A device you programed in the early 80’s was made to tone dial phone numbers for you at public mostly rotary phones. Little personal electronics were just coming out. The first year a LCD clock was available in a pen for $20 we couldn’t keep them in stock.
My grandparents house was built in the 50’s or 60’s, and for some reason, does not contain phone jacks. The phones were connected inside the wall, with no easy way to replace the cords/phones, so they still have 2 rotary telephones to this day. They’re probably at least 40 years old by now. I don’t remember offhand when the last time I used one of them was, probably within the last 6 months.
I don’t know exactly but it would have been within the past nine or ten years - my parents only replaced their BT phone when they switched to a combined cable TV/phone supplier. I’m not sure if it’s the exact same model but it looked just like [http://www.telephonesonline.co.uk/details.asp?prodID=1085]this, in green.
I say “looked” but I still have it at home. Technically it belongs to BT because it was only ever rented from them (it cost x amount every quarter for “equipment rental” on the bill) but they never asked for it back. I assume it would still work if I put a jack plug on the end of the cable. (There were no phone jacks in the house until the cable people installed one. And only one.)
My mom still has one mounted on the wall at her home, though I usually use her cordless phone when I go down to visit (especially since I can’t check my voicemail from a rotary). So I’m not sure when was the last time I used it, but I know the last rotary phone I used.
Around 1981. We moved from Pennsylvania, where we had a couple of old rotary phones hard-wired into the lines, to Tucson, where the houses were newer, had modern jacks, Touch-Tone lines and were starting to offer all the modern goodies like call waiting and 3 way calling. The phone company (one of the Baby Bells) even would store your frequently used phone numbers in the system for you (for a fee), since phones with built in speed dial weren’t yet widely available.
Ha! I’m 30 years old and I’ve never used one before. There were still some around, but my dork ass had a tone dialer that I “borrowed” from my dad’s office.
I bought a rotary phone at a garage sale for a buck 10-15 years ago to use as a display.
When we have lost power, and the regular phone would not work ( because of the answering machine and stuff needed electricity to run.) I just plug in the rotary and we are good to go.
Best buck evar spent.
It must be almost 20 years for me.
Lots of thoughts and memories …
In New Zealand our dials were numbered opposite to other countries. Zero was in the same place at the bottom but then it went clockwise 0,1,2,3 … up to 9. I once heard a rumour that it was to get around some sort of copyright or licensing issue. I have no idea if that’s true but it always seemed like the logical order for the numbers to be in. Of course it meant that the exchange equipment interpreted N pulses to mean the digit 10-N.
Colophon, we had phones exactly like that green BT phone.
Anyone with some rhythm in their wrist could make free local calls from an old style public phone box by tapping out the number on the hook switch, 10-N times for each digit. In our small town, my parents had a 4 digit number with all digits > 6 so it was very easy 
People got a surprise when they brought back push button phones from overseas trips, plugged them into their NZ line and discovered that it dialed the wrong number when it was generating pulses. It would dial a 7 when they meant 3 etc. Being a bit of a geek I made some pocket money converting phones for a while. I was easy to move a couple of wires and reverse the keyboard matrix and keep the buttons in their natural place.
A couple weeks ago.
My cousin has one in his barn and I happened to be helping milk some goats when I needed to make a phone call. I kinda like them, makes me feel like I’ve earned the phone call because of all the extra work I needed to do.
By helping milk some goats I mean standing and watching my cousin do all of the work.
I don’t remember.
The last people I knew who had one were my parents, but I don’t remember when they replaced it.
Probably it was around 1990.
Sometime in the mid 90s. I was at my cousin’s house in Northern Indiana and needed to make a phone call…her kitchen phone was a hardwired wall model.
As a kid, we liked making calls from my Aunt Alice’s home…no dial at all…you just picked up the receiver and asked the operator for the number.
Now get off my lawn!
My mother had one on her bedside table when I was very small; that’s probably the last time I’ve ever seen a working rotary phone.
I am 29, just for reference.
If I had a land-line, and not just my cell, I would definitely get an old rotary phone. They’re just cool-looking. I like the idea of an antique or “vintage” item actually still working today.
I do remember being somewhat thrown a couple of months ago when a ten-year-old I know was trying to make a phone call and then said, “Hey, what’s this beeping sound?”
He’d never heard a busy signal before.
And occasionally I still flip open my cell phone, hold it to my ear, and wait for a dial tone. And then I feel like a total moron and hope nobody saw me.