For reasons that escape me, I got to wondering when was the first time I used a mobile phone. In 1993.
This is important and momentous, don't underestimate how important this is - for it has changed everything. Arguably more than the death of JFK and the coming down of the Berlin Wall or the death of Princess Di or whatever it is you set your nostalgia clock by.
I remember precisely where I was. I was en route to the Lake District in a Citroen Xantia (as a passsenger) and I was speaking with my future wife. "Guess what?", I twittered, with all the delight of a six year old child, "I'm on Andy's mobile telephone!" It was practically all I could do to refrain from reciting, (in a clear-cut voice) "Mary had a little Lamb" - one of the earliest cylinder recordings I think.
Anyway it was about sixteen years ago.
50 years ago, we were the only people in our street with a telephone. People used to come and borrow it at times of great importance. The only thing I have never mastered is getting used to the idea that you don't have to shout down it in order to be heard at the other end.
Over to you.
5 comments:
|I bought my first one in 1997 A| great big brick of a phone Miss it sometimes.
I always used to joke that if someone tried to steal it I could use it as a blunt instrument
I bought one for the wife when she started permanent night shift, back in '93 also
I reluctantly received mine as a Chrissy pressy two years ago. It's pay as you go, but I'm buggered if I can find anywhere to put the coins.
Boom boom!
Seriously, it's just a phone. It's not a camera or mini computer or whatever other gadgets they add in these days. Look, if a Tornado fighter can get by with being programmed by c90 cassette, what more do you need?
The Luddite lives on
WW,
I bought a Sony "Mars Bar" in 1993 Followed by an NEC P100 - both were steam driven! My old man couldn't believe it - he thought I was a millionaire!
CD
1991 Aberdeen, mid-summer. The salesman in a friend's graphic design company gave me a lift and he had this thing, about the size of an iron, balancing on the dashboard.
Of course I had to see if it worked so I phoned my own office. Yes I know I'm pathetic lol.
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