Everything about telephones

June 11, 2003 6:08 AM

Everything you ever wanted to know about telephones. Really. I went to the list of History of the Telephone links first.
posted by carter (4 comments total)

Everything... except who really invented them.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 6:28 AM on June 11, 2003

Man, a FPP on metafilter must have really increased this site's traffic. Apparently, I was the 1,000,000th visitor!
posted by fletchmuy at 6:31 AM on June 11, 2003

The Invention of Automatic Switching

Almon B. Strowger was an undertaker in Kansas City, USA. The story goes that there was a competing undertaker locally whose wife was an operator at the local (manual) telephone exchange. Whenever a caller asked to be put through to Strowger, calls were deliberately put through to his competitor. This obviously frustrated Strowger greatly and he set about devising a system for doing away with the human part of the equation !


You just can't make this stuff up.
posted by electro at 8:50 AM on June 11, 2003

Everything? I don't think so! Where were the celebrities with phones???

Seriously, great link carter...I know someone who will think I am a goddess when he gets this link in e-mail.
posted by madamjujujive at 11:24 PM on June 11, 2003