70's compact cell phone

[abunaitoo]

Remember these????
It was the "compact" cell phone back in the 70's.
About 2/3 the size of the regular one.
Imagine carrying this around all day long.
Or holding it to your ear for hours.
Although I don't think the battery would last for more than an hour.
280051

[marlin39a]

I had a bag phone back in 1994. I used it to verify charge cards at gun shows. Bigger than that gizmo.

[poppy42]

The brick! I had a doctor friend and had one. It was pretty much useless. Although it wouldn’t make one heck of a club

[Jsm180]

70's? More like early 90's

[john.k]

The Motorola "brick " was the first cheap cell phone.....maybe the first cell.....the previous "bag phone" wasnt cell ,but a satellite transciever ...and very expensive ....like $7-8k.....the brick cut the price to a more affordable $2000...quite a lot in 1980s money.

[Shawlerbrook]

Also had a bag phone. Could have used it as a boat anchor.

[john.k]

There are still plenty of "bag phones" in use .....if you are outside of cell reception areas,remote location,then you need a satellite transceiver,just as before the "cell" infrastructure existed.

[derek45]

That's not 1970's technology.

[cwtebay]

That's VERY compact compared to my first one! It was the size of a 3" -3 ring binder. My FIL kept the same model as that until 2011 when cellular companies refused to offer service to them any longer.

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

[JimB..]

Early 1990’s
Motorola 8000H I think.
Antenna looks wrong.
I had the special/executive version in black.

As I recall “the brick” was a TT30 bag phone, Motorola Tough Talker. You could pound nails with the thing while talking.

[sigep1764]

I remember my mom had the first cell phone in our family, around 1995. It was a Motorola fit phone, a 1st gen StarTac. No memory, had to remember phone numbers and had 2 batteries, one charging and one using. Great service. She still has the same cell phone number. Dad then got at the same time a new StarTac flip phone the size of a billfold that could store 20 phone numbers and a blackberry that could send and receive text messages and voice messages. All in 1997-98. Now we have the equivalent of a Star Trek Tricorder in our hands. Literally the earliest 4000 square foot computer has 1/1000000 the computing power of the modern smart phone. We are Warp Speed away from the future.

[abunaitoo]

I thought it was from the 70's.
I had one of those car phones in the 70's, and I thought these were around.
Wasn't this one smaller than the brick????
I remember the brick being much larger.
Getting old and memory seems to be fading.
I wonder how many kids these days would know what it is????
I know most have no idea what a rotary phone is.

[JimB..]

I thought it was from the 70's.
I had one of those car phones in the 70's, and I thought these were around.
Wasn't this one smaller than the brick????
I remember the brick being much larger.
Getting old and memory seems to be fading.
I wonder how many kids these days would know what it is????
I know most have no idea what a rotary phone is.

Lord I’m getting old, we launched cell service in Chicago, Las Vegas and Greensboro NC sometime in the early to mid 1980’s. The 8000H was a big improvement over the older dynatac which was about twice as large front to back. With the extended life battery and 6db gain antenna it was a formidable weapon.
There was no commercial cell phone service in the 1970’s, but there were some test sites up, I recall them being in Vancouver and NYC.

[David2011]

We’re in the process of deciding what new phones to get. The iPhone 12 Pro Max has been rejected because it weighs over 1/2 lb without a case compared to my current iPhone 6 that weighs just over 5 ounces. That’s a big difference for carrying in a shirt pocket. My first Motorola with an antenna and a folding mouthpiece was a brick by comparison.

[Lloyd Smale]

I had a bag phone back in 1994. I used it to verify charge cards at gun shows. Bigger than that gizmo.

we used to have bag phones in our line trucks.

[Plate plinker]

There are still plenty of "bag phones" in use .....if you are outside of cell reception areas,remote location,then you need a satellite transceiver,just as before the "cell" infrastructure existed.

Yep I know a guy the erects remote communication towers they always have a bag phone on the site.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

According to my "Saved by the Bell" time machine, the height of the Brick phone popularity was 1989 to 1993 (the time period of the first four seasons of the original TV broadcast) ...there appears to be many different flavors of Brick phones in use in that time period. There is also a cameo of a flip phone, likely in a 1993 episode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBWneSL5MWI

[Tripplebeards]

I have a watchman TV to add to the pile.

[AZ Pete]

The Motorola "brick " was the first cheap cell phone.....maybe the first cell.....the previous "bag phone" wasnt cell ,but a satellite transciever ...and very expensive ....like $7-8k.....the brick cut the price to a more affordable $2000...quite a lot in 1980s money.

bag phones were also available as cel phones. I had a Motorola bag phone. Satellite phones came later, as the outfit I worked for had a few of those in the early '90's as well.

[Ural Driver]

Dad had a "radio phone" in his truck then went to a bag phone which he kept for years.

https://youtu.be/yCB6gUrma2c

[Kraschenbirn]

bag phones were also available as cel phones. I had a Motorola bag phone. Satellite phones came later, as the outfit I worked for had a few of those in the early '90's as well.

Yup! Was running my renovation/restoration business back then and had 'em in my pick-up and my foreman's van. Been through four or five cell service carriers since then but still have my original phone number.

Bill

[yovinny]

I had a company issued bag phone in NY in the early 90's, cell not satellite.
Damn thing was as bigger then my 6-pack size lunch cooler,, and heavier.
Couldent leave it in the truck for fear of theft, so had to carry it everywhere.
The introduction of pocket sized phones was world changing...

[MrWolf]

Carrying a phone and a "portable" Compac computer that was as big as a suitcase. Then had to carry my audit bag, all on a daily train to NYC. That sucked.

[Handloader109]

Yep, 1990's, was Nothing but a long telephone cord in the 1970s. And the star trek tricorder.....
First hand held calculator in about 1972-3. I had a TI 4 whole functions, no memory, larger than the largest screen Apple phone and was over $100 in 1975.

[bedbugbilly]

I don't know anything about that phone but I DO REMEMBER benign ambulance and rescue runs in the early 1970's and we did not have direct contact with the ER by radio. I remember more than once fantasizing how nice it wold be if we had the ability to have a small and compact device where we could be in touch with the ER directly while on the scene - kind of fantasizing about the Dick Tracy wrist communicator but in essence, what I was thinking about was what would become the "cell phone". I could not stop thinking about such a thing.

MORAL OF THE STORY - Be careful what you wish for! Such a device eventually arrived . . the "necessary" cell phone - or most folks think so anyway. Now I wish they would all burn up at the same time and people actually go back to "communicating" with each other.

I did end up with a "bag phone" . . . what a waste that was.

[JimB..]

Carrying a phone and a "portable" Compac computer that was as big as a suitcase. Then had to carry my audit bag, all on a daily train to NYC. That sucked.

Compaq luggable with the amber screen, 5.5” floppy and giant 10meg hard drive! That was a couple years before cellphones hit the scene.

I was with E&W at the time in Chicago, audit and coding a small business accounting system that would run on those Compaqs. Kinda wish that I still had the big belt-leather audit bag, but don’t miss that work.

[Electrod47]

70's? More like early 90's

Bought mine when they first came out in summer 1988. 700.00 out the door. All calls were roaming charged. My first bill for was 200.00 for 30 minutes call time. I was 41 years old. My first call. Driving down the road. " Hey mom, guess where I am"

[gwpercle]

The antenna they all sported "back in the day" was a dead give away to age .
Gary

[.429&H110]

I watch Perry Mason reruns to watch the vintage Fords
(and Della: do you remember what women used to look like?)
Paul Drake's car phone was a very big deal in 1959.

[Mmacro]

Those phones were still desirable until the cell systems went fully digital... they had a full 5W output compared to the more compact, digital phones that put out about 0.6W.

The old analog bricks could take and make calls easily from anywhere inside a building and hit cell towers that today’s phones can’t dream of.

[JimB..]

Those phones were still desirable until the cell systems went fully digital... they had a full 5W output compared to the more compact, digital phones that put out about 0.6W.

The old analog bricks could take and make calls easily from anywhere inside a building and hit cell towers that today’s phones can’t dream of.

Yeah, we needed to knock down the power as we shrank the size of each cell to accommodate customer growth in cities. Network architecture and frequency reuse would bore you all to sleep! The rural customers were stuck with the lower power and resulting connection problems. Did help with battery life and size.

[Mmacro]

I hear you... my authorized, usable amateur radio frequencies have been slowly eroded over the last few decades in order to accommodate the growth in wireless technologies (never mind with digital modes, the need to take Ham frequencies should have been minimized as frequency/band sharing is a real thing).


Yeah, we needed to knock down the power as we shrank the size of each cell to accommodate customer growth in cities. Network architecture and frequency reuse would bore you all to sleep! The rural customers were stuck with the lower power and resulting connection problems. Did help with battery life and size.

[farmbif]

I remember getting a bag phone when they first came out, it wasn't the 70's more like early 90's, late 80's, whenever, it sure was great to get rid of the pager, you could actually talk to someone without having to find a phone booth. I never could of afforded it if the place I worked for didn't pay the phone bill.

[MrWolf]

Compaq luggable with the amber screen, 5.5” floppy and giant 10meg hard drive! That was a couple years before cellphones hit the scene.

I was with E&W at the time in Chicago, audit and coding a small business accounting system that would run on those Compaqs. Kinda wish that I still had the big belt-leather audit bag, but don’t miss that work.

Price Waterhouse back when there was a big ten or whatever it was called. Think I cut a chunk out of my leather audit bag for something. Stayed with them four years.

[john.k]

my boss son had a $6000 bag phone,mainly so he could pose at nightspots as a businessman (closest he ever got)...then a brick ,and I got one of the first Motorola compacts around 1992.....prices came down by 50% overnight,but it still cost $600.....but in those days ,before everyone had one ,you could ask customers if they wanted something as the lots came up for auction.....magic until everyone got one....then there were no more bargains and giveaways at auctions....been the same ever since.

[john.k]

before the mobile phones ,there was two ways ...either to your own base ,or you could be in a two way service,that worked like the 1920s operator connected service.....you could talk from your two way ,via the base ,over a phone line to a council engineer ,for instance......now the council engineers can check jobs from their office in realtime with satellite video.

[GregLaROCHE]

Who remembers the flip side, when they were making phones so small they weren’t much bigger than your thumb. They were so small that you would hold them between your thumb and forefinger. I don’t know how people could dial them. I remember looking at them, but they didn’t interest me. I went for a Motorola folding model.

[JimB..]

Who remembers the flip side, when they were making phones so small they weren’t much bigger than your thumb. They were so small that you would hold them between your thumb and forefinger. I don’t know how people could dial them. I remember looking at them, but they didn’t interest me. I went for a Motorola folding model.
I was working on an opportunity with NTT DoCoMo and was amazed at how tiny some of the phones in Japan were...and completely unusable! Think I have a kimono around here somewhere still, they were big on gifts, and on drinking.

They did have a technology advantage, they went to high density digital networks while we were maintaining backwards compatibility with low density analog, high density analog and low density digital, it was a bit of a mess here as we split over CDMA vs TDMA.

Remember when the first iphone came out. Motorola had put a ton of effort into making a mobile phone that fit your hand and head in a way that was comfortable...Apple gave us a flat rectangle and it was heralded as an innovative design.

[nicholst55]

I remember my mom had the first cell phone in our family, around 1995. It was a Motorola fit phone, a 1st gen StarTac. No memory, had to remember phone numbers and had 2 batteries, one charging and one using. Great service. She still has the same cell phone number. Dad then got at the same time a new StarTac flip phone the size of a billfold that could store 20 phone numbers and a blackberry that could send and receive text messages and voice messages. All in 1997-98. Now we have the equivalent of a Star Trek Tricorder in our hands. Literally the earliest 4000 square foot computer has 1/1000000 the computing power of the modern smart phone. We are Warp Speed away from the future.

The computers that ran the space shuttle have significantly less capability and memory than the typical smart phone of today.

[Mal Paso]

Period Joke.

Plumber is working on a doctor's sink when the phone rings in the plumbers bag. Plumber answers, confirms a later appointment and hangs up.

Doctor: That's cool, wish I could afford one.

Plumber: I couldn't afford one either back when I was a doctor.

[gbrown]

I had a Motorola "brick" in the 90s. Battery life was about an hour, IIRC. It worked, but there weren't near as many towers in that day. My Samsung works as well as my laptop. I look back on the history of these devices, and think what the youth of today have in their hands, just jaw dropping.

[gbrown]

Also, I will add, last few years I was on a deer lease, I had a hot spot from my provider, used it to stream football games and movies, on a laptop. . Only had 2 bars, mostly, but worked very well.

[abunaitoo]

I guess it was in the 90's.
Getting old and everything seem older.
I remember the "brick" phone as being bigger.
I remember just about everything being bigger back then.
Except my tummy.
I never had a "brick", to poor" only the car phone.
That was a waste of money.
I wonder if this thing can be brought back to life?????

[gbrown]

I wonder if this thing can be brought back to life?????

Yeah, LOL, probably like winning the lottery!;

[cwtebay]

Period Joke.

Plumber is working on a doctor's sink when the phone rings in the plumbers bag. Plumber answers, confirms a later appointment and hangs up.

Doctor: That's cool, wish I could afford one.

Plumber: I couldn't afford one either back when I was a doctor.Ha!!!! That hits far too close to home!!!! My brother is a plumber.....

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

[JimB..]

I guess it was in the 90's.
Getting old and everything seem older.
I remember the "brick" phone as being bigger.
I remember just about everything being bigger back then.
Except my tummy.
I never had a "brick", to poor" only the car phone.
That was a waste of money.
I wonder if this thing can be brought back to life?????
The first version was twice the size, what you have is the later version, commonly called the ultra something. I’d bet that with new batteries it would still power up, but I don’t think there is anywhere outside a lab that still runs the network that it talks to.

[Soundguy]

not a 70's cell.. mor elike early 90's. What you may remember from the 70's are ol rt's radio telephones.