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Post by alanankrett1 on Feb 14, 2020 17:14:41 GMT -5
Hi Easton. Yes I remember those.
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Post by Johnny on Feb 14, 2020 22:54:29 GMT -5
Do kids these days know the excitement of tin cans and string? As kids we just tried that and thought how cool it was, but not really thinking about how it works. Now I can appreciate the physical phenomena associated with this setup. Sound is composed of acoustic or pressure waves through a medium. At the bottom of each can you have a metal tympanic membrane that vibrates with sound waves conducted along a taut string. So by speaking into one can the pressure waves travel through the air and then vibrate the tin membrane at the end of the can, which induces a vibration into the string. Then at the other end, the vibrating string induces a vibration into the tin membrane at the bottom of the second can which produce pressure waves back into the air. By holding your ear next to the 2nd can, those pressure waves are perceived as sound. The part where you hold your ear near the vibrating membrane is analogous to hearing sounds emanating from a speaker or headphone. |
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Post by Easton on Feb 14, 2020 23:19:39 GMT -5
^ The key is keeping the string taut. Saggy string just doesn't work.
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Post by e knight on Feb 14, 2020 23:29:05 GMT -5
Never had to crank, but I remember routinely using the dial. In fact ...
Decades ago, when you could dial "0" and talk to a telephone operator, they were invariably women. I'm told that when The Phone Company (there was only one) tried to use men in that role, callers got confused, figured they dialed "0" wrong or something.
One little kid asked the male operator "Er ... can I talk to your wife?"
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Post by kazk on Feb 17, 2020 20:50:56 GMT -5
Here in Australia we only ever had a rotary phone too, and I have to say the cord was never long enough to hide away to chat with friends! There were a few early television shows out here that did show the crank telephone being used and a friend of mine had two play/disconnected ones in her garage. We loved to act out bits of the shows and include ringing on the crank telephones! Great fun days.
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Post by Easton on Feb 17, 2020 21:35:51 GMT -5
Candlestick phones were fun. We never had one of those; just the wall-mounted crank. Can anyone recall seeing a candlestick phone on The Waltons?
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Post by e knight on Feb 17, 2020 22:47:25 GMT -5
I remember our old home telephone from the 1960s.
It belonged to The Phone Company. Bell, that is, but they were the only source. Must have weighed five pounds, maybe ten. Black, of course.
Wired directly into the wall. Could you turn it off or just unplug it? Hah!
The deal is that you must always be available to take phone calls. They couldn't very sell phone subscriptions if people could opt out any time, no sir!
What if you wanted to take a nap? Well, there was a dial for ringer volume, but it didn't reduce it very much. You had to put pillows over it too if you wanted to ignore calls, and even that was barely adequate. If you simply chose not to hang up, it would eventually start to beep at you, warning you to hang up and so become available to anybody who could dial seven numerals.
It was tough if some adult in the house got a LONG DISTANCE CALL. You had to be absolutely silent so mom or grandma could hear the distant voice, as every minute cost big money.
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Post by Johnny on Mar 3, 2020 16:24:31 GMT -5
Candlestick phones were fun. We never had one of those; just the wall-mounted crank. Can anyone recall seeing a candlestick phone on The Waltons?
I didn't see any on the Waltons, but i did see one in a photo of an aunt of mine when she was in her late teens. It was situated on a small round table next to a parlor chair where my aunt was seated for the photo.  |
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Post by alanankrett1 on Mar 3, 2020 16:52:57 GMT -5
They were common place in the old films. Straight after seeing that pic I thought of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE
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Post by Honeybee on Mar 12, 2020 3:20:06 GMT -5
I never use a crank phone. When I was a child, I use the push buttons landline phone. The phone was in the kitchen. My parents had phone in their bedroom. Now, I use the IPhone. We still have landline cordless phone.
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Post by Easton on Mar 17, 2020 16:37:33 GMT -5
Candlestick phones were fun. We never had one of those; just the wall-mounted crank. Can anyone recall seeing a candlestick phone on The Waltons?
I'm watching The Runaway right now (Jim-Bob and Porthos) and, when John-Boy is called to the office to take his father's phone call, it is a candlestick phone.
EDIT: The phone in the hotel where John-Boy and Jim-Bob have lunch was a candlestick as well.
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