Life without Mobile Phones!?
Our first step back in time is to the summer of 1976. There
is one week until Gerry Fraser starts grade 12 at Newton High School. He’s
hanging out at the local bowling alley one afternoon with his friends and
mentions that he’ll be going on a fishing trip with his dad and younger
brother. Gerry is excited to go on the trip because it feels like all he’s been
doing this summer is working at the local supermarket. Now his dad is going to
pick him up and they won’t come home until the night before school starts. He
keeps checking his wristwatch to make sure he’ll be outside the bowling alley on
time. In fact, his dad is trying to come and pick him up, but is running late
due to a flat tire. Gerry cannot know this and has no choice but to keep checking his watch and wait.
The only thing that is making Gerry feel a bit bummed about the trip is listening to his friends talk about their classes next year. They’ll be going in together to get their timetables next week but because he’ll be on his fishing trip, he’ll have go to the Office on the first day. Gerry doesn’t want to look like a dweeb standing at the Office when he’s starting his last year of high school. His friend Susan’s mother is a clerk at the high school and Susan knows that the classes have already been made up. She suggests that he telephone the school and ask if the secretary can give him his class schedule before he leaves on his trip. Gerry thinks this is a great idea and finds a dime in his pocket for the payphone outside the bowling alley. He uses the thick phone book stored under the payphone to find the phone number to the high school and dials it to speak to the school secretary.
The only thing that is making Gerry feel a bit bummed about the trip is listening to his friends talk about their classes next year. They’ll be going in together to get their timetables next week but because he’ll be on his fishing trip, he’ll have go to the Office on the first day. Gerry doesn’t want to look like a dweeb standing at the Office when he’s starting his last year of high school. His friend Susan’s mother is a clerk at the high school and Susan knows that the classes have already been made up. She suggests that he telephone the school and ask if the secretary can give him his class schedule before he leaves on his trip. Gerry thinks this is a great idea and finds a dime in his pocket for the payphone outside the bowling alley. He uses the thick phone book stored under the payphone to find the phone number to the high school and dials it to speak to the school secretary.
Payphone circa 1975
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An example of the type of pay phone Gerry might have used to make the phone call to the school. Prior to the invention of mobile phone technology, pay phones were the primary way of making telephone call if you were out in public. There were phone booths on street corners, banks of pay phones in bus stations, and pay phones in restaurants or other entertainment venues. Pay phones are still seen today in rural areas and areas with poor cell phone coverage, but pay phone sightings in the city are rare.
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Mobile technology has come a long way
Mobile phone technology has been around a surprisingly long time. It was invented in 1973.
Click here to read an article about the first mobile phone call.
By 1977, Bell Canada was leasing cell phones to customers, but they weren't the kind of cell phones that we think of today, they were the kind that needed some kind of extra trunk space to use. It was only select group of customers who purchased these new kinds of phones.They certainly weren't available for people like Gerry's dad who would have had to change the flat tire himself and leave Gerry waiting at the bowling alley, wondering why his dad was so late.
Click here to read an article about the first mobile phone call.
By 1977, Bell Canada was leasing cell phones to customers, but they weren't the kind of cell phones that we think of today, they were the kind that needed some kind of extra trunk space to use. It was only select group of customers who purchased these new kinds of phones.They certainly weren't available for people like Gerry's dad who would have had to change the flat tire himself and leave Gerry waiting at the bowling alley, wondering why his dad was so late.