Restauration and modernisation of an old rotary dial phone

u/Dream of Omnimaga October 24, 2015, 08:12:23 PM

Ok thanks. I was wondering because I once accidentally set my grandmother's phone into some weird mode and had no clue why dialing had stopped working. I thought that the phone was broken until I pushed a switch on the side, which fixed the issue. I guess that pulse dialing is not supported by every phone company here.

u/DarkestEx October 24, 2015, 08:22:08 PM

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on October 24, 2015, 08:12:23 PM
Ok thanks. I was wondering because I once accidentally set my grandmother's phone into some weird mode and had no clue why dialing had stopped working. I thought that the phone was broken until I pushed a switch on the side, which fixed the issue. I guess that pulse dialing is not supported by every phone company here.

Same here, though most homes in Germany including ours are using VOIP telephony entirely. Our phone, internet and TV company is not even having a phone network anymore. They use the TV cable and modulate the TV and Internet (+VOIP) signals into it. A special transceiver is sending, receiving and demodulating the electromagnetic signals over the cable.
I had to buy (or build) a converter that turns the pule signals into DTMF (tone dialing) which is then sent to the phone system, which in turn converts it to ISDN and sends it to the router which turns it into VOIP and in turn sends it to the transceiver which sends it away.
Yea that's all inside our house. We also have our own DNS server and some webservers. I am administrating all these systems as my dad has no real clue what's going on

Also I ordered and paied the new replacement parts for my phone and they should arrive next week. Then I can repair it once more.

u/Dream of Omnimaga October 24, 2015, 08:26:55 PM

It's a shame that some old technology that was once used for decades will soon be useless worldwide. For example, some old video games that only had online multiplayer, but where the network shut down, are no longer useable. While in some cases progress is good, old stuff becoming useless after becoming so popular for decades kinda feels like a waste. >.<

u/DarkestEx October 24, 2015, 08:30:18 PM

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on October 24, 2015, 08:26:55 PM
It's a shame that some old technology that was once used for decades will soon be useless worldwide. For example, some old video games that only had online multiplayer, but where the network shut down, are no longer useable. While in some cases progress is good, old stuff becoming useless after becoming so popular for decades kinda feels like a waste. >.<

I absolutely agree. Though very often people are restoring and recovering these technologies and build devices to keep them compatible with new things. It's good that people do that.

u/Dream of Omnimaga October 30, 2015, 06:24:56 AM

Yeah true, but not everyone has the knowledge to do that, sadly. So a lot of those old things ends up in pawn shops or landfills (I bet a lot of CRT TVs suffered that fate when people decided to upgrade to HD cable TV services)

u/DarkestEx November 03, 2015, 10:48:07 PM

Good news, I got the missing parts today and the phone works again

u/novenary November 04, 2015, 12:22:32 AM

Nice ! Have fun with it.

u/DarkestEx November 04, 2015, 12:25:31 AM

Quote from: Streetwalrus on November 04, 2015, 12:22:32 AM
Nice ! Have fun with it.

Thanks [emoji4]

u/alexgt November 04, 2015, 03:18:38 AM

Quote from: DarkestEx on November 03, 2015, 10:48:07 PM
Good news, I got the missing parts today and the phone works again

Awesome!!! Now connect it to a calc and have it dial remotely

u/Dream of Omnimaga November 13, 2015, 06:11:50 AM

Quote from: DarkestEx on November 03, 2015, 10:48:07 PM
Good news, I got the missing parts today and the phone works again

I'm late but I'm glad to see you got it working again. I hope it continues working in long terms.

u/Dream of Omnimaga November 18, 2015, 10:35:33 PM

@DarkestEx have you seen this? http://hackaday.com/2015/11/18/old-school-rotary-phone-gets-gsm-upgrade/

Rotary phone upgrades/modding seems like it's not that uncommon, which is kinda cool.

Also imagine if you would have made Hackaday front page

u/alexgt November 18, 2015, 10:57:01 PM

Since I don't have a phone I should go to school after modding it like that and say "Hey guys I got a phone :3"

That would be awesome

u/Dream of Omnimaga November 21, 2015, 08:34:45 AM

Something funny would be if someone modded a rotary phone into a cellphone or vice-versa, so that the case remained somewhat similar to DarkestEx's phone, but more portable while still using the rotary interface. There would be the issue about where to place the screen, though (if any)