Oldest computer you've used for "real work"?

[bshoring]

(03-22-2015 02:38 AM)Katie Wasserman Wrote:  

(03-22-2015 01:35 AM)Paul Berger (Canada) Wrote:  I can remember when the dial phones where introduced in my home town, before that we had standard desk sets with no dial, you picked up the phone and told the operator who you wanted to speak to.

I grew up 25 miles north of NY City and while we had a dial on the telephone it didn't do anything until sometime after 1960 (or so). You still had to talk to the operator to place a call. It wasn't too long after that, around 1967 that some of my friends stated to have touch-tone phones installed in their houses. My cable VOIP phone connection accepts pulse dialing, so I can still use my dial phone when I'm feeling nostalgic, but there's no operator to talk to

Katie, I grew up in Stoneham, MA, which had its own phone company. Until we moved in 1960, we had the same thing, except there were no dials on our phones. The operator would ask "numbah pleeze" and after we gave her the number, she'd ask for our letter. Every phone number in town had a letter at the end which determined which party we were on the party line. If we were calling someone in town, we only had to give the last 4 digits, plus the letter, as every phone in town was in the same exchange (SToneham6). It worked well for us !