Using a 1965 Dutch rotary phone via VoIP | Hacker News Reader

Using a 1965 Dutch rotary phone via VoIP

raymii.org

77 pointsjandeboevrie20 comments

My experience in trying to reproduce one of these rotary VoIP write-ups that make the front page is that the authors tend to leave out some critical piece of their network/general setup that would allow others to reproduce. So in the end, good, interesting write ups but your mileage may vary in trying to reproduce.

As the author of a different VoIP write-up that made the front page, you're not wrong. There's a lot of variance across home networks, and SIP behind a NAT can be incredibly painful to get working correctly.

Using the VoIP credentials of my ISP in the Fritz!Box or ATA and nothing else. (which they must provide since The Netherlands has free modem choice: https://web.archive.org/web/20230921231725/https://www.acm.n...), no other setup involved, no port forwarding, etc.

If you can build a PC or configure a consumer router, you can set up an ATA. Just make sure to buy the right ATA (one that supports pulse dial). Then find a half-way decent VoIP provider.

That's very cool, but a lot of effort; I just want one of those with a 3.5mm jack plug, so I can do video calls by speaking into a 70 year old bakelite earpiece, haha.

Does anyone know if the electronics in these old phones will allow me to just wire up a 3.5mm cable to the receiver? Or will this need some active amplification?

A lot of folks in the vintage/retro telephone community I’m in seem to like these pick-up coils. I bought one (they’re cheap, low risk purchase) but haven’t used it yet.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0034I75IK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

Hah, I remember using one of these with a small reel-to-reel.

In principle it should work for video calls by sticking it to your computer, yes ? The sound quality might leave something to be desired.

There are adapters for handsets on Amazon, but interfacing to a phone could be harder as you have to provide DC power and deal with duplex audio on a single pair. If you're only using it as a mic, a 9v battery, resistor and decoupling capacitor might work.

An easier way could be to join the conference audio through SIP.

Coupling capacitor, not decoupling, right? You want the AC signal and want to block DC.

Yes, I stand corrected.

Doesn't the handset RJ10 have two pairs? If you skip the base, and have a sufficient amplification circuit, couldn't you just use the weighted handset to a 3.5mm connector?

It's easier than you think - I bought an old non-working phone (a candlestick phone in this case), removed the innards and replaced them with a speaker and microphone... it works really well!

I had originally planned to make it accessible via bluetooth but when I realised the phone shell was thick brass, I decided to leave it as a 3.5mm jack

dup of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40689341

I grew up with rotary phones, and dialing (on a physical dial) really was fun.

Disassembling my first junk phone and playing with the rotary relay was even more fun.

But the best was learning to dial numbers by manually pulsing the switch on the handset cradle. Timing was tricky but luckily there was some leeway. (And it helped that phone numbers were shorter then.)

Dialing by tapping the cradle switch to produce your own pulses was very useful once upon a time - it allowed you to bypass the dial lock that some places fitted to allow incoming calls only. Some people who shall remain anonymous got quite good at it.

My Grandstream HT500 ATA handles (US/Bell) pulse dialing. I don't think they make it any more, but they can be found on eBay.

It was fun when our kids had friends over (before every kid had a cell phone) and they wanted to call home. We'd point them to the dial phone and watch their confused faces.

> The rotary dialing is what makes the old phones fun,

I saw this and thought that I must have gotten really annoyed at the slowness of rotary dialing... But then really thinking about it I don't think I ever did.

Life was just slower back then.

Most local numbers were short and people developed a muscle memory for numbers they dialed frequently. Somewhere in the eighties we got phones with a memory for speed dialing. I think it's still called dialing a number even though that's not been a thing for a few decades.

Anyway, we had this exact model in our house when I was a kid in the seventies and eighties. The PTT (now KPN) had a monopoly on phone lines and rented out this model; so they were everywhere. Eventually newer models with keypads and memory functions came and the market opened up with more providers and different models. But that took quite some time to happen.

Then you listen to "Alpha" by Vangelis and shed a tear. Or three.

Rotary was fine until the first time I used Touch-Tone, as AT&T called it.

I also remember the old Western Electric 500 and its touch tone younger brother, the 2500. Those were phones that were built to last: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/Mo...

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