Cute: How Kids React to Rotary Phones

[porwolf]

On more generation and kids have the same reaction to cars with steering wheels, gearshifts, and brakes?

[Gooch1971]

Disturbing.

[billybek]

When a friend of mine moved into his grandma's home after she had passed, there was an old rotary phone on the wall in the garage.
A kid of about 13 or so asked if he could borrow his cell to phone home and Glen pointed him to the phone on the garage wall. The kid picked the receiver up and had a blank look on his face as he contemplated how to use the dial.
Funny as hell. This was in 1999 and even then he had never seen a rotary phone.

[sand_man]

So strange that this has come up! My eleven year old daughter is a YouTube junkie and has been sharing the "Kids/Teens React" videos with me for several months! This morning, we watched this one together before I took her to school. Strange coincidence!

[cashflyer]

In the 70s, my grandmother had a rotary desk phone.
It was in the back hall of the house, and it was rare that anyone ever used it. Not because it was rotary, but because telephoning a person was not a common thing in our family at that time. Many people we knew didn't even have a phone.


At our house, we had a wall mounted touchtone phone. It wasn't until the 80s that it was getting a lot of use. Mostly by me, in high school.


More foreign concepts for today's generation:

In the late 80s/early 90s I had two copper phone lines at my parents house; one was dedicated for the computer modem at a blazing 4800 baud. I got a subscription to Computer Shopper and was quickly hooked on the BBS hobby scene. I built a new PC clone, stepped up to a 14.4 modem and started hosting a local BBS.

Yes, one phone line meant one customer at a time. But there were only about 12 people in town who had both the hardware and the interest, so demand was low.

Try today telling somebody that they will have to wait "a few minutes" for an image to load, or "about an hour" for an audio file. Heck - In the time it would have taken to download a feature movie, you could have gone on location and filmed it yourself!

In a year or two, there were about 4or 5 BBSes running around the county, now on 56k modems. Still a small community of people, and we all knew each other. I remember the day one of my friends, a college student who also ran a BBS, planned a sysop meeting at his house because he had "unbelievable news" for us.

That night, we all stood around his desk as he dialed into the college network, then accessed this new thing called "the internet*". Our first site visited: Lamborghini. We all stood there gape jawed in amazement as our computer was downloading information from Italy - without having dialed a phone number in Italy.

Apparently I am still hooked on BBSs... I'm here almost every day.


* I think we were still calling it "the world wide web" back then. CRS.


[/hijack]

[Eric Hahl]

Two great lines in that video that made me laugh.

"I love old technology, I'm a fan of classics"

and

"This is why humans are de-evolving"

[WolfeMacleod]

Originally Posted by cashflyer

I built a new PC clone, stepped up to a 14.4 modem and started hosting a local BBS.........
In a year or two, there were about 4or 5 BBSes running around the county, now on 56k modems. Still a small community of people, and we all knew each other..........
Apparently I am still hooked on BBSs... I'm here almost every day.


* I think we were still calling it "the world wide web" back then. CRS.


[/hijack]

I remember BBS's. We visited several. I remember Telneting to other BBS's around the country.
Metropolis Entertainment: About Us Masterpiece is the one I was on most frequently.

I remember an early network system called "Gremlink" which you could dial, and then dial another number. It would port you to the new number. Dial enough numbers, and you could be ported anywhere in the country, without having long distance charges. Gremlink may have had something to do with Telnet, but I'm not sure.

[Mark Henry]

My kids thought those kids are...well.... dumb.

But then we don't have cell phones, if the kids want's one they can pay for it themselves.
They have computers for school, I figure the learning curve on a cell phone is about 15 minutes.

The girl and I have to go out at 6pm, but the 12 year old boy is staying home because it's a school night. I'll shut the computers and TV off before I leave. He can read a book before bed.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by WolfeMacleod

I remember BBS's. We visited several. I remember Telneting to other BBS's around the country.
Metropolis Entertainment: About Us Masterpiece is the one I was on most frequently.

I remember an early network system called "Gremlink" which you could dial, and then dial another number. It would port you to the new number. Dial enough numbers, and you could be ported anywhere in the country, without having long distance charges. Gremlink may have had something to do with Telnet, but I'm not sure.

Remember Fido net? It was an early form of email.

I ran a BBS at my house and one for the office. My first modem was 300 baud and you could read the text as it downloaded. Green text on a black background. I ordered jeans from Compuserve in 1984.

[JD159]

I'm 23. Used a rotary phone for years at my grandmothers house. Still have it actually. Have another one in my basement currently. It wasn't really that disturbing.

1) They all knew it was a phone. Although they didn't say rotary phone, did you ever say "Hey! someone answer the rotary phone!"

2) Understand that dialing will somehow involve the disk with holes in it. After a go they would probably realize they have to stop at the limiter.

Am I missing the disturbing part? Not trying to sound sarcastic I really didn't see it lol

However, I'd love to see one on dial up or slow internet. My brother who's in his mid teens complains if things don't load or aren't lightning fast. I'm young, but was pretty active with computers and I remember waiting FOREVER for things to load. They should do a video of a kid clicking a link, and seeing the page load veryyy slowly. They'll think its broken!

[Rick V]

i still have a wall mounted one in my garage, it is that ever so lovely off yellow color with the extra long cord.

[gordner]

Wonder how they would react to the old Vic 20...."hey wanna play a video game" "sure!" "Ok I will start loading it from the tape drive, remember in 30 min we have to flip it over and we should be good to play in 45!"