Remember buttons? The real kind that you had to push? And they made a little click noise? So satisfying! And yet so much work compared to touch screens. I guess the thing I’m typing on has button, but it’s just not the same.
These stools lead my brain in three directions:
1. The store Think Big which used to be in Soho. They had everyday projects there but BIG. Pencils the size of a small tree. Watches the size of grandfather clocks. I wanted it all. Google is telling
2. Bill DeRouchey’s fabulous site about the history of the button: PushClickTouch.
3. The phone keyboard. Rearrange the set up, add in the star and hash keys, and maybe fashion it so that an appropriate tone sounds on each one when you sit down. Put someone on each one and you could orchestrate a mean rendition of Mary Had A Little Lamb.
(via nevver from What the Cool)
(Source: nevver)
399 
I’m an embroidery nerd and a retro phone enthusiast, so this one is kind of a double whammy. Or maybe a quadruple one. Head to TinyModernist on Etsy for more inspired cross stitch patterns.
(via ReadyMade)
Someday soon us older folks are going to have to explain to the younger generation what a telephone was and why it had a cord…
78 20 
I love the wily vacuum in the back. You see, in the days when phones were new, Hoovers used to wait until you were deep in conversation before strangling you.
It sucked. Ha! At least I make myself laugh. Interestingly, the vacuums were never caught. They always made a clean getaway.
Okay, I’ll shut up now.
(via Carabaas)
5 
This thing is really cool! Why didn’t it ever catch on? Maybe because it could only be used if you had the hand of a tyrannosaurus?
Retro Selectro: Card Callmaker Ad (1973)
(via BoingBoing)
Remember when you actually WANTED the guy to call? I do. But does anyone under 25?
This is just one of the many to-the-point pre-penned missives offered up at the anti-text-stalking site thatsnotcool.com. [via iheartdaily.com]
OBSOLETE CONTEST SUBMISSION DAY 2: Calling for the time and weather
Brooklynite Pat Cassidy Mollach remembers that “When I was young we used to call on the home phone to get the Time and Temperature Lady…”
A few years ago, AT&T put the kabosh on this service. The LA Times had a nice eulogy, which can be seen here.
(Click her for contest information)
Converstion with Dandara, my 8-year-old niece, while we are looking at an illustration in OBSOLETE, Part II. The drawing is of a calculator watch.
Me: What's this?
Dandara: You put it on the wrist.
Me: Yup. But then what?
Dandara: Well, it's a phone. You hold up to your ear.
Me: Your right. It kind of looks like a phone. But actually, it's a watch.
Dandara: No, it's a phone. I've seen these before.
1960’s Advertisement for Western Electric.
Also be sure to check out this amazing hi-res scan of a WE full page ad titled “There are 3,000 ‘bits’ of information on this page” over at PhoneBooth.org.
Me, circa 1981. Even then, I liked to surround myself with obsolete objects. “But,” you say, “landlines and newspapers were nowhere obsolete then!” Shush up. I was just prescient.
I found this while going some old photo albums last night. There were actually about 20 photos of me with this phone. Make of this what you will.
Gallery: Vintage Culture on the Line — Novelty Phones Recall the Past
A look at when phones had cords…and character.
Dial M-A-T-T-R-E-S
Jessica: i had to call 1 800 JET-BLUE and i went to my blackberry to call them but my BB doesn't have the ABC DEF GHI markings on each number key like most (and older) phone do so i couldn't make the call
me: ha. how did you make the call?
Jessica: i went to my landline -- which has an old princess phone
me: My phone is the same. I've found myself, at times, trying to figure it out by saying the alphabet in bits of three while counting.Okay, 1 is nothing, 2 is ABC, 3 is DEF...but then a few of the numbers have more than three letters, so eventually it becomes a guessing game!
Jessica: but do other people have them memorized?what does JETBLUE expect? can we not do 1800 - WHATEVER in the future?
me: I doubt many people have it memorized. Many people don't even know their own number.
Jessica: right
me: the last numbers of my phone number spell COCK
Jessica: ha!
me: interestingly, they also spell ANAL
Jessica: so funny -- you have option. but now no one will know
me: well, maybe in the future, we just won't use phones at all. fingers crossed!
Jessica: we will just mind meld. or not communicate at all
me: Or we'll IM
