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If you grew up with one or more sisters, then you were probably better off spending your allowance on postage stamps and mailing letters to your friends rather than trying to wait for the phone to be free. Sexist? Maybe, but is it not true?
Image Credit: treehugger.com
Credit AT&T for recognizing the sales potential in marketing a phone for women, and thus the Pink Princess phone was born. It was compact and light instead of big and bulky, and it even had a light-up dial that could be used as a night light. This made it the perfect bedside companion and helped Ma Bell market more phones to families who already owned one.
Feeling nostalgic? While the original Princess Phone is no longer in production, Crosley sells a reproduction of the 1950s unit, which you can find on Amazon and through other retailers.
Invented:1959
Where would Gotham City be if not for the Bat phone? In a world of hurt, that's where. Sure, Commissioner Gordon could still summon Batman with the Bat signal, Gotham's giant searchlight, but that wouldn't have done him, or Gotham City, any good during the day.
A prominent fixture in the 1960s TV series, the Bat phone was a bright red phone that connected directly to a similar looking phone in Bruce Wayne's manor, as well as the Bat Cave.
The term "Bat phone" is sometimes used today to describe specialized phones with direct connections or without any wait times, like those found in call centers, but it was also first revived in the modern comics era in Detective Comics #786 (November 2003) as an encrypted cell phone.
Invented: 1960s
During the Stone Age, Bedrock was the place to be. Home of Fred and Wilma Flinstone, as well as a host of other memorable characters, Bedrock had it all, including telephones!
Similar in style to the Western Electric Model 500, the Flintstones called each other on phones consisting of a ram horn, which was used on a number of other prehistoric gadgets as well. Everyone's favorite modern Stone Age family even owned a wall-mounted phone! And if we're to take the Flinstones as being historically accurate, we can credit Fred as the first person to ever call into work sick.
Invented: 1960s
Western Electric's Model 1500 sounded the death knell for rotary dials and ushered in the era of touch tone (push button) dialing. Essentially a touch tone replacement for the Model 500, it contained 10 buttons consisting of numerals 1-9, plus asterisk and pound keys.
Image Credit: porticus.org
The beige model (pictured above) was ugly as sin, but these weren't the only standout features. Handset and line cords were hardwired, and the 1500 series would include several variants with additional feature-sets, such as 2-line sets, industrial phones, and other odds and ends.
Invented: 1963
Who can ever forget Maxwell Smart's shoe phone? Not us, because this is only one of coolest inventions ever! Not only could Max make and receive phone calls on his size-whatever shoe, he could inflict some real damage, too. By dialing the number 117, the shoe turned into a gun, and we've yet to see a pair of Adidas that are able to do that (not even Gilbert Arenas').
Image Credit: tvacres.com
Of course, the shoe phone never took off as a viable item outside of being a Hollywood prop, and it probably never will. But the fact that it doesn't actually exist as a real-world device didn't deter us one bit from including it in our list. Why? Because long after the iPhone and BlackBerry become forgotten relics, people will still remember -- and wish for -- a shoe phone/pistol.
Invented: 1965
It would be another decade before the first commercial cell phone would make it to market, but in 1973, much of the groundwork had already been laid. It was during this time that Motorola developed a prototype, the DynaTAC (DYNamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage) portable phone. But Motorola's work was far from finished.
Image Credit: Motorola
"The DynaTAC cellular system required phone calls to be switched from cell to cell as users traveled," Motorola explains. "Making that happen without a high rate of dropped calls required innovative engineering. And foremost, Motorola had to create a high capacity system that worked with both portable phones and mobile car phones."
Motorola tackled the problem by coming up with a concept involving a bunch of overlapping cells in a geographic area. Each cell contained a low powered transmitter that allowed frequencies to be bounced to cells that were farther away.
Invented: 1973
Comments are closed on this article
loondawg
June 16, 2010 at 2:22pm
This was probably a lot of people's first phone. (Plus it's got life in that it's a fun project to hack an old one into a working phone)
gbucknell
April 30, 2010 at 8:59am
You forgot one of the most important phones in TV History. More important than Batman's, Get Smart's, Fred Flinstone's, and Mike Brady's phone was the phone use by Captain Kirk on Star Trek. That communicator directly predicted AND influenced the creation of the cell phone universe that we all now live in.
gooberp
April 07, 2010 at 2:56pm
You'd think that since 1948, AT&T's cell network would have been upgraded at least a little since the days of it's first radio car phone. Based on my experience, it's not any different.
Queenof1
March 28, 2010 at 7:44pm
this was a great article! Brought back memories of my Strawberry Shortcake intercom phones :)
The Relic
March 28, 2010 at 5:00pm
Heh, I remember we had one of the Model 500 rotary phones back when I was a kid (this was the 60s and 70s). I still have one here (though unused; my desk phone is a replica Nick and Nora Charles phone).
Bizarre
March 27, 2010 at 8:42pm
wow, some hatin' for the RAZR! In my opinion a black V3 is still one of the cooler phones out there, and if you don't count spart phones, among the coolest. It hasn't aged much, and is still one of the thinnest phones out there, probably because it was the first to reach the reasonable limit of thin-ness in a non-flexible mobile device.
Slugbait
March 27, 2010 at 3:40pm
Personally, I was looking forward to seeing what would be written about the Nokia 8110...
kevintanner800
March 26, 2010 at 12:44pm
Why is the Iphone in there twice? the Iphone was/is not game changing, the only thing it did is prove how many retards are alive in the world.
festiva_man
March 26, 2010 at 10:46am
Good article but the see transparent telephone was always my favorite. I loved seeing the inner workings of things like that.
jbelkin
March 26, 2010 at 9:48am
That ubiquitous infomercial started people realizing that a phone did not need to be square or rectangularly shaped AND that a phone could be cheap - so cheap it's a free giveaway ...
Did the 1990's Nokia you showed had the changing faceplate?, I think that was a game changer also ... the Nokia candybar phone?
tri8gman
March 26, 2010 at 9:12am
I don't really see Apple slogans and "power user" being appropriate in the same paragraph.
Apple doesn't market to Power Users. :P
ushim6
March 26, 2010 at 7:49am
It's perfect for me. I'm in a family plan, still have 1.5 years of contract left, so I just bought the danged thing. No need for a data plan since I'm on campus all the time, blanketed in wifi, and AT&T can't make me since it's unsubsidised.
I may get data sometime in the future, but honestly it's only on the road I miss the data connection, but I always do have SMS to make me feel more connected.
JoetheMobster
March 26, 2010 at 7:42am
creepy, when I was a child the family phone was just like that Western 500 rotary phone...and my mother had it on a doiley that looked exactly like the one in the photo!
SpazzAttack
March 26, 2010 at 4:10am
Still using my Motorola V3M. I very rarely text, so I don't need a full keyboard. Mine has the extended battery, so I don't need to charge it often. And it still makes phone calls, too!!!
Pball1224
March 25, 2010 at 11:33pm
First Car phone at $15, a bargain by today's standards? Uh, did inflation cross your mind? $15
in 1948 is equivalant to $135 today. I don't call that a bargain.Oh, and the Western Electric 1500 (touchtone) is nearly IDENTICAL to the phone on my desk at work, except mine is black, and includes a volume knob on the handset. The whole office of ~2800 employees uses them. I can hear the gasp as this is read. But it does exactly what I need it to do... make phone calls.
davisman123
March 25, 2010 at 11:17pm
I was surprised that the NGAGE wasn't on this list. While it wasn't the greatest phone or game system, it was way ahead of its time in terms of combining both worlds. It deserves a place on this list.
deadsolid
March 25, 2010 at 10:17pm
Where is the fucking Banana phone???
Why are there two iPhones on the list? Apple didn't do shit with the 3Gs.
Danthrax66
March 25, 2010 at 9:14pm
the iphone is a useless piece of crap just like all apple products.
greencpu
March 25, 2010 at 6:36pm
no football phone?!?!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWtx9JwNzmY
FOR SHAME
excelguru
March 25, 2010 at 8:02pm
Damn, you beat me to it on the football phone.
And what about E.T.'s wind-powered, saw-blade phone with the umbrella antenna? I mean, that damned thing could reach OUTER SPACE, for crying out loud! How cool was THAT!?
Paul_Lilly
March 25, 2010 at 8:47pm
Damn, can't believe I overlooked E.T.'s homebrewed phone. Very nice suggestion.
-Paul Lilly
