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Comment by tpmx | Hacker News Reader

That phone in https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/igor113/15886453/8307124/830... looks identical to an Ericsson Dialog:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ericsson_Dialog (1964)

Was there a soviet-era clone of this phone? Or maybe Ericsson (Sweden) actually exported this to the Soviet Union during the 70s? That metallic red facia/dial cover thing looks decidedly non-scandinavian-market.

After tearing one down as a kid in the 80s I can attest to its mechanical robustness; I can certainly see why the soviet military would pick this model for their new submarine class in 1976.

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Could be, I'm pretty sure we had the exact same phone in the 90's.

The USSR was pretty good at copying western tech and calling it their own. And they'd mass produce the shit out of everything, for the military, for civilians, everyone would get the same thing.

In retrospect it's kinda sad/funny that our "mortal enemy" at the time were using a clone of our landline phones.

This was the same era when Sweden spent an insane amount of the national economy (like 5%) to develop and build a very large number of Draken and Viggen aircraft in order to defend Sweden in case the Soviets decided to invade.

Do you recognize this ring sound?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If7x1qj-cYE

It seems to be the real thing, not a knockoff. It has the L.M. Ericsson logo on the dial, like this one[1].

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Ericsson...

This pic looks like the real deal although I've seen Soviet Dialog clones traveling in eastern Europe.

It does seem to be an export variant however, as the Swedish pulse dial system had the number 0 first: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Dialog_1...

As an anecdote this is why the emergency number in Sweden used to be 90 000, in the dark or in a smoke-filled room you'd be able to feel your way to the last number(9), and then pull four short times from 0 to the finger stop to get emergency service.

What separates the clones from the real deal? The curl of the cable?

It might have been a Diavox(https://www.ericsson.com/en/about-us/history/products/the-te...) clone actually, but it was mainly the Cyrillic markings on the back of it...

KGB and GRU were tasked to spy on whatever possible - a lot of things made in USSR was based on blueprints delivered by their agents.

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