string can phone

a Wired-gallery of photos, and notes on the “evolution” of that annoying gadget, the cellphone.

Retrobrick sells vintage and rare mobile phones.

That is to say, out-of-date cell-phones. Which in this day and age usually means the day-before-yesterday. But a lot of them are analogue beasts, and many of them could be used to club a loudly talking moron to civility.

Via Le Boinge

Western Union has announced the end of Telegram services:

Effective January 27, 2006, Western Union will discontinue all Telegram and Commercial Messaging services. We regret any inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you for your loyal patronage.

Some more history on Western Union can be obtained from the company itself or from that nigh-omniscient oracle, the WikiPedia.

SCP apologizes for its quietude. In truth, we have been too busy refreshing our 1337 T3L3GR4PH1C 5K1LLZ (rather rusty, we shame-facedly and shame-fingeredly admit) to post lately. In short, we have been enraptured with Mr. Hugovk’s new gem:

[A] dodgy prototype for Series 60 phones. Tap in some Morse code, and then send it as an SMS.

SCP wishes to thank the New Renaissance people at SpringSpring for our awareness.

Our Dear Friend*, Mr. Cockerham is divesting himself of some — no doubt — cherished possessions via the ebay electronic market. Mr. Cockerham’s hands-free ultra-lightweight Kyocera phone set is currently attractively priced at $2.25, made from angel-weight aluminum and comes with 24 feet of lightweight, tangle-resistant, polished cotton string helps ensure that at least one of the two phones are always nearby.

Alas, we cannot bid ourselves as our funds are currently being compiled for the eventual purchase of an Atari 2600 Webserver.

*by “Dear Friend” we do not wish to imply anything beyond Mr. Cockerham allowing us to visit his website on occasion, for which we are grateful.

The Museum of Communications is a no-frills homage to the history of conversing with others unhindered by distance. Located in Seattle, WA, the museum is a virtual warehouse of every communications device ever devised, including wired, indoors telephone poles. Of particular note is the display of six generations of fully-operational central office switch frames. We are so stirred upon seeing this collection that we are inspired to pick up our plastic, magically cordless telephone handset and ask the operator for Pennsylvania 6-5000.

Diana D—, a Friend, writes:

It’s funny, I did a “string can telephone” activity with a class of kindergartners about a year ago—I didn’t realize going into it that these kids have basically no association between land lines and telephonic communication. Most of them probably live in houses where the main phone has been, and may always be, a cell phone.

I love watching movies where people fight over using a land line in any way—waiting for pay phones, arguing about who gets to talk next, race to answer telephones, etc. And of course, message machines. And movies from the 90’s where people have cell phones, but they are really large and unwieldy. In Takashi Miike’s DOA there’s a scene where the guy’s daughter makes fun of him for having an analog cell phone! I really liked that!

BoingBoing directs us to How to Make Friends by Telephone—a guide to using that new-fangled bakelite thing sittin’ over there.