
Rotary Cellphone - ink_13
http://justine-haupt.com/rotarycellphone/
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rekabis
There is a classic 60s/70s era rotary phone, vaguely similar to a princess
phone, where the dialling mechanism is inside an extra-beefy handset. Not a
lineman’s phone, but a regular consumer’s phone.

If a unit like this could be shoehorned into one of those, I’d buy it in a
heartbeat.

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dredmorbius
The Western Electric Trimline Phone, available in both touch tone and rotary
dial. It also supplied the dial in this build.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimline_telephone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimline_telephone)

[https://img0.etsystatic.com/047/1/5765656/il_570xN.731185188...](https://img0.etsystatic.com/047/1/5765656/il_570xN.731185188_rsx3.jpg)

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nyir
Love this so much. The small display is also definitely something I'd like on
a phone simply to display small information bits that then don't need the full
powered up display.

On that note is there a good conversion (as in, make it into a USB keyboard)
write-up for mechanical typewriters? I've seen one commercial kit before, but
didn't follow through so far, even though I've got two still lying around.

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dredmorbius
There's USB Typewriter, though they're on hiatus.

[https://www.usbtypewriter.com/collections/typewriters](https://www.usbtypewriter.com/collections/typewriters)

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huebomont
This is great, but the arguments about how this is Actually Very Practical And
Not At All Just A Fun Concept are laughable.

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xupybd
That's amazing. It's beautifuly well built.

I don't know how people can have the talent, time and energy to do this as a
hobby.

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gandalfian
Cool, though having recently used a rotary phone to navigate a phone menu I'm
glad they died out.

~~~
rekabis
> used a rotary phone to navigate a phone menu

That’s impossible. Rotary phones use pulse dialling exclusively, but phone
menus/trees require the tone dialling of push button and touch-screen phones.
I have never heard of any phone menu/tree, even at the dawn of their
implementation in the late 80s when rotary phones were still common,
supporting pulse based dialling.

~~~
banana_giraffe
Pulse to Tone converters are a thing. It's possible to use a rotary phone with
one on things that expect DTMF tones, which is pretty much the entire world
now.

Though, honestly, if you're the type to use a pulse to tone converter to keep
your pulse phone alive and in use, you probably enjoy using it on a modern
phone tree.

~~~
WorldMaker
Or you paid way too much in AT&T equipment fees for decades before the breakup
of Ma Bell and very much were going to get your money's worth for that $1000+
phone. My grandfather obstinately didn't want to replace a kitchen rotary
simply for fun sunk cost economic reasons.

