ON THIS DATE IN
HISTORY, THE FIRST PUSH-BUTTON (TOUCH-TONE) TELEPHONES DEBUTED IN THE UNITED
STATES, EVENTUALLY REPLACING MOST ROTARY-DIAL MODELS
Well, then. Rotary dials are now “historical.” That’s hysterical.
Turns out that of all the “retro” thingies, teens and
twenty-somethings do not know how to use a rotary dial. They stare at it, try
to press here and there, and when nothing happens, they declare the gizmo to be
broken.
That’s okay. I don’t drive a stick-shift vehicle, either. But
I know the basics of how it works and if my life depended on it, I think (I
hope) I could manage somehow. I also think that if I was caught in a
time-travel tunnel<, I could manage to make a call with the early phones
where you cranked the one lever, and an operator listened to your instructions
and connected you.
My point of amazement is that having no notion of how to use
a rotary dial means young’uns aren’t ever watching older movies. There are
plenty of scenes in movies from pre-1963 where dialing a number is visible.
Hitchcock alone used these for tension building.
Grumpiness spiel done, I am glad for the push-button dialers
and today’s the day to celebrate this milestone.
