Rotary phone

[CPUWIZ]

Anyone still have one kicking around? Quanta costa? Danke Schoen.

[towmater]

I found a Ma Bell rotary, put a usb sound card in it, and an arduino to ring the phone. I then used it to call into users in my VR game, in the game the user can see and hear a virtual rotary (it takes place in the 1960's) and the user can also initiate a call from VR, hence the ringer function.

 

Here's a photo for no particular reason.

[Zonie]

Western Electric. Designed to last at least 100 years. And do.

 

My local craigslist has dozens of them.

Edited March 12, 2018 by Zonie

[+x=usr(1536)]

Western Electric. Designed to last at least 100 years. And do.

 

My local craigslist has dozens of them.

 

More specifically: a Western Electric 500. Mine has a base made in (IIRC) 1954, casing from 1968-ish, and various handset bits from up into the '80s. Think I dropped a whopping $3 on it in the early 2000s at a garage sale. And yes, they will outlast the cockroaches.

 

eBay prices for them tend to be completely stupid; there are still literally millions of them out there. Thrift stores and Craigslist are your best bet. Oh, and places that buy back old phone systems. People will toss anything in a box to get rid of it during an upgrade, and the phone system refurbishers don't want to bother with them.

 

$10-$20 apiece and no more. They should be working for that price.

Edited March 12, 2018 by x=usr(1536)

[CPUWIZ]

So, anyone have one for sale? That is a thing I do not want to get from ebay.

[toptenmaterial]

Regretfully I will not part with mine. I do not use it but my two year old does! I have it set up in front of the 800 (also not plugged in) and it's her command center.