It is amazing how far technology and communications have come just in the years since I was a kid.
These days, there's an awful lot we take for granted. For example, we can talk live to somebody clear across the globe... with live pictures, or we can just chat with them via text. We have access to e-mail that reaches anywhere pretty much instantaneously, while actual handwritten snail mail has become almost obsolete, even though it was the mainstay of communication for hundreds of years.
When I was a little kid and I was occasionally allowed to call my auntie out in the country, I would pick up the phone and dial the switchboard in her area and ask the local operator to connect to her phone number which was... 3. Yes her phone number was number three!
Of course my parents generally taught me to not go anywhere near the phone except to answer it, because the moment you picked up a phone it started costing money. In fact they drilled this into me so thoroughly that I virtually thought that just looking at the phone cost money!
Of course, in 1966 Denmark, all calls did cost money, even local ones. Pretty much the only calls you could make for free — interestingly enough — was that you could dial up and get the correct time on demand, and you could dial up and get a weather report. I still remember picking up the phone and dialing 0055 to get the correct time whenever I'd forgotten to wind my watch.
Yes, that's right, I had a mechanical watch I had to remember to wind, about every 6-7 days.
The thing that is slightly amazing about writing these words is that I am not exactly ancient. I'm just 64 years old and that's the stunning part of how far technology has come since then.
The really big deal when making phone calls was calling long distance. In particular, making international calls — which my parents did relatively often, in spite of the cost of doing so — was quite a process.
When I was growing up, direct dialing for international call was still in its infancy. We could call Sweden and Germany, and major cities in England. but pretty much everywhere else required an international operator to place the call.
If it were something truly distant like a call from Denmark to Australia or even to the United States, you literally had to order a call. You would call up the operator, give them the information about the person and the destination of the call and the receiving phone number, they would make the necessary connections through a number of switchboards, and eventually the operator would come back on and save we have your call ready for you.
In case you are wondering why, early underwater (trans-Atlantic, for example) only were capable of carrying a very limited number of simultaneous channels — a few hundred perhaps — connecting hundreds of millions of people in the US with hundreds of millions of people in Europe.
And it was definitely not crystal clear calling! There would be all kinds of crackle and static on the line, and the person at the other end would fade in and out and sometimes we'd have to shout to be able to hear each other.
It's hard for me to imagine that I actually experienced that first-hand, when I pick up my phone and call my cousin in Denmark whose number I have in my speed dial.
Our daughter is expecting a baby this spring, and it's likely that child will grow up and have no idea what a "land line" is! Also makes me wonder what he might be reflecting on, when he's my age...
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great rest of your week!
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Created at 2025.01.15 23:16 PST
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