I worked as a television news photographer for years. I was lucky. I started not that long after those bulky, heavy, external recording decks had been subsumed into the the camera body itself (“camcorder” or “dockable”).
The bulky, heavy battery belts were still needed to power a camera light but that too went away within a year or so (if your station could afford* the new & improved equipment.)
*fun side note: I asked the chief photographer at my first station how much the insurance cost for the cameras. He told me they didn’t carry any because it would be prohibatively expensive. If someone stole a camera the station was just out $80,000-100,000.
I remember the early days of cell phones well – the wife had a company-provided Motorola brick phone, which was a wonder of its time (and cost around $6000, IIRC). But the only other kind of cell phone I recall from the time was the “car phone”, which was permanently mounted in the car, and wired to a distinctive outside antenna. I had to Google “bag phone”. If I ever saw such a thing, I must have forgotten. They couldn’t have been all that common, at least around here. OTOH, I tend to forget a lot of things!
I would imagine they were also cheaper, since they didn’t need the leading-edge miniaturization of the handheld brick phones.
The advantage of the bag phone at the time was that it was portable compared to the car phone that was attached to a car. Later came the brick type phone which is what I would consider the first of the modern type phone that was a stand alone unit with no need for external batteries and antennas. It was about a decade from when I first saw the brick style phone until I got my first flip phone.
When I was in grade school, some time around the late 80’s/early 90’s, just about everyone had those and just like your classroom, they’d all beep, one at a time, over the course of a minute or so. However, unlike your classmates, we didn’t turn them off, we worked to synchronize them so they’d all beep within a few seconds of each other.
Honestly, when you said ‘200 engineering students’, I figured that’s what they would have done as well.
Me, too, although mine lacked the physical keyboard, but the same flip idea. The smallest, most practical phone I ever had. I’d still be using it, except the carrier was abandoning the old CDMA technology that it used, and sent me a free Samsung smartphone (whose “smart” features I hardly ever use).
According to the pictures and references, they were essentially the same thing, with the brick and the battery in the bag. The big technical step forward with the reduced power usage, which made it possible to make a large-enough battery small-enough to fit into the brick and all part of the handset.
One insufferably pretentious small businessman in my friends group at the time got one of the early DynaTacs. And for sure that baby always sat proudly erect on the table for all to see.
About that time somebody came out with a toy DynaTac that was a realistic looking copy at ~80% scale. And like any modern kid toy, played 30 seconds of nonsense sorta musical beeps and boops when you pressed one of the buttons.
So of course I bought one and brought it to our weekly group lunch.
Which for him was always a weekly “bragging about my power … lunch.” His clunks onto the table. So does mine. Wow, mine’s smaller.
Hey LSL, what new model is that?
Oh, that’s the THX1174. Latest thing. More range, half the price. You’re right, these things are a godsend to busy businessmen like us.
Cool, can I see it?
Sure!
I pick it up, thumb one of the buttons and reach out to hand it to him while it’s gaily beeping & booping like a Sesame Street figure.
Only one person at the table did not think that was funny.
The fact I was in telecom, had 20 employees at the time, and he was a one man “consultancy” in generic business / marketing BS made it all the better.
I’m glad you noticed my little bon mot. That was certainly his motto. Did I mention he considered himself quite the Lothario as well? Even had gold chains and a Corvette for awhile.
One additional “brick” phone. Iridium satellite phones. The original system/company went bankrupt and the DOD took it over for use during Desert Shield/Storm. I saved my boss’s backside (and the entire war effort1). In gratitude, and my being worn thin trying to put our fires/problems, his major delivered a brick phone to me, an SUV to get around in, and a LORAN locator (gps was in infancy with only some 4000 sets in the theater). I had pages of instructions how to call, a schedule of when/who to call and be available for calls, and a warning letter that nobody else was to use it unless an emergency (think Red Cross notifications). Once I hooked up the/a satellite, other than a slight delay, quality was great.
1 Someone else would have figured it out eventually but it was a major “whoops” at the time.
