New York Woman Invents…a Rotary Phone?
Kids today are completely clueless about a whole lot of things like typewriters and cassette tapes and phones before phones basically only came in cell phone form.
All that was old is new again and nostalgia is all the rage. I chuckle when I see kids walking around wearing chunky sneakers and jeans pulled up to their breastbone with cropped tops and flannel shirts. Been there, done that, and don't want to do it again.
Growing up, my thrifty family held on to everything and I mean everything. Although push-button phones came out in the 80s, my family used a rotary phone until at least the mid-90s and my biggest pet peeve was that if I messed up dialing, I'd have to push down on the buttons on the phone handset rest several times to "reset" the phone. Well, that and the fact that if swung by the springy cord, that sucker hurt when it made contact with a noggin.
I love the 90s and probably more than the next person, but can we just stop with the making of expensive novelty items that people will fall out of love with because honestly, there are some things that probably should have been left in the past.
Justine Haupt is a space engineer at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York and she created a...rotary cell phone. You know, because we all loved spinning our fingers in a circle to dial a number the first time around.
Before the rotary cell phone can be used, it needs to be made -as in literally built by the purchaser. Doesn't spending $390 on a phone you have to build yourself before you can use it sound like fun? While this new generation of the rotary phone offers way more features than the original such as a headphone jack, a screen on the back to read text, etc., you won't be able to use it to stalk people on social media or look for something online.
I must say, I respect Haupt for the fact that she said she got the idea because she felt people could use a phone without all of the additional distractions that come with one these days. As for the reason buyers will need to assemble their own phone before they can use it - Haupt says it's pretty rotten how few people truly understand how technology works and she wanted to challenge people. I do love that.