Monday 18 October 2010

Ur phone

Gizmodo looks at the first "cell phones" with this example from 1964.  Actually, it isn't a cell phone (they work on a completely different principle), but it is a radiotelephone for a motor car.  To give you some idea of how far we've come, this isn't the phone; it's just the handset and control panel.  the actual transceiver is a huge electronics box complete with valves in the boot of the car.  The system was so primitive that all calls had to made through an operator and only a handful of subscribers were possible in any given area.

And no, it doesn't have a built-in camera.  On the other hand, how many cell phones today have a luxury car as an attachment?

8 comments:

jayessell said...

Instead of a Password, security was a physical key?

arshad said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
jayessell said...

So... the telephone dial is useless?

Is it just to dial the operator?

I guess.... the operator plugs into a landline
THEN the client can dial.

David said...

One comment removed as possible spam.

Bryan said...

I'm just curious about the shape those tubes in the trunk would have been in after 40 miles of rough road.

jayessell said...

Tubes vs. Valves.

I find it interesting the American term describe its shape, but the British term expresses its function.
(To regulate the flow of electrons)

Sergej said...

I imagine that "valve" referred to diodes, which let current flow in one direction only. Incorrect as soon as triodes hit the scene. "Vacuum tubes", no longer accurate for gas-filled tubes, or acorn tubes, on account of description and shape respectively.

But tube radios in cars had been around a while, at least since the 30s. To say nothing of all the military tube-based electronics in the Second World War, so ruggedized tube sets wer not new. Actually, I did expect the set in the picture to be all of it (nothing more in the trunk), because "walkie-talkie" two-way radios had been around for more than ten years by 1964.

Neil A Russell said...

edit: while I was typing, Sergej beat me to the punch on the military tube thing.

@ Bryan: You'd be surprised how tough those old tubes can be.
Plus they could be "armored". I have an old military PA amplifier (it's called "portable", probably weighs in at 100lbs) and the 6L6 power amp tubes are protected with a metal ring at the top and a spring loaded bolt that runs from the ring down to the chassis. The other tubes have vented metal sleeves around them.
Really rough treatment, sure, they break, but some of them have been in that thing since 1952 and are still going strong.

I'd like to have that phone unit in the car just for the sheer looks of it.
And for the safety-nanny minded a rotary car phone might be just the thing to stop all the texting drivers!