Snopes says this is real...! That honestly surprises me.
The phone in the picture *might* have been a working prototype. 1963 technology would have been stretched to its very limit to build a radio transmitter in that form factor. Hearing-aid batteries might have enabled an output power in the single digit milliwatts. All of the circuitry would have had to be purely analog. The "network" would have had to be purpose-built for a single demonstration.
We have always known that Bell Labs worked (with little success) on all of the other things enumerated in the article, but not a handset like this. I think that if they had built a working prototype of something like this, they would have been vastly proud of it.
Mansfield was much more of a happening place back then -- today it looks like the aftermath of the apocalypse, but (for example) Westinghouse had an R&D facility there, which my grandfather managed in the early 1960s.
Oh wow, that would be great. My iPhone is way too huge to fit in my pocket.
ReplyDeletepractically everything mention has been developed. who knew that the Mansfield Telephone Company was a leader in technology!
ReplyDeleteI-)
Snopes says this is real...! That honestly surprises me.
ReplyDeleteThe phone in the picture *might* have been a working prototype. 1963 technology would have been stretched to its very limit to build a radio transmitter in that form factor. Hearing-aid batteries might have enabled an output power in the single digit milliwatts. All of the circuitry would have had to be purely analog. The "network" would have had to be purpose-built for a single demonstration.
We have always known that Bell Labs worked (with little success) on all of the other things enumerated in the article, but not a handset like this. I think that if they had built a working prototype of something like this, they would have been vastly proud of it.
Mansfield was much more of a happening place back then -- today it looks like the aftermath of the apocalypse, but (for example) Westinghouse had an R&D facility there, which my grandfather managed in the early 1960s.