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Phones

Started by prof_ badger, Nov 12, 2017, 10:22 am

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prof_ badger

Nov 12, 2017, 10:22 am Last Edit: Jul 03, 2019, 04:44 am by warmcanofcoke
I need a phone for my console communication panel but don't know  which to buy?

Im looking for an old fashioned phone that has the keypad on the phone holster, can anyone help me

Thx,
Prof_BadgerIMG_5619.JPG
Thanks,<br /><br />Prof_Badger

warmcanofcoke

Are you looking for a screen accurate phone? From a specific console? or are you making a custom prop?

If custom, then how about a steampunk phone?
why doesn't the Guide mention them? - Oh, it's not very accurate.
Oh? - I'm researching the new edition.

galacticprobe

Nov 13, 2017, 05:28 am #2 Last Edit: Nov 15, 2017, 05:24 am by galacticprobe
If you're going for a custom console build and are looking for just any slim phone with the keypad on the receiver (handset - whatever your colloquial term for it is), such as "...a white, slim line push-button telephone with last number redial facility", then the one like you have in your post is called a Princess Telephone (at least in the US - not sure what it's called in other parts of the world... other than in the Bucket Woman's house, as quoted above).

Princess phones come in all colors - or at least they used do. These days with the proliferation of mobile devices, home "landlines" are almost as extinct as the Dodo, and so are the phones that connected to them. I'm sure they're still out there. Try a Google search for "Princess Phone" and see what you come up with. You could even find some cheap, unopened ones that never sold originally, and they'll probably be on eBay. Some phones I've seen there aren't that expensive. Also, if you've got a phone company store near you (not mobile store - a landline store if any still exist), it wouldn't hurt to stop in and ask them. If you can't find one of those stores, you can always stop at a big company phone store (from AT&T to Verizon) and ask if they know where you can find such a phone. (Play the "great grandmother who refuses to use this newfangled wireless technology phones" card if you have to. I had to once, only it was for my grandmother when she wanted an extension phone put in... and she wanted a rotary dial phone on top of it all!)

I did finally find one, and install it for her, and it looked like one of those steam punk phones that Nate (warmcanofcoke) mentioned. Damned shame that phone broke a month before she passed away or I could have taken it when we cleared out her house. The shoebox-sized rotary phone on the wall with a "fire-alarm" ringer bell never broke, though!

Dino.
"What's wrong with being childish?! I like being childish." -3rd Doctor, "Terror of the Autons"

Volpone

They're harder and harder to find these days.  In Olden Dayes, when AT&T had a monopoly, you couldn't buy phones.  You leased your phone from the phone company.  After the breakup you could get all kinds of cheap phones at Radio Shack. My first phone for my freshman dorm room was a red slimline that I think cost $9.99 and one of the first things I learned as a college student was how to save a few bucks by installing the modular jack myself (in those days a lot of the time you didn't have a jack on the wall either--you had to put one there) instead of paying the phone company.  I gave it to Goodwill or St. Vincent's almost two decades ago.  I regret that now because it would have been a great TARDIS console phone.  I also donated a maroon checked vest that would go very nicely with my tweed jacket. :( 
"My dear Litefoot, I've got a lantern and a pair of waders, and possibly the most fearsome piece of hand artillery in all England. What could possibly go wrong?"
-The Doctor.

galacticprobe

Nov 14, 2017, 04:57 am #4 Last Edit: Nov 14, 2017, 05:16 am by galacticprobe
Quote from: Volpone on Nov 13, 2017, 01:41 pm
In Olden Dayes, when AT&T had a monopoly, you couldn't buy phones. You leased your phone from the phone company.

Ah... I remember that, Other Steve. Back then everyone just referred to it as "The Bell System" (after Alexander Graham Bell), or as many of us called it, "Ma Bell".

Quote from: Volpone on Nov 13, 2017, 01:41 pm
After the breakup you could get all kinds of cheap phones at Radio Shack.

And that's when people started using the proper AT&T name. (We can all thank what was then MCI for the break-up. They sued "Bell" for monopoly when MCI couldn't even get their foot in the door.) MCI sort of shot themselves in the foot with that one, though. With the break-up, AT&T just fragmented itself into what is still referred to by some stock brokers as "Baby Bells" - seven of them to be exact, one of which was Bell Atlantic (now Verizon). So while it opened the market for MCI to get their foot in the door, thanks to all of the Baby Bells growing on their own (and with lots of buying and trading with AT&T buying up much of what they'd "divested"), MCI found there was "standing room only" and eventually Verizon bought them up.

(End of history lesson. ;))

Quote from: Volpone on Nov 13, 2017, 01:41 pm
My first phone for my freshman dorm room was a red slimline that I think cost $9.99 and one of the first things I learned as a college student was how to save a few bucks by installing the modular jack myself (in those days a lot of the time you didn't have a jack on the wall either--you had to put one there) instead of paying the phone company.

Yup! Ran a few of those in my mother's house to put in extension lines, so you could answer the phone from several rooms, and not have to practically kill yourself running from one end of the house to the other before the ringing stopped.

Quote from: Volpone on Nov 13, 2017, 01:41 pm
I gave it to Goodwill or St. Vincent's almost two decades ago. I regret that now because it would have been a great TARDIS console phone. I also donated a maroon checked vest that would go very nicely with my tweed jacket. :(

"You never know when these bits and pieces will come in handy. Never throw anything away, Harry." ;D

Dino.
"What's wrong with being childish?! I like being childish." -3rd Doctor, "Terror of the Autons"

Davros Skaro

Quote from: galacticprobe on Nov 14, 2017, 04:57 am

Quote from: Volpone on Nov 13, 2017, 01:41 pm
My first phone for my freshman dorm room was a red slimline that I think cost $9.99 and one of the first things I learned as a college student was how to save a few bucks by installing the modular jack myself (in those days a lot of the time you didn't have a jack on the wall either--you had to put one there) instead of paying the phone company.

Yup! Ran a few of those in my mother's house to put in extension lines, so you could answer the phone from several rooms, and not have to practically kill yourself running from one end of the house to the other before the ringing stopped.

Dino.

I've done that (running phone lines) in this house that we had built 4 years ago, while it was being built. I ran all my internet & phone extension lines from my office to where I needed them, then got phone company to install their phone line in the office (I didn't tell them about the extensions) then when house was finished, connected them all up to the modem through the filters & got 5 phones to use. Got some phones from the op shops, that were working, relatively cheap.

Chris.
Chris.