Don't Touch That Dial
I keep hearing the phrase, "Pocket Dial" and I'm amazed the archaic word "Dial" is still in use. A dial is usually a round object. TVs no longer have them, few radios have them and phones haven't had them for quite some time now. I'm not even sure you can use pulse rather than tone to make a call.
It seems the only dials that are left are watch dials and sun dials. Can you remember the last time you dialed a phone or turned the dial on a TV. I'm sure there are people 39 years old and younger that have never turned one of these dials.
posted by The Guy Who Writes This at 4:00 AM
9 Comments:
Don't touch that dial! (grin) You can't use pulse anymore. The system won't recognize it. But there is somebody (can't remember who off the top of my head) that is retrofitting old dial/pulse phones to send out tones with the old dial mechanism. I'd love to have a vintage pay phone in my office.
I'm so talented, I've been known to butt dial my phone
Mr. Guy, I've used one, and I'm not even 29. Close, but not yet. My grandmother had a twirly dial phone when I was very small. I don't think I used it but once or twice, but I did.
I still use the phrase "Is there a dial tone?"
I remember squeezing a pack of matches between the dial and the TV because the dial wouldn't stay on the channel.
Darev, it's just not the same. I had a touch phone that would switch to pulse when there was a power failure.
Auntie, over seas rates must be a real bad-ass mistake.
Jaggy, now you have something to tell your grand kids about how primitive our lives were back in the day.
g, but after all you are in Brownsmead.
Tango, let's not forget about the Horizontal Hold and how the screen would flip and you had to reach for the tiny dial to fix it, but as soon as you sat back down it would start rolling again.
We have that phone in our kitchen,it is the original phone from the 50's. It still works, usually I only use it to answer when it rings. When the kids were little and their friends wanted to call home I would lead them to the phone on the wall, it was a hoot, they didnt have a clue how to use it. Who else do you know that has a working phone that old?
Sue, My mother may still have one. I'll have to find out. The last time I was back east she still had the old black Bakelite phone, but you are to be commended for holding out. Good job!
We had an old rotary dial phone that hung on the wall in our house in Oysterville when I was a teenager, so that's only been 10-15 years. I have no idea how long it had been there and it stayed with the house when we moved...
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