Community Chat

[foxywoods]

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@monicakm wrote:

@foxywoods 

I lived in an off campus college house with a guy who had a cell phone.  This was 1977. The phone was huge and was kept in a bag. Silly me, I thought that was the beginning of car phones. He was from Houston

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@monicakm  maybe he had a prototype of a cell, they were around,  but the Motorola DynaTac 8000x or "Brick" was approved by FCC  Sept 21 1983.

[DottieBlue]

...and look at how large the steering wheel is! 

[Elodie2]

It's fun and interesting seeing those old ads.  My husband thinks the car is a '64 Cadillac.

[Tinkrbl44]

Looks like this was before seatbelts were the law.   

I just looked it up ... seatbelts were mandatory in 1968.  

[Nonametoday]

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@monicakm wrote:

@foxywoods 

I lived in an off campus college house with a guy who had a cell phone.  This was 1977. The phone was huge and was kept in a bag. Silly me, I thought that was the beginning of car phones. He was from Houston

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@monicakm @foxwoods

My friend who had the phone called it a mobile phone.  He never called it cell phone and I don't think they work on the same principle.  His looked more like the land lines. I recall that I when I wanted to reach him, I had to call an operator and give them a special number to call so it didn't cos tme. I couldn't just dial the number even if I wanted to pay for the call.  I don't recall him using it on the yacht. That was a long time ago.  He had a European car. It had a wooden dash and leather upholstery.  Pretty fancy for those days. I was young and impressed with material things at that time.  

[qualitygal]

I never saw that before.  Yes, I was around then.

[Nonametoday]

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@monicakm wrote:

@foxywoods 

I lived in an off campus college house with a guy who had a cell phone.  This was 1977. The phone was huge and was kept in a bag. Silly me, I thought that was the beginning of car phones. He was from Houston

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@monicakm @foxywoods

We had bag phones.  I don't recall exactly when it was, probably in the 1980s-90s.  

[gardenman]

The first "mainstream" car phones came along in 1946 from Illinois Bell Telephone Company. They had all of three (possibly six) channels so no more than that number of people could use it at once. In 1964 the "Improved Mobile Telephone Service" came along. That hung around until the 1980s and allowed more users. Both systems were on the pricey side so not many people used them.

[lynnie61]

Boyfriend had a Motorola bag phone.  Late 80's.  It was bigger than my purse.  It was expensive to use.   

[Carmie]

I had a phone installed in my car in 1983.  Not many people had them back then.

I had no idea they were even a thing in the 60's.