Old Phone Stuph

As I was cleaning out a section of the garage yesterday, I made the realization that I was throwing away things that had monetary value, and keeping things that are, at least from a financial standpoint, essentially worthless.

Case in point? These.

In the normal world, I’m guessing there’s not one out of a hundred people who would recognize (much less care) what both of these things are. I’m hoping the “ooh” and “aah” factor is higher here …

The blue thing on top is a lineman’s handset, used by phone company employees to test phone lines. Along with a regular phone jack, the handset also has a pair of alligator clips that allow you to attach the handset to any outside phone connection and jack into it. As time goes by they are becoming less and less useful, but at the age of fifteen, I would have killed for one of these. Back in the glory days of phone phreaking, lineman’s handsets were so coveted that many people built their own. Homemade ones were referred to as beige boxes (and yes, I made one).

The more recognizable piece of hardware in the bottom of the picture is an acoustic modem — an Epson CX20, to be exact. The CX-20 was an add-on peripheral for Epson’s HX-20 computer, which was released in 1983 and is considered to be the first laptop computer. I’ve never even seen an HX-20 computer in person, but a friend of mine gave me this acoustic modem a few years ago and I’ve held on to it ever since. The three switches on the right turn the unit on or off, set it to originate or answer, and toggle half/full duplex.

With the advent of digital phones, a Lineman’s Handset is more of a conversation piece than a practical piece of hardware. As for the modem? I’d need something it would plug in to and a phone that would fit on top of it, for starters, plus a desire to transmit data again at 300 baud.

While neither of these have any practical value, both of them remind me of “the good ol’ days,” and both will (probably to Susan’s chagrin) end up at the new house.

8 comments to Old Phone Stuph

  • The other term for the lineman’s handset would be the butt-set. Most of those test sets will have a hook to hang it from a tool-belt. You can imagine the resulting visual of one of those test sets hanging from the belt of a telephone repair guy leaning over into a wiring closet.

    And yes, a set like this is on my wishlist for when I browse around on flee markets…

  • ladyjaye

    Love that pic! I’ve never seen or used this type of modem but like many people, I remember seeing it in WarGames. Now you just need young Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy lookalikes to re-enact the movie… ;)

  • uncle Kenny

    It’s in the blood believe me it is and sometimes I wonder if it’s a curse or a blessing. Many times I have dug out something that I now view as a treasure. Found a BB Gun the other day that is at least 25 years old. Probably one that you used at one time while visiting. Gonna start going through stuff at my old shop and cleaning house before long. hmmm I think that quote is from 3 years ago (grin) good luck nephew

  • clint

    Forgive my stupid questions. Was reading post on my phone and didnt see tgat my questions were already answered.

  • Josh

    That is a great pic Rob!! I never had one of those, but I did have a 300 baud westrige modem for comm64

  • Nice pieces, and my vote is that they move to the new house as well. All that’s missing from your collection and is probably hiding in your garage or storage space would be a red box. Ah, the Radio Shack 32-memory pocket tone dialer with a replacement 6.553600 MHz crystal. Like you said, the good ol’ days

  • @Rob: Awesome. Thanks for the link. Pure gold my friend.

.xX[ MY INFO/LINKS ]Xx.

My EMAIL
My RSS FEED
My SUBSCRIPTION (Blog)
My Twitter
My YouTube

My Books
My Portfolio
My Podcasts
Review-O-Matic (Reviews)

.xX[ SUB-PAGES ]Xx.

My ARCADE GAMES
My SOFTWARE
My PHOTO GALLERY
My WRITING ADVICE
Every CAR I'VE OWNED
Every STATE I'VE VISITED

Latest Tweets