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Old ads in the Vintage ads section

Started by JorgeAmely, September 16, 2010, 11:56:33 PM

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JorgeAmely

Jorge

JorgeAmely

This one is really cool. I wonder who has one of these phones ...  ??? ??? ???
Jorge

Dan

Funny how the grey (light) has 5% made, compared to red's 4%. Now reds outnumber greys 50 to one. I guess the greys saw llandfills, while the reds were more valued.
"Imagine how weird telephones would look if our ears weren't so close to our mouths." - Steven Wright

paul-f

Quote from: Dan on September 17, 2010, 12:10:31 AM
Funny how the grey (light) has 5% made, compared to red's 4%. Now reds outnumber greys 50 to one. I guess the greys saw llandfills, while the reds were more valued.

I believe the color ad ran in 1960.  Sometime after that, red became a promoted color, while light gray was not.  It would be interesting to see the same data for 1965, 1970, etc.

Jorge:  There are several Picturephones in the JKL Museum.  One lucky collector brought one to a past Enfield show for display.  He plugged it in and gave demos.  Quite impressive.  There have been several working systems involving two or more sets on ebay over the years.  One was up several times and failed to reach the reserve -- so it's still out there somewhere.
Visit: paul-f.com         WE  500  Design_Line

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Adam

#4
What amazes me about the Bell System picturephone was how cool it was but it never gained wide acceptance.  But today millions of people make video calls with Skype to each other every day.  The picture phone was ahead of its time, it seems, only because the Bell System could never make it financially viable.

In the 60's and 70's, you couldn't make a science fiction movie without including a picturephone.
Adam Forrest
Los Angeles Telephone - A proud part of the global C*Net System
C*Net 1-383-4820

Bill Cahill

And, I know why it didn't catch on. Two reasons...
1 It was very expensive.
2 People didn't care to be shown to others. What if a lady was in curlers, or, a man was buck naked?
That would have been very embarrassing...  :o ::) :-[
Bill Cahill

"My friends used to keep saying I had batts in my belfry. No. I'm just hearing bells....."

Adam

My point above was, it's always traditionally been stated that the reason picturephones didn't become popular was that people didn't want to be seen.  But then, how do you explain the popularity today of video skype?

No, I think the only reason was that it cost too much...
Adam Forrest
Los Angeles Telephone - A proud part of the global C*Net System
C*Net 1-383-4820

Phonesrfun

-Bill G

paul-f

Price may be the bottom-line reason, but the reason the price was so high was based on the technology of the time.

The trials required at least 3 wire pairs for the signal -- one for video in each direction and one for audio and signaling.  This required extensive re-tooling in the COs to make and process picturephone calls.  The idea of rolling out those changes to evey CO in the nation was daunting.

Since the picutrephone trials, great advances in microprocessor speed, data compression algorithms and deployment of fiber optic backbones have made it possible to economically transmit much higher bandwidth signals.
Visit: paul-f.com         WE  500  Design_Line

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Bill

#9
One big reason that Picturephone didn't take off, and Skype (etc) did, is that decent picture quality requires lots of bandwidth, and in those days it just wasn't there. Today of course bandwidth is available by the bucketload - but try Skype over a dial-up connection, and you'll see what I mean. And of course there is the chicken-and-egg situation that bedevils many new technology intros - no one wants to buy it until lots of other people already have it.

I saw a Picturephone call at one time, and it was less than impressive, to say the least. Small screen, lousy resolution, jerky motion - no wonder no one would pay for it.

Bill

[Edit - just spotted Paul-f's post. My apologies for the redundancy.]

paul-f

Good observatons, Bill.

When did you see the Picturephone demo?  Looked at by today's standards, it's a total joke.  However, it did draw huge crowds at World's Fairs, trade shows and (as I recall) the Museum of Science and Industry at the time.  It did look like (and was) futuristic technology.  Businessmen could only dream of having those capabilities available on their desk top.  Imagine if they had seen a demo of what we take for granted today.
Visit: paul-f.com         WE  500  Design_Line

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easytiger

A couple that crossed my path today...
Easy, Tiger..."it's life...you don't figure it out.  You just climb up on the beast and RIDE."  --Vivi, "Divine Secrets"