@Landa

A lot of the defeatism has to be performative.

In a recent video, #XylaFoxlin stayed at a supposedly famous hotel that still had working rotary-dial telephones, and bemoaned that "I'm not in the generation that knows how to use rotary telephones.".

This is someone who was staying at that hotel in the first place because xe was solo piloting a 1940s Cessna aeroplane across the U.S.A.. Xe certainly can figure out a rotary dial telephone.

Even infants can figure out rotary dial telephones. They are somewhat famous for it.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=vxjmq4TdFbs&t=1308

@cunobaros @cstross
#telephony #aeronautics

@robpumphrey

Yes, real machines actually existed. But in the 1960s and 1970s they were mainly demonstrators and the infrastructure for supporting them was exceedingly expensive.

There was an AT&T video 'phone demo at the 1964 New York World's Fair, for example. It was called the #Picturephone. And that illustration is close to what it looked like.

#telephony