In my pandemic adventures of UNIX nerd-dom I began to gain an interest in bell labs in general. At some point I decided that I wanted a genuine bell system phone, and then I decided I needed to hook it up to VoIP, and then I found more......
This was my first phone. I went out to the antique district just to find a bell system phone, and it was at the first store I tried. While not in the best shape, with a crack in the side and a few missing pieces. But it works just fine. the only big thing is that I don't have the "wall wort" to power the light up dial but I don't really mind.
I already had a Vintage trimline, but this one was in such good condition and was like $5.00, so I had to pick it up. I absolutely love the buttons, you can feel the spring under each one and I find the smaller size charming.
This one isn't too interesting, I mostly got it for programming ATA's (they often need the * key that older phones lack). However the difference in build is stark. Compared to its older brother it is far lighter and uses more plastic. It doesn't even have a physical bell.
Honestly I just straight up love this phone. Someone really put effort into this novelty phone. They could have just made it clear and called it a day, but no they neon silk-screened the boards, and painted all the other parts different colors. It even lights up when it rings its amazing.
This boy is in rough shape, when I saw it I didn't even think it would work, however we found it just needed grease in the dial. We ordered some parts for it and hope to restore him, so stay tuned!
This is one of the strangest phones I have found so far. Even though it has keys it actually pulse dials, meaning if you dial a larger number you have to wait for the pulses to finish (it makes the noises over the speaker.). At first we thought it was broken, so we opened it and cleaned all the key contacts before we figured out what was going on. Another oddity is that the base has 0 electronics its just a weight to set the handset on.