A Rotary Phone & A Challenge

[KellyinAvon]

Somebody toss them an 8-Track tape! My parents had the same 70s yellow rotary wall phone from 72 until into the 90s. I think Dad's work got a call system with a phone tree and that's why they got a touch-tone. You could put a touch-tone phone on a rotary line, you heard it dialing!

I remember rotary phones on base at Keflavik NAS, Iceland 89-90. They'd upgraded by the time I came back in 96.

[ralph]

Worse: I remember the first time when one of my co-workers revealed they had never seen one...and that was a long time ago. #old

Worse yet, One of the last jobs I worked before I retired, we had a 19 yr old apprentice, who didn’t know what a phone booth was, and a couple of us older guys had to explain not only what it was, but also how a pay phone worked...It totally blew his mind...

[farscott]

Completely unrelated, but my maternal grandfather worked for General Electric and "the farm" was his weekend/summer property. He had the first microwave I ever saw, and also the first VCR. I assume they fell off an assembly line, but I don't actually know. That microwave was over thirty years old when it outlived both of them. It was big and heavy, but it worked a treat. It lived in Louisville, then in the summer kitchen at the farm, then at their house they moved to in retirement. I've no idea who took it afterward, but I figure it's still working whoever did.

I worked at GE's Appliance Park in Louisville for almost seven years. The business had a habit of insuring employees got first prototype samples and then production units of the product for almost nothing as part of the development process. The most I paid for any appliance, a top freezer fridge, was $100, with my range costing me $50. If you worked on a program, the expectation was that prototype units were in your home with professional installation paid by the business. The final production unit was the only one that could be purchased; others were prototypes owned by the business.

[whomever]

BB has me free-associating down microwave memory lane ... a couple years after the Berlin Wall came down, my bro got an exchange student from the former East Germany.

My bro was a Mr. Fixit extraordinaire. When my people's microwaves would break, they would get a new one from Walmart for $89.95, and give him the old one. The next time he was bored, he'd troubleshoot the circuit boards or whatever and fix them, and put them in the basement. If people needed one he'd give them one, but most people couldn't live even a few days to get one from him, so he had 3 or 4 piled up, fixed and ready to go. He just couldn't bear to send them to the landfill if they could be fixed.

Anyway, they are cooking dinner a few days after the exchange student gets there, and the microwave breaks. My bro turns to the exchange student and asks 'would you go to the basement and bring up one of the spare microwaves?'. The kid assumes he is getting sent to look for a bucket of prop wash, because even in America people couldn't be so rich as to have spare microwaves stockpiled. But he plays along, goes down to the basement and sees the stack ... that took him some time to get over. I mean, in E Germany no one but the nomenkultura has a microwave, and here this middle class family has a stack of spares ...

[BobM]

My dad and my aunt still have working rotary phones on their walls. Probably the last two remaining in their county. My dad also still listens to his 8 track collection.

[AKDoug]

To continue the thread drift.. this is my 1984 Panasonic microwave oven. On duty in our business’ break room through three different buildings. Oldest working asset we have. Don't tell me to clean it.. that's as clean as it gets.




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[Maple Syrup Actual]

Back when I contracted for the phone company here, I used to monkey around with these once in a while.

I got good at dialing by tapping the hangup button at rotary speed on a lot of phones...it rarely, but occasionally, came in handy.

I'd still like to own a phone booth, just for fun.

[_JD_]

I found a rotary phone at a job site a couple months back and brought it home apparently there are pulse / tone adapters that might work for rotos.


In the topic of making me feel old my younger co worker doesn't understand why I keep a binder full of pertinent docs in my truck because we have laptops and I have to explain that:
1: I predate laptops
2: they break.

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[TiroFijo]

Next we're going to start talking about the time when a home appliance was supposed to last at least a few years...

[Jim Watson]

As a crusty batchelor, I am not putting a lot of wear and tear on my kitchen appliances, but my HVAC is a disaster.
In nine years I have replaced nearly all of the central unit piecemeal, some big parts twice. The only original moving part I can think of is the air handler blower.
The separate wall unit in the shop has its original compressor but nothing else. I have 2/3 or 3/4 the new cost in repairs.