Weird, Old DynaTAC Prototypes

[MOTOhooligan]

Check 'em out, I had never heard of these before but they sure are interesting. Looks like Motorola was the first to manufacture the flip and slider form factors... These were both from 1972, incidentally.

[Jay2TheRescue]

Hooray Motorola! They've always made cool stuff...

[Jerro]

Originally Posted by rancidhooligan Check 'em out, I had never heard of these before but they sure are interesting. Looks like Motorola was the first to manufacture the flip and slider form factors... These were both from 1972, incidentally.

neat photos:

Yes they look like a Popular Science mock-up, keeping in mind that cellular did not exist then. And that my (IMTS) Motorola in 1977 had a dial and the in car head was larger than any cellular car phone, the trunk unit was solid state,(no vacuum tubes) and weighed about 25 pounds.

On the other hand in 1977 GTE made a PLUG in, house ( corded) FLIP phone with pulse dialing, I still have one in the garage. Motorola had to pay royalties to GTE when they introduced the first cellular flip.

Remember?

[MOTOhooligan]

Originally Posted by Jerro On the other hand in 1977 GTE made a PLUG in, house ( corded) FLIP phone with pulse dialing, I still have one in the garage. Motorola had to pay royalties to GTE when they introduced the first cellular flip. Remember?

Since I was two years away from being born in 1977, I'm going to go ahead and say no, I don't remember. But thanks for the info... one question, how did the house/landline flip phone work. Wasn't it annoying to unflip it to answer or did it just set on a table or something? You should post a pic of the one in your garage. I'd be interested to see it.

[Jay2TheRescue]

Originally Posted by Jerro neat photos: Yes they look like a Popular Science mock-up, keeping in mind that cellular did not exist then. And that my (IMTS) Motorola in 1977 had a dial and the in car head was larger than any cellular car phone, the trunk unit was solid state,(no vacuum tubes) and weighed about 25 pounds. On the other hand in 1977 GTE made a PLUG in, house ( corded) FLIP phone with pulse dialing, I still have one in the garage. Motorola had to pay royalties to GTE when they introduced the first cellular flip. Remember?

I am assuming by GTE you are referring to Automatic Electric. I was not aware of a flip style landline phone made by them in the 70's. You may have a rare and valuable phone on your hands there. I'll check w/ a friend who collects AE equipment and see what he says. I remember in the 80's we had a landline flip phone - a Chinese piece of C#@P.

I just checked - my AE collector friend was aware of a flip phone they sold in the 80's & 90's but not the 70's. Do you have some pics? He's interested in seeing what it looks like.

[MOTOhooligan]

Here is the page I got those pics from. There are some other pics you might find interesting there.

[Jay2TheRescue]

Originally Posted by rancidhooligan Here is the page I got those pics from. There are some other pics you might find interesting there.

That reminds me that my Uncle says his Dad used to have a wireless fax machine in his car in the 70's. He worked for Xerox and used to test stuff like that. He said the project was scrapped because it was "technoligically interesting, but no one would have a practical use for it." Xerox dropped the ball a lot in the 70's. They invented the PC, the GUI, mouse, wireless fax, and other common items now, and they lost it all. Imagine if they had stuck with it to bring these technologies to market?

[Jerro]

Originally Posted by rancidhooligan Since I was two years away from being born in 1977, I'm going to go ahead and say no, I don't remember. But thanks for the info... one question, how did the house/landline flip phone work. Wasn't it annoying to unflip it to answer or did it just set on a table or something? You should post a pic of the one in your garage. I'd be interested to see it.

It would open up when it was picked up. It had a long curly cord and pulse dialing. The flip was not active, it just reflected the sound to the mic. The down side was that it was necessary to hold it shut while trying to lay it down to hang up the phone. I' LL have to dig through my stuff and see if it has model numbers on it. It was definitely GTE. White color.