I’m 22, and I can use a rotary phone, having experience with a (real, but disconnected) one as a child.
I’m 30, our kitchen phone was rotary until at least until 1990, so of course I can use one. I’ve also seen hipsters with old rotaries in their apartment.
I wonder if she was just playing it up for you.
My mother is a computer programmer, in which capacity she worked for NASA and NORAD in the '60s.
She still can’t really use a PC.
I’m 32 and grew up in a rotary-phone household. I still have fond memories of my grandmother’s puke-green phone (that could easily double as a capable weapon for inflicting blunt-force trauma) with the ringer that sounded like the world’s scariest alarm clock. Good times.
And yes, I know how to use one, although I’d worry that I’d get the Homer Simpson “I’m sorry – your fingers are too fat to dial this phone” message.
29 here, and I’ve got two. Black in the kitchen, and pink in the craft room. I went to several auctions trying to find good phones, and I am still in search of a nice wall mount one. Though I don’t use them to dial out much, the look of surprise on people’s faces when they ring is nice. That and I prefer them ringing to the synth. type rings of today’s phones.
We had our requisite one Ma Bell wall-mounted black phone in the kitchen for as long as we lived in my childhood home (till I was 18). Certainly it’s straightforward but still, I managed to dial the same wrong number twice in a row because I was dialing from across the table and the angle must have been wide enough to distort how far I pulled the dial. :o It’s memorable because I didn’t make many calls.
I’m 25 and I can use 'em. We had one when I was a kid, and a friend’s house I think still has one in use in the garage.
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You’re 25?! For some reason I thought you were, I dunno, in your 40s. Not that I’d really thought about it that much. :smack:
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Never used one, but I’m sure I could figure it out. I’ve seen people using it on TV, after all. You just turn it to each number and let go. Seems kind of fun, actually.
My parents used the same rotary dial phone (made of Bakelite and weighing in at around 10 pounds) until about 1990. It finally gave up the ghost and they wanted to keep it, but the telephone company took it back.
I’m 35, and my parents still use the same rotary phone that they had when I was little. But I can top that: my grandparents still live in the house that they moved into when my mom was in high school (about 1960), and it has a single phone cable going through the wall of the house to their rotary phone, with no jack; not even an old four-pin one.
I used rotary dial phones at my grandparents’ houses. In fact I have one of their old phones and someday when I have a landline I’ll use it. I’m 29.
I’m 28 and I know how they work, but I don’t know anybody’s number anymore (Hold down 2=wife, duh).
Just kidding. I know my wife’s number, our home number, and my parent’s number, so I could call any of those people/places.
Anyway, I agree with WhyNot and Q.E.D. about the girl. A rotary phone is not intuitive. It’s easy to explain, but not intuitive, especially in a world of buttons.
A question for those of you who have a mix of rotary and touch-tone phones - do you still have to have ‘pulse’ telephone service? I have a vague memory of some point in the 80’s, when we ‘upgraded’ to our first touch-tone phone. When we first got it, and would ‘dial’, you would still hear the pulses (and there was a pulse/tone switch on the phone). I recall that we had to call the phone company and request tone service. I can’t say I’m totally certain this was the case, but that’s how I remember it.
Can any of you rotary phone dialing experts be able to tell me how to rewind an 8 track tape?
**Lambo ** - no, the phone company is quite good at recognizing pulse dialing and converting it internally to tone. Having to request tone dialing service is a vestige of the era when they were able to charge more for the convenience of faster dialing. Now, I’m surprised they don’t bill me extra for all of my slow rotary dialing tying up their equipment.
It was amusing a few months ago to see a friend’s 11 year old son try to figure out one of my rotary phones. As someone else upthread mentioned, he initially poked his fingers into the holes on the dial. Took him a bit of time to grasp the whole “stick your finger in at the desired number, spin your finger over to the fingerstop and release” scheme, but now, he knows how they work.
For those that don’t know, I collect old phones and now and then, I’ll rotate them in or out of service at home just so they don’t get too lonely. About the only constant is the bright red touch-tone phone on my desk that has all 12 buttons so I can dial into conference calls for work as our two conference systems either need the * or # buttons. Everything else is a rotary dial or 10-button touch-tone from 1966 or so, before the * and # had been invented.
A silly thought I had last night pertaining to the iPhone: The thing is touch-screen driven. How long before some nostalgic designer develops a rotary dial app for it?
John - for that, I think you have to hurl the cartridge against the road while driving. This will loosen the tape from the plastic shell so you can re-wind it. You need to hurry though, as the tape tends to be dragged along by other cars on the road.
I think the co-worker is slow. My barely 24-year-old brother knows how to use one. We both figured it out without instuction as kids because that’s what our great-grandmother had.
Did you figure it out before you ever saw one?
We still have a wonderful flesh-tone wall-mounted rotary phone in service.
The dog dialed 911? See, that’s why you’ve got to keep their nails clipped short. Otherwise pretty soon they’ll wise up and start calling out for pizza.
We once had a cocker spaniel who finally got pissed off enough at the phone ringing to start answering it (she’d knock the receiver off and bark or whine for a bit). Luckily she never advanced to making outgoing calls.
Pointless nitpick: they had been invented and were integral to the touchtone key layout, but evidently were not included on this phone, having not found common use by then.