@zenwheel @siracusa @atpfm I mean… I’m gen z and have a rotary telephone in my house right now, but even for me I brought a spare one in to class in elementary school for a lesson on antique technology bc nobody else (except the teacher) had seen one

Landline phones in general, but especially wired ones, aren’t very common anymore and are thus used as icons because they’re *the* de facto icon for a telephone. Much like how floppy disks are the save icon, phone cameras make a shutter sound, etc. It used to be skeuomorphism, but at this point, esp for kids, that’s just the icon.

@zenwheel @atpfm 12 year old, just last week, was playing with a rotary-dial payphone at the community center pool. (Have to see if I can grab a pic next time.) Even though was prob 30y old, had prepaid card reader 🤪 ’cuz: Japan

Still decent number around malls, parks, other places where kids and old people might be. https://www.ntt-west.co.jp/ptd_e/mag_public/kind.html

Blew my kids’ minds by telling them how I used to use RJ-11 connector on my PowerBook with the ISDN ones (gray) to check my email in the early 2000s