls everybody together by reaching out and actually making phone calls to them.
liwowoli 2 months ago
So phones back then used to zap you. Interesting!
somedudeguytv 2 months ago
I am 48 and love the past. I was re-incarnated from the 1930-40s...love those eras...
jevilscientist 2 months ago
Grandpa. He.... he likes it!
lucidwebpress 2 months ago
6:15 durrrrrrr
weswii 2 months ago
wow that dial tone is annoying
Creepingdeathx81 2 months ago
@Creepingdeathx81 That's Pulse Dialing for you... It's just electrical noise.
Dant2142 2 months ago
Hot or not?
rsp196607 2 months ago
Surely people weren't this slow to new technology.
samup07 3 months ago
The phone book was eight pages long..
d46512 3 months ago
the old man is calling up the grand wizard. :/
theblackrabbit 4 months ago
Was she presenting to a roomful of morons?
kefmedia1 4 months ago
Comment removed
GaolisVideoLog 4 months ago
@kefmedia1 No.. It was an entirely new concept around that time. In fact the dependence and reliance on technology that is so prevalent in our society was not really present at this time. Therefore it wasn't like kids who grow up today with cellphones and tvs and internets and know all about this stuff because it's been in existence and common use since before you were born. Furthermore, that generation was responsible for countless scientific and technological achievements that made us modern.
YakuTheDevil 3 months ago
@YakuTheDevil Well said.
saphopoem 2 months ago
Was she presenting to a room of morons?
kefmedia1 4 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@kefmedia1 Come on. Think about the time this was presented in. This was state of the art and so they wanted to make sure that every child would be able to understand what they're presenting. For us it's hard to imagine because we grew up with cell phones. But my grandparents didn't even have a phone in their village back then.
GaolisVideoLog 4 months ago
the dial tone sounds like an ear rape!
SuperSpaceGirlHDTV 4 months ago 9
how old is this video? 1940's? 1950s? 1930s?
CWM800 2 weeks ago
Wow, this has been a great education for me. I've always wondered how the people dialed their phone with the two piece phone. The simple answer was, they didn't lol.
tkoizumi 4 months ago
WE KNOW WHAT THE DIAL TONE SOUNDS LIKE! :')
genericmilk 4 months ago
That woman hates every single person in the room.
milaeighteen 4 months ago
6:27 = LOL
willyicious 4 months ago
Oh, the hats! The hair! The remnant of the northeastern US women's private college last-of-the-British accent (Katherine Hepburn style).
"Don't try to hurry it back."
"Eh? Yeah! That's the right noise."
chachamalone 5 months ago
"Mom! Grandpa's calling that phone sex number again!"
edybeast 5 months ago
Oh those poor poor people, trapped in the wrong century.....
newmac 6 months ago
That "clear, evenly spaced ring..." - how quaint to realize the at one point this was an unfamiliar sound.
patsw1 6 months ago
At least there are no more "party lines" anymore
2pacostacos 7 months ago
I can't get over how thin those phone books are
JoaoPessoa86 7 months ago
@JoaoPessoa86 - I can believe how thin those phone books are. To this day, the Hershey, Pennsylvania phone books are less than 3/4" (2 cm) thick, including both Yellow Pages and white pages. Their covers are chocolate brown and have the Hershey bar logo on them, with the saying, "The Sweetest Place On Earth". Nearby, the Lebanon, Pennsylvania phone book isn't much bigger, but its cover is the standard yellow. Suburban Philadelphia phone books are at least 2" (5 cm) thick if not thicker.
OldsVistaCruiser 5 months ago
cell phones don't have dial tones!
rstandrew7 7 months ago
Those telephone sounds are horrible. I don't remember them in my lifetime, fortunately.
Note that their equipment only accommodates 4-digit phone numbers. And that goes along with their skimpy little phone book, which means this small town didn't have a lot of phones.
There were 5 and 6 digit phone numbers where I live until 1968, when I was a teenager. Then they all changed to 7 digits.
hebneh 8 months ago
thats a small directory
CliftonRX7 9 months ago
I remember using the rotary and didn't want the new touch tone phone. We sort of skipped that and went to the cordelss phone and now just cell phones. Awesome, I like these video's neat to see.
rkcim 9 months ago
Wow! The dial tone sound sounded like my old telephone mounted in my first apartment. The buzz was to allow someone to enter in to my building which happened to be built in the early 1900's. I had to hold a much older ear piece to my ear and speak into a mouth piece. Although this lady sounds professional I want to stand up and say, "we get the point!" let's move it along! We get the point. Now a days people are trained to adapt much quicker!
BennyB5555 9 months ago
so THAT's how you use a phone!
Aquatica4 9 months ago
That lady used to beat the hell out of her old man on a daily basis!
jbearden 10 months ago
And now I'm playing PS1 games on to go on my phone, whilst using navigation software and about 10 other apps.
Markieuh 10 months ago
Miss White's slightly condescending and smug confidence seems unsuited to the subject matter. But it's endearing anyway. (Maybe because she's such a retro hottie.)
harmanxx 10 months ago
What a wicked sounding dial tone. Did it cause brain damage?
Oh, love the hats, ladies!
willy10629 10 months ago
If it sounds like a duck...
diozent 11 months ago
Better than windows vista.
lukebccb 11 months ago
I miss phone phreaks.
MrJohanasBilderberg 11 months ago
That was so lame. Mrs. White was so condescending and the whole demonstration seemed directed at those with an IQ below 90. So, boring. But, it was funny watching the audience. LOL
EABeaudry, I agree Grandpa was a real jerk. Can you imagine living in the same house with him? The granddaughter was a dream child with incredible patience to put up with him.
CATRYNA49 11 months ago
MERZBOW!!!
zomboy67 1 year ago
Just think, our grandkids will laugh at our "high tech" phones we are using today.
SpaceAceTX 1 year ago 9
I'll wait for the ESS5 or the DMS 200 thanks !
James1toknow 1 year ago
That's one scary a*& phone!
James1toknow 1 year ago
Training for ADD customers!!!
James1toknow 1 year ago
OMG that dial tone sounds like a mind altering signal!!!! LOL hahahhaha
James1toknow 1 year ago
Ms White is kinda hot too...
stowles1 1 year ago
that dial tone sounds like its got a ground or high resistance open on it....
stowles1 1 year ago
Cranky Grandpa is the one "dislike" for this video, LOL.
EABeaudry 1 year ago
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GelandnaleG 1 year ago
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GelandnaleG 1 year ago
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GelandnaleG 1 year ago
WOW.....technology has advanced to much..........One day in 40 or 50 years in the future there gonna be videos in youtube of cds, the release of the ipod and the ipad.....and people in that time maybe gonna say what i say in the begining of this message!!!
45gabo 1 year ago
I'm guessing late 30's if that's an early installation of Crossbar 1. The dial tone, ringing & busy signals were generated by a buzzer (or a vibrator relay).
Madness832 1 year ago
I would like to see Gramps use an Android phone.
thefilmbug 1 year ago
Modern Wonders!!! Cranky Grandpa don't want that
wilson809isback 1 year ago
1 person didn't listen for the dial tone.
wfarms1 1 year ago 5
wow, i actually have an antique dial phone, the ringer does not work, because back then they used 115Vac for the ringer to operate, but the phone communication function still works & so does the dial function. I've actually had friends push at the numbers on the dial, expecting it to work. it's a great novelty in the home & they still function.
cme98 1 year ago
@cme98 hmm, perhaps you might want to share the make of the phone ? :-) i'm enthusiasted
justinlimkt 1 year ago
@justinlimkt ---sure, it' says on the bottom... KELLOG (chicago) 1000-series, then has a serial number
cme98 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Miss White is actually pretty hot, in a retro-librarian kind of way.
hallieboy 1 year ago
I want a phone like that!
TexieCornish 1 year ago
Does have a Mystery Science Theater 3000 feel to it.People were so nice ,polite and courteous in public back then in public if not in private.Course minorities were segregated ,discriminated ,and lynched sadly
MrJacMac1986 1 year ago
Remember an episode of Lost in Space when Will was transported back to Earth in 1997.The Vermont town he was in looked like a small town in 1951. Phones with no dails so you had to tell the operator the number.Where were the cell phones if it was 1997?How is it if you can send a family to Alpha Centauri at light speed of faster and still have a town that was behind the times as Will said?
MrJacMac1986 1 year ago
@MrJacMac1986
There are always going to be backwards places, as late as 1965 Walkerville Michigan still didn't have dial phones.
Besides, "Lost in Space" was looking at the late 90's from the 60's. NO ONE was predicting cell phones in the 60's (and no, Star Trek's communicator wasn't a cell phone, it was a short range subspace radio, more like a super walkie talkie, but it wasn't a telephone)
JeffDeWitt 1 year ago
@JeffDeWitt so what's the difference between a telephone & a walkie talkie? ---other than one has a monthly fee & the other does not. What's the difference between a walkie talkie & a cell phone? Both use radio waves.
cme98 1 year ago
It is interesting but it is actually putting me to sleep.
tortoni900 1 year ago
she looks very bossy!
justinlimkt 1 year ago
@justinlimkt yeah but she's got that "i'm hot" look in her eye.
cme98 1 year ago
@cme98 well i have an aunt who talks and looks exactly like her, and it can be quite pain in the a***. yes, and agreed with that 'im hot' look.
justinlimkt 1 year ago
9:16
0:16 because of the little wire things.
GelandnaleG 1 year ago
I don't know when this movie was made. I guess it's the late 40's or early 50's. But I see that Bell Labs/AT&T were very visionary. Looking at the column of lights, you can see that 10 numbers are represented. That is the same configuration we have today.
A sequence of 10 numbers yields 1.3 Billion telephone numbers. This at a time when there were probably less than 40 million telephones. The infrastructure costs to support the extra billion unused numbers would never happen today.
hankaaron1961 1 year ago
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skot66 1 year ago
@hankaaron1961 May 28th 1927..dial phone service went into affect at midnight on Sat
skot66 1 year ago
Notice that the letters are not present on the dialer. At the time, telephone numbers consisted of only 4 numbers. It was believed that people could only remember about four sequential numbers.
When it became necessary to add the prefix numbers, the phone company used code words to represent the prefix (switch) number. So "Diamond- 8284" would be 342-8284. The letters were added then added so people could dial direct, bypassing the operator.
hankaaron1961 1 year ago
@hankaaron1961 Actually letters were present on the real phones. For some reason the big facsimile has no letters
skot66 1 year ago
5:30
Hello
AreYouDrinkingAgain
GelandnaleG 1 year ago
Comment removed
GelandnaleG 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Watermarking videos is just gay
internezzo 1 year ago
Is it just me, or is the Woman drunk?
DengekiGamer 1 year ago
Omg, This woman explaining the new dialing is wearing a snood. And @ 9:29, the old gent's new phone is Western Electric 202 with an oval base and an E1 handset. God Speed landlines. Hang in there.
grafonolafavorite 1 year ago
@grafonolafavorite ---and my phone has a sticker on the bottom which says...
"Property of Bell System" , but beware, the whole phone weighs about 15-20 pounds & still works in a landline (but not the ringer, as that required 115 volts) still i find it amazing & love talking to family on it.
cme98 1 year ago
Omg, This woman explaining the new dialing is wearing a snood.
grafonolafavorite 1 year ago
This woman is wearing a snood.
grafonolafavorite 1 year ago
Good thing that old man is dead now. Cell phones and computers would have blown his head into a million pieces.
imajika2 1 year ago
Wait...how did she escape the kitchen?
Xuvial 1 year ago
am i the only one who finds this whole video really creepy XD
TheCutterschoice 1 year ago
they need the vuvuzela button for this one or a dial tone button in addition to the vuvuzels button
lenkyl 1 year ago
Witchcraft!
weezieJ 1 year ago
That's not a dial tone, a cat got tangled up in the lines.
gherinquad 1 year ago
My mom didn't sit around knitting and my dad didn't sit and read a newspaper wearing a dress shirt and tie; instead my parents would fight and scream at each other with dad almost certainly drunk and he'd be wearing some kind of wifebeater tshirt and dirty jeans. Oh and sis was out getting laid with who knows.
lukebccb 1 year ago
Imagine if you had to dial 10 digits on a rotary phone like it is today with all the gazillions of area codes. I bet there would've been a lot of the Western Digital 302 and 500s that would've been badly dented from being tossed across the room!
lukebccb 1 year ago
Do people really need to take a formal class to learn how to dial an old style damned telephone? ROFL. Technology. Aren't you glad it advances......?
newmac 1 year ago
She kinda looks like Miss Togar in "Rock 'n' Roll High School."
c0t0d0s7 1 year ago
4 digit phone number that was only 50 years ago just think what 50 years from now my grand kids will want to know how a mouse worked.
amcabbott 1 year ago
*picks up phone*
*hears dial tone*
OH GOD MY BRAINS!!!
Haha, no, Gah, I love this video. Technology is awesome... especially old stuff.
kurisux 1 year ago
She really cozies up to the big dial.
ManInTheBigHat 1 year ago
She's lovely.
ManInTheBigHat 1 year ago
ManInTheBigHat: she looks like Joan Crawford.
And that's not meant as a compliment.
lukebccb 1 year ago
I love how she leans into the "big dial" and pushes off of it. Sexy librarian type. I'd like her number... please.
ManInTheBigHat 1 year ago
gee that is a horrible dial tone. the phones ring different here in australia, like a ring ring,. hard to believe 4 digit numbers too. things have changed a lot since then. overseas calls sound as good as calling a friend across town.
steviebboy69 1 year ago
So you had to get your phone equipment only from bell labs? Wow, that sucks, I sure am glad that 100 years later they finally gave that up...(looks at my iphone 3gs)...oh...wait a minute...
elgavilan2000 1 year ago
I loved how she help up the phone calmly with a smile as it blared out a hideous electrical buzz. This is the sound of your new master. Welcome it.
noxvet 1 year ago 11
@noxvet Your master now is the cell phone and much more insidious than the old rotary dial or push button simple telephone. How much you are enslaved to a technology or just let it serve you is up to the user.
WC3POchannel10A 11 months ago
She didn't explain how to call the operator did she? Oh' that's right, one thing at a time zzzzzzzzz....
paulj0557 1 year ago 3
What year was this filmed?
rennyminou 1 year ago
@rennyminou I was wondering the same thing. My guess would be late 30's or early 40's?
02chevyguy 1 year ago
those took so much energy and u could make secret codes like morse by tpping metal on the inside
geekforlifevandc 1 year ago
Funny thing about the dial tone. Even now I have to remind my wife "wait for the dial tone" because I may be on the other extension and she blindly tries to make a call before listening. Excuse me? Some people are slow to learn I guess. Or back when our city was hit by a tornado. People said "the phone's dead" I had to tell them. Wait. The dial tone will come. Eventually. Then you're good to go. I tell ya, some people forget more than I do.
UglySean 2 years ago
@UglySean - My 82-year-old mother, who would have been a little girl when this was made, has the same problem of dialing without listening for the dial tone. I told her that she's been taught from the time she was little to "listen for the dial tone" and after more than 70 years (she lived in the city of Philadelphia 70 years ago), she should be used to it by now.
OldsVistaCruiser 5 months ago
Oh god what a HORRIBLE dial tone.
I'm so glad they invented a new one.
UglySean 2 years ago 28
@UglySean I like the old school dial tones.. more character... modern one is boring!
dmine45 1 year ago
@UglySean It didn't sound that bad, the audio is obviously compressed in this Youtube video and this was recorded in AM radio quality if even that! :)
Xerox6085I 1 year ago
@UglySean (horrible dial tone)
It sounds more like a busy signal, IMO.
As recently as the 1960s and 70s, when you saw a movie or TV character place a call, the "ringing" at the other end would be almost as bad--an unpleasant sound like a sleeper snoring. I was around then, but I've never heard anything but a ring much like today's.
Pithecanthropus2483 9 months ago
I did not know the dial tone, busy line, telephone ring sound totally different back in the 40s. Its totally different tone sound.
The sound tone kinda sound irratating. Interesting.
TheIxtlan 2 years ago
Almost every town, it seemed, had a different sounding dial tone, busy line, ring sound, etc. even back in the 70's.
matkovicha 2 years ago
I would have loved to have lived before electricity. I love my furnace though!!
midnightrealms1 2 years ago
Most dial tones and busy signals sounded like this until the 60s. Some lasted until the 80s. They were generated by the "tone plant" in the CO by rotating electromechanical oscillators.
When Touch-tone (tm) was rolled out in the 60s, switches were retrofitted with electronic oscillators so as to not interfere with the DTMF receivers. Those oscillators were similar to what in the 70s became called "ESS Dial tone."
Today, all the major switches generate the same generic sounding ESS tones.
kjclark1963 2 years ago 2
That dial tone sounded like an electric shaver gone wrong....
WindsorFox 2 years ago
I have to say I agree: If I picked up a phone and heard that, I would freak. (at least, now).
Eh, at least that other comment described what was going on. I like learning stuff like that. :D
kurisux 2 years ago
Most young people would need to see this to be able to use a rotary dial telephone :-)
bakelitetelephones 2 years ago
I don't. ;) I use a rotary phone, and when I was about 5 years old in the 90's, I saw my first rotary and figured it out fairly quick.
Western Electric 500 here. ;)
hakemon 2 years ago
And shorly before they released these newfangled telephones, the phone company struck a deal with Bell System, who agreed to sell the telephones only to this company in exchange for a kickback. The telephone company then proceeded to charge an extra $15 a month only to those who carried these new Bell System phones. Fortunately there were some who figured out how to change the phones to work with a different phone company.
Imagine telling that to your customers in 1949...
elgavilan2000 2 years ago
The Bell System was the phone company for many people. Back then the phone company manufactured and owned the telphones too. Customers did not own phones, they just rented by the month.
An805Guy 2 years ago
this film is really ancient...I am 54 years old and "never" remember a dial tone like that. Based on her cloths, hair style etc I am going to guess this is about 1949
inkey2 2 years ago
Wow they manage to make such a simple thing seem so complicated! They would probably faint at the sight of a PC
jdgator95 2 years ago
That old man is a true relic from the Victorian era.
wardmjwrd 2 years ago
Wow.....Dial tones sucked back in the old days.
Zoomer30 2 years ago
Yep. It sounds like Lucy and Ricky's apartment door buzzer!
visor109 2 years ago
my times have changed
CathyRas65 2 years ago 2
Golly, hot digiddy dog! Where can I get me one of these fancy do-dads!?
Druidbw 2 years ago 2
a 4 digit phone number??wtf!!!
xanafanadu 2 years ago
We still use the 4 digit phone number, the phone company just added a prefix and then an area code to it as things grew. But back in the 20's they had a 4 digit # and if you needed to call out of your prefix, you'd call the operator.
thegauntletcom 2 years ago 3
my phone number has 7 digits without the prefix
xanafanadu 2 years ago
mine too but cellphone.. not tele
KnightsOfPhilippines 2 years ago
I've heard similar stories from my relatives. The exchange was only 4 numbers and then as the number of people who used telephones increased, the added the first 3 numbers and then area codes for direct-dial long distance. Now with cell phones, faxes, Internet-only lines, etc. The phone companies keep running out of numbers. We've come a long way in a short time.
beachgrad98 2 years ago
Way, way back smaller towns had shorter phone numbers, depending on the total number of users. Really small towns had 4-digit phone numbers, or sometimes 3-digit phone numbers.
An805Guy 2 years ago
Not quite so "way, way back".
The town I go to up north in the summer had permissive 4-digit dialing until 2000. The town was small enough that it did not need all 10,000 numbers it its 906-341 exchange. 4-digit numbers with the first three digits matching the exchange of a nearby town (e.g. 283*) were not assigned, and other exchanges in the area code did not conflict, since you needed the 1-906 anyway. Today, one needs to dial the 341.
1L6E6VHF 2 years ago
Seminar for the mentally challenged
justme632 2 years ago
The dial tone sounds like the dryer buzzer. "BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ"
Bellwestern80 2 years ago
Lady, the REAL number is: 867-5309!
visor109 2 years ago 2
This is incredibly weird
bl0ckeduser 2 years ago
I don't know where they are or when. I don't remember a dial tone ever sounding so obnoxious.
elyseny 2 years ago 2
i want that phone
ifimlyinimbryan 2 years ago
"Listen for the dial tone" - NRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHH
What a pleasant sound indeed! :D
bureX 2 years ago 20
Now there are no more - just cells and 1-800 etc. Push 1 for English and 4 hrs. you get a recording or you have to start over cause all lines are busy. This system tho manual was much more efficient.......Why the computers didn't duplicate it is a mystery of big money.
HarborGuy 2 years ago
This lady is having trouble not laughing at the morons in the audience.
garywatson 2 years ago 5
HA I love it!
juantrippe82 2 years ago
Love the "that's you old biddy!" look Grandpa gives his neighbor at 6:15!
Tracymmo 3 years ago 2
hahahaa
SonAvitch 3 years ago
am i the only twisted guy that about a little romp in the hay with this hottie? ... though, now that I think about it, she's probably close to a hundred by now. uhm ... nevermind.
randcentral 3 years ago 2
00:45...That's deafening grinding noise was a dial-tone?! Sheesh...I'm glad I grew up in the 1970's.
Pantechnicon 3 years ago 2
I'm lost... she went way too fast... and the dial is too small to see! Oh woe is me...
MattExzy 3 years ago
holy crap....who is she teaching; little kids???
bozomahoney 3 years ago
you have to imagine that they didn't had any dials before...back then wasn't everybody equiped with a telephone...and that was totaly new like the internet in the late 80's
313EDO 3 years ago
Dial tone of death more likely.
Ok What I wanna know is why aren't there meetings like this being held to teach my Dad how to text message?
Plan9wood 3 years ago 7
LOL!!! Good one!
Tracymmo 3 years ago
Ha! Too right!
garywatson 2 years ago
So, before they had numbers did they just ask the operator for the person they wanted to call?
chickenbuttguesswhat 3 years ago
Yep. Watch the reruns of the Andy Griffith show sometime. "Sarah, get me Goober down at the filling station".
Jnmcda0 3 years ago 4
My grandma tells me stories about back when she was young, they had the 'party line' phone service, and instead of numbers, people had seperate ring tones. Example; her ring tone was 'one long, two short' [the phone would go "riiiiing... ring ring", and that's how you know the phone was for you. haha she she and her brother used to listen to other people's conversations, and they'd get belted if they were caught lol...
man, I was born in '85, but i wish i could experience those days first hand.
wilkes85 3 years ago 5
...and to think, now we have phones that can ring differently to who's calling...and play music for people who are calling us...
Rymac91 3 years ago
At 6:20 Grandpa cuts Mrs. Berthbottom with a deadly glare--for this was the day of the party line. My late neighbor used telephones in the early 1920s. He said that in his community, the party line was all they had, and eavesdropping was the hobby for the Mrs. Berthbottoms of the day; eavesdropping was called "rubbering" the line, back in the days of Ray's youth in rural North Dakota.
HartfordTommy 3 years ago 5
When I was a little kid in 1959, we moved into a neighborhood that still had party line telephone service. It was a strange experience!
pisces516973 3 years ago 4
Dial tone? Sounds like a dial "buzz". Still for it's time this was an amazing advance (and a cost cutting measure for Bell, who must have laid off operators). The "audience" in the film look totally dumbfounded. What would they do with a computer? Thanks for the old film, fun to watch.
clydesight 3 years ago 2