Looks like this got hugged to death. Archive link: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200211231236/http://justine-haupt.com/rotarycellphone/" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20200211231236/http://justine-ha...</a>
European Union recommended emergency number is "112". Because you can morse it with the hook or even by short-circuitin the wires. This is also why the pulse-dialing receiver is operational in most EU countries.
The problem with the "retro" telephone ring sound that so many modern phones have built in is that it just doesn't resonate and echo and slowly decay over time like a real phone ring. It would be cool to code up a physical ring simulator that reproduces that sound properly, and responds to the accelerometer, especially when you drop it or hang up on somebody by slamming it down.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxXsIQDafog" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxXsIQDafog</a>
For those interested, here's a Sparkfun project from 2005 on converting an actual rotary phone into a portable cellular phone:<p><a href="https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/51" rel="nofollow">https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/51</a><p>You used to be able to buy them too: <a href="https://www.sparkfun.com/products/retired/286" rel="nofollow">https://www.sparkfun.com/products/retired/286</a>
> the battery lasts almost 24 hours<p>It seems like for hobby projects it's really hard to get good battery run times. I wonder why that is. Is is difficult to get everything into the appropriate sleep modes, or are hobbyist parts just that much more power hungry?<p>Commercial feature phones have stand by times measured in weeks.
On a slightly more practical note, if you want a rotary VoIP desk phone, there's a few models of Grandstream ATAs that understand pulse dialing. They can be registered to Asterisk as normal SIP clients. $20 for the ATA plus $20 for the phone, plus your time to do the software configuration.<p><a href="https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Black-Rotary-Phone-Telephone-Western-Electric-500DM-Works/174182582307?hash=item288e174823%3Ag%3AurkAAOSw%7EWpeOxjo%3Asc%3AUSPSPriorityFlatRateBox%2198230%21US%21-1&LH_BIN=1" rel="nofollow">https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Black-Rotary-Phone-Telephon...</a>
Very cool!<p>i concur with the whole functional simplicity thing.<p>But I think the dial is anachronistic, despite what's claimed; A bit like fitting your car with reigns for steering and a whip for acceleration.<p>The only 'functional' aspect of it is perhaps that it slows down your dialing enough (especially when your finger slips on a number, and you have to start over!), for you to think whether you really need to make that call.
I want all of these features in a phone without the rotary part:<p>* Real, removable antenna with an SMA connector. Receptions is excellent, and if I really want to I could always attach a directional antenna.<p>* When I want a phone I don't have to navigate through menus to get to the phone "application". That's bullshit.<p>* If I want to call my husband, I can do so by pressing a single dedicated physical key which is dediated to him. No menus. The point isn't to use the rotary dial every single time I want to make a call, which would get tiresome for daily use. The people I call most often are stored, and if I have to dial a new number, or do something like set the volume, then I can use the fun and satisfying-to-use rotary dial.<p>* Nearlt instantaneous, high resolution of signal strength and battery level. No signal metering lag, and my LED bargraph gives 10 increments of resolution instead of just 4.<p>* The ePaper display is bistatic, meaning it doesn't take any energy to display a fixed message.<p>* When I want to change something about the phones behavior, I just do it.<p>* The power switch is an actual slide switch. No holding down a stupid button to make it turn off and not being sure it really is turning off or what.<p>edit:formatting
I use an unmodified rotary phone as my main landline phone. In the UK it would seem that our exchanges still support pulse dialling. The only drawback are menu systems that expect to hear tones, but I get around this with a small app on my mobile phone that just plays DTMF tones. If i want to, i can pick up the receiver and play tones down it to dial a number rather than using the... dial.
This is great, I especially love the form factor. I did the same a few years ago but kept the original enclosure:<p><a href="https://www.stavros.io/posts/irotary-saga/" rel="nofollow">https://www.stavros.io/posts/irotary-saga/</a><p>It was a very fun project and I learned a lot about electronics doing it!
in order to one up this very cool project one would have to:
- create a cellphone in a Telephone magneto style from before there were rotaries
- train a machine learning algorythm to emulate the behavior of a Switchboard operator so you can have the truely "authentic" old school behavior
Brilliant!<p>And this is a gem if there ever was one: “The point isn't to use the rotary dial every single time I want to make a call, which would get tiresome for daily use.“
when I started visiting this site almost 8 years ago this was the kind of content I wanted (and expected) to see more of. tbh it's been a little disappointing how silicon valley tech industry everything has been focused.
This is seriously cool! The device has an amazing set of features and functionality.<p>I am a bit surprised about the short battery time. I would expect that, without a display, the battery would last several weeks under normal usage.
Given the choice I'd much prefer a device which texts but doesn't have a "phone" than the reverse. The idea of a phone which doesn't text just sounds frustrating.
That is awesome. I remember dialing our beige rotary phone for my friend when he came over after school... Haha he was afraid to dial it for about a year.<p>(Scared of looking dumb, I guess) But aside from choking on our tears and those shameless bellyaches, we didn't give him any grief. This would have been probably 1994 - 2000... when my folks upgraded to touch tone and answering machine :)
This would be a great time to see this obituary of John Karlin, one of the early phone UX pioneers:<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/09/business/john-e-karlin-who-led-the-way-to-all-digit-dialing-dies-at-94.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/09/business/john-e-karlin-wh...</a>
The link for the design files in the story is broken, but the files are up at this link instead:<p><a href="http://justine-haupt.com/rotarycellphone/designfiles/" rel="nofollow">http://justine-haupt.com/rotarycellphone/designfiles/</a>
Justine and I have a mutual friend. I sent him this link and he talked to her and she said she's been overwhelmed by the attention it's getting. I saw it on the Adafruit blog and I'm wondering if that's what started the avalanche.<p>It's cool project!
Weird second time I've seen this this morning.
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22303956" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22303956</a>
What I dont understand is why they just didnt use the trimline case as the case for the thing - or at least the blueprint for the case - this thing looks uncomfortable to hold for any length of time.
24hrs battery?!?! For a low tech solution with no draining high res touchscreen and all the other battery hungry features of a modern smartphone this is shockingly poor. I thought it was going to be 2 weeks!