# Baffled by rotary phones **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 17, 2019, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffled-by-rotary-phones/827937 "2019-01-17T17:54:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2019, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffled-by-rotary-phones/827937/21 "2019-01-17T21:33:01Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Millenials seem… special. I don’t know if it’s just gloating articles written to make them look that way, or if it’s a real thing, but I see more stuff about them being barely functional in the adult world than for any other group. > > Stuff like this: > > [Some students are reportedly not voting because they don't know where to buy stamps - ABC7 Chicago](https://abc7chicago.com/politics/not-having-stamps-stops-college-students-from-absentee-voting-report/4319971/) > > or the idea that there are “adulting” classes for millenials. WTF? You need a class to explain how to have your shit minimally together enough to function? What did your parents do all those years when you were growing up? You do know ‘millenials’ refers to the age group currently between around 22 and 37, right? Your new college students are probably ‘generation Z’ (nice apocalyptic feel, that name). It’s not just you, half the articles you read claim ‘millenials don’t know x!’ and when you read it, it’s a survey of 14 year olds. 14 year olds don’t know all the stuff adults do, especially when it comes to totally obsolete stuff. Why should they? I’m a millenial; we had a rotary phone until I was 8. It’s not a skill I consider in any way useful, and I highly doubt I’d bother teaching it to my hypothetical children, but yes, I can remember how to use one. Regards, The only generation that could set the time on a VCR. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2019, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffled-by-rotary-phones/827937/22 "2019-01-17T21:34:44Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > Show them a candlestick phone and see what happens Probably “Damn, that thing’s heavy!” ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2019, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffled-by-rotary-phones/827937/23 "2019-01-17T21:35:49Z")
> [@mikecurtis](#): > > I know I’m treading dangerously close to old man territory > > mc You’re not close. You’re frolicking in it. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2019, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffled-by-rotary-phones/827937/24 "2019-01-17T21:37:50Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > You do know ‘millenials’ refers to the age group currently between around 22 and 37, right? Your new college students are probably ‘generation Z’ (nice apocalyptic feel, that name). It’s not just you, half the articles you read claim ‘millenials don’t know x!’ and when you read it, it’s a survey of 14 year olds. 14 year olds don’t know all the stuff adults do, especially when it comes to totally obsolete stuff. Why should they? > > I’m a millenial; we had a rotary phone until I was 8. It’s not a skill I consider in any way useful, and I highly doubt I’d bother teaching it to my hypothetical children, but yes, I can remember how to use one. > > Regards, > The only generation that could set the time on a VCR. Don’t worry, you and I will eventually hit the “everyone younger than me is stupid and lazy” phase eventually too. ---
**Author:** ![excavating\_for\_a\_mind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e8c25b/32.png) [@excavating\_for\_a\_mind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/excavating_for_a_mind)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2019, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffled-by-rotary-phones/827937/25 "2019-01-17T22:43:23Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Fun fact about rotary phones - you could dial them by clicking the handset the appropriate number of times fast. 1 click for 1, 10 for 0. > > Fun to do once. At MIT we had rotary phones for our in-dorm network, which used only five numbers, so easier to do it there. In the system we had (only 4 digits), you could cut-in on a line that was in-use by dialing the number, except minus one on the final digit (if the number was 4567, dial 4566) and just when the dial clicked the last click, if you clicked it manually, it would connect you to the line in use. So, if someone was hogging the line of someone you needed to call, you could get in. I have no idea how or who figured this out, ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2019, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffled-by-rotary-phones/827937/26 "2019-01-17T22:55:52Z")
Add me to the group that believes this crap is staged. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2019, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffled-by-rotary-phones/827937/27 "2019-01-17T23:10:19Z")
> [@mikecurtis](#): > > I was walking by my Junior High school (grades 7 & 8) a while back, and was amazed to see the old bike rack still where it always was. I think it might even be the same one from 40 years ago. The amazing thing, tho, was there was not one bike locked to it. NOT ONE! This got me curious. I had to use Google maps and street view, but I looked at my old suburban middle school, and there seem to be lots of bikes there. I’ve completely forgotten how to use a rotary phone. I used to know the Hayes AT command code to switch to pulse dialing, because we had two phone lines: one with touch tone, and one that was dial only. Now I don’t remember what that AT command is. I remember atdt to call a number, but not how to switch to pulse. If it were 1985 and I was trying to get on a BBS I’d be flailing around like those kids. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2019, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffled-by-rotary-phones/827937/28 "2019-01-17T23:29:34Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > You do know ‘millenials’ refers to the age group currently between around 22 and 37, right? Your new college students are probably ‘generation Z’ (nice apocalyptic feel, that name). It’s not just you, half the articles you read claim ‘millenials don’t know x!’ and when you read it, it’s a survey of 14 year olds. 14 year olds don’t know all the stuff adults do, especially when it comes to totally obsolete stuff. Why should they? Personally, I don’t think they should know this. I’m just amused that something that was common knowledge for everyone is not now known by the newer generations. There are probably things that I never knew how to do that were common knowledge for generations that proceeded me. (For example, until 100-150 years ago or so, most people had regular experience riding horses or horse carts or oxcarts and relied on candles or lanterns for illumination. Sending and receiving telegrams was common, but not for decades.) ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2019, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffled-by-rotary-phones/827937/29 "2019-01-17T23:44:58Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Yeah. Right after divestiture I went to a talk about how to manufacture Western Electric phones so that they’d be less solid, since fewer people wanted to rent them. I raw thinking about this when the thread first started (but didn’t want to take it on a tangent yet.) You used to have to rent the phones, not own them. I still remember as a kid in the 80s my family buying a phone for the first time (with Green Stamps!) and there was this special number you were supposed to call to register your new phone with the phone company (surely entirety bogus–the thing was purely plug and play.) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2019, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffled-by-rotary-phones/827937/30 "2019-01-17T23:53:13Z")
I don’t think that it’s necessarily staged, per se, but edited to the same effect. Show a piece of old technology to a bunch of youngsters, some will already know it because they like retro stuff, some will find it intuitive enough to figure it out quickly, some will experiment a bit and figure it out, and some will show various degrees of bafflement. Pick and choose the right set of genuine reactions, and show only those, and you can spin any narrative you want. It’s the same effect that you get with those “man on the street” interviews that have been popular on late-night shows since forever. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2019, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffled-by-rotary-phones/827937/31 "2019-01-18T00:20:29Z")
I still have a dial phone in my house and it still works (that is the cable company I get phone service from still accepts pulse phones). I don’t use it very often. Now if only I could figure out all the functions on my cell phone. ---
**Author:** ![Bonnie14](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7ea924/32.png) [@Bonnie14](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonnie14)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2019, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffled-by-rotary-phones/827937/32 "2019-01-18T00:43:16Z")
My 87 year old father emailed this same video to me last week. I thought it was funny but doesn’t necessarily say anything bad about the kids. I am in my late 50’s but have worked with folks in their teens and 20’s. It is fun to discuss with them all kinds of different things. And fun to make fun of one another about all the crap we don’t know relative to our ages. (the email was forwarded from a cousin in Australia; I guess this video has gotten around a bit) ---
**Author:** ![PoppaSan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/poppasan/32/189_2.png) [@PoppaSan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoppaSan)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2019, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffled-by-rotary-phones/827937/33 "2019-01-18T01:01:57Z")
Everyone that makes fun of youth and their lack of skills with older technology should be required to show proficiency in harnessing a horse and connecting it to a buckboard. Taking it for a 2 mile trip would earn a gold star. Then they can laugh. I did this all not too many years ago. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2019, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffled-by-rotary-phones/827937/34 "2019-01-18T01:23:44Z")
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#): > > In the last few years before cell phones were everywhere, I still had all the numbers memorized that I would need on a daily basis… there were some numbers I couldn’t remember if I dialed them on the rotary phone rather than punched them into the other phones. Never thought this anecdote would be relevant to a Dope thread, but J.R., my best friend in 7th grade, had a phone number that took FOREVER on a rotary phone (588-0088). You’d crank those eights and zeroes around and tap your foot impatiently as it clackety-clacked back… sooo slowwwwly… Suddenly it was the future, and Touch-Tone™ phones showed up. And my friend’s number was the fastest. A couple of taps down the middle of the phone. (Hmmm, I should ask my old friends if any of us phoned J.R. more often after that) ---
**Author:** ![Arjuna34](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Arjuna34](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arjuna34)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2019, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffled-by-rotary-phones/827937/35 "2019-01-18T01:34:18Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > Now I don’t remember what that AT command is. I remember atdt to call a number, but not how to switch to pulse. If it were 1985 and I was trying to get on a BBS I’d be flailing around like those kids. D = dial command, with T or P as modifiers: ATDT = dial with touch tone ATDP = dial with pulse ATD = dial with default method (varied I think) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2019, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffled-by-rotary-phones/827937/36 "2019-01-18T01:53:03Z")
That’s nothing. [See if they can figure out what to do with this.](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61ZDd-3WuOL._AC_UL320_SR318,320_.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2019, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffled-by-rotary-phones/827937/37 "2019-01-18T02:27:32Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Fun fact about rotary phones - you could dial them by clicking the handset the appropriate number of times fast. 1 click for 1, 10 for 0. > > Fun to do once. At MIT we had rotary phones for our in-dorm network, which used only five numbers, so easier to do it there. In my dorm (1975), the switch panel was in the hallway. I showed someone how I could take a pair of headphones and tap the plug on the contacts of any phone line I wanted to place a call. The problem was that there was no microphone so I couldn’t talk. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2019, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffled-by-rotary-phones/827937/38 "2019-01-18T04:25:04Z")
We were just talking yesterday about whether some classic pieces of art, [like this by Claes Oldenburg](http://www.waymarking.com/gallery/image.aspx?f=1&guid=764aac09-789e-464e-b286-693e56eaf5a9), make any sense to anyone under 50. If you don’t want to click, it’s a scaled-up sculpture of a “Typewriter Eraser”. ETA: I miss phone-hacking, using pranks from _Steal This Book_ and _2600_ (the hacker’s magazine named after the frequency used with pay phones… if I got the number right). ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2019, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffled-by-rotary-phones/827937/39 "2019-01-18T04:39:59Z")
The first phones you could buy were push button, but the one I had included a switch you could set for dial pulse or touchtone. The BoCs charged more for touchtone, though since it tied up the network less during dialing it was cheaper. We had dial pulse service, but I found that if I set the phone for touchtone it worked just as well. I think they figured this out about three years after I started it. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2019, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffled-by-rotary-phones/827937/40 "2019-01-18T05:58:39Z")
That’s nothing. My aunt was babysitting her grandson, and he pointed at the phone on the wall on her kitchen, asking what it was, since my cousins don’t have a landline. > [@aceplace57](#): > > Remember how satisfying it was to slam the handset onto the hook? 😉 Oh, what I wouldn’t GIVE to be able to do that to telemarketers again. And prank calling isn’t as easy as it used to be, like it was when we were kids. But what really sucked is even after you got a push-button phone, you had to have your house rewired for it, otherwise you’d still get that da-da-da-da… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffled-by-rotary-phones/827937.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffled-by-rotary-phones/827937.md?page=3)