*Allan please add boomer memes*
Smartphones have been a revolution of the information age. Having what basically amounts to a tiny computer in your pocket is now practically considered indispensable. But that does come at a cost; you’re constantly getting notifications, and driven by the urge to check things as you happen across them over your day, among other things (like the compulsion to spend tens of thousands of dollars on wrestleman jpegs instead of waifus as God intended).
And due to that, Justine Haupt did something impressive: she made a mobile phone that really only makes phone calls… with a rotary dial. You know, those things phones have in old movies made before the 80’s. That’s what makes it so crazy, man; I haven’t seen one of these things in the wild in decades. Regardless, Justine lays out her design ethos for it at her page:
Why a rotary cellphone? Because in a finicky, annoying, touchscreen world of hyperconnected people using phones they have no control over or understanding of, I wanted something that would be entirely mine, personal, and absolutely tactile, while also giving me an excuse for not texting.
The point isn’t to be anachronistic. It’s to show that it’s possible to have a perfectly usable phone that goes as far from having a touchscreen as I can imagine, and which in some ways may actually be more functional. More functional how?
– Real, removable antenna with an SMA connector. Receptions is excellent, and if I really want to I could always attach a directional antenna.
– When I want a phone I don’t have to navigate through menus to get to the phone “application”. That’s bullshit.
– If I want to call my husband, I can do so by pressing a single dedicated physical key which is dedicated to him. No menus. The point isn’t to use the rotary dial every single time I want to make a call, which would get tiresome for daily use. The people I call most often are stored, and if I have to dial a new number or do something like set the volume, then I can use the fun and satisfying-to-use rotary dial.
– Nearly instantaneous, high resolution display of signal strength and battery level. No signal metering lag, and my LED bargraph gives 10 increments of resolution instead of just 4.
– The ePaper display is bistatic, meaning it doesn’t take any energy to display a fixed message.
– When I want to change something about the phone’s behavior, I just do it.
The power switch is an actual slide switch. No holding down a stupid button to make it turn off and not being sure it really is turning off or what.
So it’s not just a show-and-tell piece… My intent is to use it as my primary phone. It fits in a pocket.; It’s reasonably compact; calling the people I most often call is faster than with my old phone, and the battery lasts almost 24 hours.
Notably, according to her, the rotary dial came from a specific Trimline phone she got off of eBay. That, along with a number of other materials, is detailed in her build notes. As a matter of fact, she included schematics and design files, so there’s really little standing in the way of making your own throwback cellphone, other than a little technical knowledge.
Still, pretty cool.
Source: Gizmodo
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