Antique radio equipment and telephones. History of telephones: emergence and development Life without telephones

Telephones and radio technology were an integral part of everyday life in the last century. And although bulky, low-performance devices have long since sunk into oblivion, giving way to high-tech devices, they are still highly valued - now by collectors and antique dealers. Such devices will not only complement rare collections, but also decorate the interior in a retro style.

Range

Antique salon "ArtAntik" offers a large selection of antiques, including telephones and radios of the 19th-20th centuries. We present:

• wall and desk telephones;
• models with switch;
• tabletop radios, pocket radios with headphones;
• loudspeakers;
• reel-to-reel tape recorders;
• walkie-talkies.

Also available are accessories and components: remote controls, microphones, telephone signs, amateur radio reference books, subscriber lists, radio engineering reference books in foreign languages.

Features of the offer

Almost all products are in good to excellent condition, especially for radio equipment of the 20th century. The advantage of our catalog is a wide range of devices from different countries and eras. For example, connoisseurs of rarities will certainly be interested in a 19th-century Norwegian wall-mounted apparatus from ELEKTRISK BUREAU.

What does the price consist of?

The price of radio and telephone equipment depends on the year of manufacture of the device, its condition, and the presence of decorative ornaments. The most valuable are rare Western models produced in the century before last and which have undergone minimal restoration. The cost is also affected by the presence of original components, an authentic technical passport, instructions, and boxes.

Rare originals with a guarantee

We present only genuine rarities, which is confirmed by expert opinions of independent specialists and researchers from major historical museums in the capital. You can also purchase optical mechanisms, books, decorative figurines and much more. Contact us!

My phone rang. Who's speaking? Elephant! The telephone is an invention that changed the world. Since all our modern activities are so tied to this thing, we decided to trace the history of its development, and at the same time understand how it works.

Do you know someone who doesn't have a phone? Perhaps these are only very old grandparents. Or the guys from the Tumba-Yumba tribe. Although they probably already have one. The telephone appeared a century and a half ago, and here is the result: every person makes about 1,500 phone calls a year!

Telephony development

The first telephones had a range of only 500 meters, they did not have a ringer, and calls had to be made using a whistle. After introducing a carbon microphone and telecoil into the phone, the range of the device increased significantly.

The first telephone exchanges could not connect subscribers directly. In order to “call”, you had to pick up the phone and start turning the lever. After connecting with the telephone operator, she was told the subscriber's number, she plugged the plug into the socket, and only after that the conversation began.

Direct calls have become possible since the 20s of the last century, although an automatic switchboard capable of replacing the work of telephone operators was proposed back in 1887 by the Russian scientist K.A. Mosticki.

Now we are accustomed to 7-digit numbers and international telephone codes. And the first telephone numbers consisted of only 2-3 digits.

In 1927 it was already possible to call from New York to London. Telephone networks began to actively cover the globe.

By the way, call us any time! For our readers there is now a 10% discount on

The principle of operation of the phone “on the fingers”

Why on the fingers? Because before you deal with something complex (for example, the principle of operation of a modern mobile phone), you always need to deal with the simplest things, from which everything started.

The signals in the telephone are electrical. Human speech is a sound signal. The telephone converts sound signals into electrical signals and vice versa.

We speak into a microphone, the membrane vibrates, its vibrations in the magnetic field create a current in the coil, which is transmitted through the wire to the interlocutor. At the other end, the opposite process occurs: current flows in the moving coil of the speaker, which causes the membrane to vibrate and “ripple” the air. As a result, we hear sound.

Now phones can be divided into:

• regular landline phones;
• radiotelephones;
• Cell Phones;
• satellite phones;
• phones operating in IP telephony.

The emergence of modern phones, mobile communications

The significance of the invention of the mobile phone was also revolutionary. And the first mobile phones appeared in 1976. They were huge, and their cost was also huge. In the 1980s in America you could already buy a mobile phone for $3,500. For comparison: a new Ford Mustang cost 6,500.

It is believed that it was invented in the USA, but there is a version that the first mobile prototype was developed in the USSR in 1973. Like many interesting developments, the Soviet mobile phone remained unknown to the world.

In the CIS countries, mobile phones became widespread in the 90s of the 20th century.

Prospects for the development of phones

Scientists, futurists and social researchers believe that in the future, smartphones are likely to replace individual devices such as the computer, laptop and camera. The capabilities and power of the phones will allow you to simply connect a monitor and keyboard to them, turning your smartphone into a full-fledged personal PC.

Already, a modern telephone is a real research station that collects a huge amount of data. In the future, the quantity and quality of data will increase. The information collected can be used for a variety of studies: from the behavior of groups of people to earthquake prediction and weather forecasting. Bank cards will also become a thing of the past. There is already technology that allows you to pay with a smartphone, using it instead of a card.

But this is all in the future. For now, no matter how smart a smartphone is, it will not be able to write a coursework or test for you. A special student service can help with this, providing the services of professionals in all fields: from agronomy and accounting to electronics and nuclear physics.

Today, the entire Internet community is discussing a video posted on the World Wide Web. In documentary newsreels from the 1920s, users saw a woman holding an object resembling a mobile phone. Now everyone is wondering: either this is a guest from the future, or a great falsification of modern jokers.

Evgeniy Zubkov figured it out. NTV report.

This one came as a bonus to the collector's edition of Charlie Chaplin's 1928 film The Circus. It seems like an ordinary video, black and white film, people of that time, but meticulous film buff director George Clarke quickly identified the anachronism.

Attention to the woman in a black coat and hat! If you look closely, it looks like she's talking on her cell phone. Tens of thousands of people who have already discussed this video on the Internet think so, but how could a mobile phone end up at the beginning of the last century? Fantastic!

However, skeptics put forward several logical explanations. The lady is probably listening to a portable transistor radio or hiding her face from the camera. But who is she talking to then? Perhaps she has schizophrenia. Either this is skillful editing, and the lady is our contemporary, which is more likely to be true, since the first cell phones appeared only 30 years ago, and they were quite large.

History, however, remembers many cases of fakes that were mistaken for the original and vice versa. From the latest, stored in one of the Canadian museums, a photograph from the year 1941. Doubt was raised by the image of a man wearing a fashionable sweater, modern glasses, a T-shirt with a printed logo and a portable camera.

Experts immediately made a verdict: a young man could not look like that in those days. And they were wrong. After a thorough check, no traces of installation were found.

Another example: the recent negotiations on the Middle East in Washington. Reality: Leaders walk down the red carpet to meet reporters. Next is a pseudo-illustration, it was published by the Arab media, changing the heads of state so that the President of Egypt was in the very center.

Another example of forgery is the launch of Iranian missiles in 2008. A technical mistake - one of the rockets did not take off - was turned into a national success with the help of a graphic editor and shown to the world. But the professionals quickly saw through the trick.

Or another incident, the authoritative agency Reuters got into it. A photographer who worked at the height of the military conflict in Lebanon was caught retouching a number of photographs. It turned out that he edited the footage for greater credibility, so that the Israeli bombing of Beirut, as well as their consequences, looked more juicy.

With the advent of new technologies, the process of falsifying video or photographic materials has become accessible to almost everyone. It used to be that everyone watched in amazement as movie characters shook hands with real presidents. Or the host of a TV program is transported back in time to help the Secretary General load a gun.

Now you can turn a fat woman into a sexy model in a short period of time. And for glossy magazines, eliminating defects in photographs of celebrities is routine. Otherwise there will be nothing to see.

Now everyone is exaggerating the story of a mobile phone from the distant past. Although it is possible that Mr. Clark himself made all the fuss, falsifying chronicle footage in order to attract attention to his person.

Wait, wait, before you start reading the article, subscribe to our channel in Yandex.Zen. We publish a lot of news and various collections there.

Probably, each of us from time to time wonders how this or that industry developed. When did the car first appear on the roads? Who developed the first space rocket? How and when did the mobile phone appear and what influenced its development? It is precisely the last question that we will examine today. The mobile industry is truly interesting and vast, although it has only existed for a few decades. Many of you reading this article have probably seen the first push-button brick phones with tiny black and white screens, which, meanwhile, could hardly be called a cheap pleasure. Now look at the smartphone market - elegant beauties with powerful hardware and huge displays that anyone can afford. How have mobile phones managed to develop so much in just a couple of decades?

Mobile phone pioneer

The world's first official conversation on a mobile phone not connected to a landline network took place in New York in 1973.

April 3, 1973 turned out to be a beautiful, sunny day. An older man, Martin Cooper, emerged from the New York office of the then Motorola company. In his hand he had an unknown milk-colored object - moving a little away from the office, he pressed some buttons on this box. Almost at the same time, in the office of Motorola's competitor, Bell Laboratories, the telephone set in the office of the head of the research apparatus, D. Engel, rang. When he picked up the phone, he heard Martin Cooper's voice on the other end:

“Do you know why and where I’m calling you? I’m now standing in the middle of Manhattan and in my hands I have the world’s first cell phone!”

This is the official simple story of the world's first telephone call from a cell phone. But there is also a version according to which the world's first wireless telephone saw the light not in the United States, but in the USSR - back in 1961. It was in this year that reports appeared in media agencies that a sample was developed by the talented hands of radio engineer Leonid Kupriyanovich telephone, through which, via radio communication, it was possible to make a call to a base telephone station within 25 km. Now to us, contemporaries, this distance seems ridiculous, but in the 60s, this became significant progress in the field of telephone communications.

Such a mobile phone weighed half a kilogram, and it could work while waiting for more than a day. It was a box with a dialing disk, with a handset connected to it and a pair of toggle switches. Naturally, it was not entirely convenient to use - apart from the weight load, when using it either both hands were occupied, or it was necessary to hang it on the belt in some way.

But, for an unknown reason, after 1965 they stopped talking and writing about this invention, and the radio engineer himself went into the development of medical equipment.

But the development of the world's first Motorola telephone continued - and after 11 years (1984) the first portable telephone equipment went on sale. The beginning of the history of this legendary technology is considered to be 1984. The first mobile phone was equipped with a memory of thirty numbers, a ringtone and an LED display. This miracle of technology weighed 800 grams. and cost about 4 thousand dollars. In addition to its noticeable weight, this unit had another significant disadvantage: the battery only lasted for 20-30 minutes.

How the mobile industry developed until the end of the last century

After some time, when the world community understood and appreciated the capabilities of mobile telephone technology, with slow but sure steps this technology industry began to rebuild its production for mobile equipment. Of course, everything did not happen in such a dynamic mode as in modern conditions (this is understandable; there were no such technologies as now in the 80s). But still, in 1985-86, the German company Siemens, which was especially popular in the mid-00s, introduced the Mobiltelefon C1. The device looked impressive - it was, in the full sense of the word, a suitcase equipped with electronics.

In 1987, then still a company, today already a large Nokia corporation, released its version of the latest mobile device - Nokia Mobira Cityman 900. This device no longer had such impressive weight parameters, but this advantage turned out to be the only thing that the Finnish phone could boast of. He only had a memory for eight numbers, and this miracle of technology cost about 4.5 thousand dollars.

But, despite this, Nokia Mobira sales were excellent - even the leader of the USSR Gorbachev purchased this unit when he visited Helsinki.

How mobile communications came to Russia

Mobile phones came into mass use among Russians only after perestroika; before that time, mobile devices were used only by politicians, movie stars, high-ranking military officials and other persons who could afford the purchase and use of such equipment.

The most notable mobile phones of the 20th century

The 90s gave life to many well-known companies that were engaged in the development and production of mobile phones. Some of them, despite the thorny path, are successful today, while others remain in our memory, like iconic brands 10-15 years ago. Let's dive into memories.

The industry began its development in 1991 - contracts and agreements for the export of mobile devices began to be signed. By that time, the new Motorola MicroTAC 9800x model was already in great demand on the world market: it weighed only 350 grams and became an inhabitant of the pockets of millions of citizens around the world. This phone, unlike its predecessors, could be carried with you everywhere, which is why it was so loved by screenwriters, politicians, bandits and businessmen in the early 90s in our young country.

The Motorola Micro TAC had a built-in phone book from which it was possible to directly call a subscriber. The last modification of this line of Motorola phones was released in 1998; in just 9 years, 37 models were produced.

Pilot mobile projects were developed and launched not only in our country - in many developed countries of the rest of the world, communication standards were also harmonized, mobile networks and production were launched. At this time, society, which could afford to purchase such an expensive toy, became accustomed to its use and to the status that it strengthened and supported.

But, as we all know, the times of sky-high prices for phones and cellular communications have sunk into oblivion and, after 1992, more budget mobile phone models began to appear in our country (a little later than in Europe). For example, the Finnish Nokia 1011 could boast of wide distribution at that time: a compact and absolutely charming device in those years. This model cost no more than 1.5 thousand dollars and worked according to the GSM 900 standard. In terms of functionality and practical side, it was, in general, not much different from the famous Motorola MicroTAC 9800x, except for the changed MonoLCD display and increased duration of use without recharging - up to one and a half hours.

Another outstanding old man from the 90s. It was a flagship with a long battery life without charging: it could work in standby mode for about a day, and in talk mode for about 3 hours. With this mobile device, there was no need to carry a charger with you everywhere - this is already a distant reminder of modern models.

But only the Benefon Beta mobile unit could boast of the appearance of a clock on the display in 1994; in addition, it had a standby mode of more than 4 days. It is not known what this is connected with, but the model never received distribution, which is why the name of this phone seems unfamiliar.

But many people remember the legendary Nokia 2110. It held a leading position in the mobile market from 1995 until the early 2000s. An interesting and presentable design by the standards of that time, a vibration alert, three information lines on the screen, an alarm clock, a calculator, a stopwatch and an SMS function. By the way, the iconic Nokia ringtone appeared for the first time on the Nokia 2110.

During these same years, Motorola StarTAC conquered North America - it was the first “folding phone” that Americans fell in love with for its futuristic design, compact size and affordable price segment.

This model pioneered the color display. Also, this German mobile development could boast of bold body colors and a fairly reliable and long-lasting battery. Siemens S10 could be found on sale in 1997.

As they called it in 1998 - the world's first communicator. This Finnish miracle of technology is now considered the predecessor of modern smartphones: it had a QWERTY keyboard and had a more advanced set of features than other mobile phone models of that time. It had various applications, including a text editor, which was convenient to work with, thanks to an almost computer keyboard. True, the display of this portable device was black and white, and it did not have access to the Internet. Later, the WAP function appeared, and the Finns also worked on the weight parameters: 9110 became much more convenient to use.

A real breakthrough happens in the 21st century. Mobile devices are rapidly becoming cheaper, new companies are appearing, giving rise to impressive competition. And most importantly, the devices themselves are being improved. It was in the 00s that the first smartphones appeared that were not perceived by modern users as dinosaurs. New operating systems are being developed, devices are becoming more powerful, design is given a lot of attention, and every user no longer looks at a mobile phone as something prohibitively expensive.

New functions - new possibilities

It was at the turn of the century that phones began to master the functions known in our time: they learned to access the World Wide Web using the WAP protocol. Also, the end of 1999 was remembered for the appearance of a mobile device with two SIM cards, and in 2000, MP3 melodies could already be heard from phones. At the same time, photo-video and multimedia functions were introduced; in 2002, Siemens SL45 with Java technology appears.

Design

Phones continued to get smaller in the early 2000s, with some models being designed in ladies' style (miniature and compact). The Panasonic GD55 boasted the size of a matchbox, and if you remember the Samsung SGH-A400, it fit into the average palm. Despite the fact that these models had a monochrome type of screen, they accessed the Internet quite quickly.

The pioneering smartphone

In 2002, the first smartphone based on the Series S80 operating system, Nokia 9210, was released. This operating system became the predecessor of Symbian, which was subsequently used by many global mobile brands. The “operating system” opened up many possibilities for smartphones, including multitasking, as well as the convenience of the interface and basic basic functions.

iPhone

The birthday of this now mega-popular gadget is 2007 - it was in this year that the legendary creation of Steve Jobs saw the light. Thanks to this model, the concept of a smartphone - a phone with a large screen diagonal and a minimum of traditional buttons - has firmly and apparently entered modern everyday life for a very long time. Apple also developed its newest operating system, iOS. Around the same time, Android was born, which quickly came under the wing of Google.

Evolution of technical characteristics

All classes of chargers have also undergone revolutionary changes: a wireless battery charging function has appeared. Its development was completed back in 2009, but this technology began to be implemented only in 2015.

Another equally useful and convenient thing that is familiar to almost every user is the AppStore and GooglePlay application stores, which entered our lives a few years ago. And if we also recall such a technological innovation as, which allows you to pay by touching a smartphone to a terminal, then we can safely say that there has been an undeniable sharp leap in the development of mobile technologies over the past 17 years.

The cameras built into modern gadgets have also evolved far: in the first phones equipped with cameras, the resolution was 0.3 megapixels, but now on the market you can find smartphones with a camera resolution of 41 MP. Add to this the dual flash function, autofocus and other functionality and here it is - the perfect shot anytime, anywhere.

The acceleration of the Internet, with its appearance in our phones, occurred in geometric progression: if the first phones with WAP could boast a speed of several kilobytes per second, now, with the LTE function, the speed is already measured in gigabits.

Evolution of design

The design of modern models consistently maintains the direction of simplicity and conciseness of forms and details - a rectangular thin body with an ever-increasing screen diagonal size. Experts in the field of technological development and futuristic ideas argue that the appearance of smartphones of the future will not change radically, except that this will affect the size of the screens. But they are quite capable of knocking digital products such as cameras and laptops out of the market in the near future.

Industry development forecasts

Analysts and mobile industry experts claim that in the near future, smartphones will replace all computer equipment for humanity: it will be possible to connect external monitors, keyboards, and mice to them. Memory volumes will grow, and data transfer speeds will increase - Wi-Fi will gradually become a thing of the past.

Also, forecasts have been voiced more than once that all types of magnetic passes and bank cards will migrate to smartphones. Such technologies are already being developed in the market for these products. Smartphones of the future will most likely get rid of such annoying problems for all users as a battery discharged at the wrong time. Technologies for fast and independent charging are already being developed and implemented in modern gadgets. New types of batteries that are on the verge of introduction can be charged in a matter of minutes.

Mobile devices will lose frames around the screen, which is already gradually happening. Display sizes will increase, bendable panels will appear, allowing you to roll or fold the phone. From here we get complete exclusion from the tablet market. And this will not happen in decades - already in 2019, Samsung is ready to present the first folding smartphone, Apple - in 2020.

The life of a modern person is closely connected with mobile phones, and there is a lot of evidence of this. Imagine, for example, a situation where you accidentally left your beloved, irreplaceable and precious smartphone at home. How will you feel at this moment? It's uncomfortable to say the least, isn't it? However, there were times when people did not have phones at all, and not only mobile phones, but also landlines. How did they manage without them? Read our article.

Life without phones

Just some 200 years ago, people did not even know what telephones were. Previously, whistles, gongs, ringing bells and drumming were used to transmit messages over a distance.

However, all these methods were imperfect.

By the way, in order to transmit the signal as far as possible, it was necessary to create intermediate points at which people were on duty. In this case, the sound came to the recipient through a chain. We all understand that this was a very long process. Of course, it was possible to solve this problem, for example, transmit information through water and metal. In this case, the signal would travel faster and fade out much later. But for some reason this was not done, at least everywhere.

Invention of the first telephone

We traditionally associate the appearance of the telephone with the name of the American inventor Alexander Bell. The famous researcher actually took a direct part in the development of the revolutionary apparatus. However, other people also played a vital role in the creation of the first telephone.

In 1860, naturalist Antonio Meucci published an article in an Italian newspaper in New York, in which he talked about his invention that could transmit sounds through electrical wires. Meucci called his device Teletrofono. In 1871, he decided to patent the Teletrofono, but was unable to do so due to financial problems.

A year later, in 1861, the German physicist and inventor Johann Philipp Reis demonstrated his “mobile phone” at a meeting of scientists of the Physical Society. The device could transmit musical tones and human speech over wires. The device had a microphone of an original design, a power source (galvanic battery) and a speaker. Reis himself named the device he designed Telephon. Many sources from the time claim that the first message the physicist sent on his telephone was the phrase “Das Pferd frisst Keinen Gurkensalat” (“The horse does not eat cucumber salad”). The absurdity of this information made it possible to verify that the words were heard correctly, from which it follows that the transmitter was working as it should.

Despite all these inventions, the laurels of the discoverer still went to Alexander Graham Bell.

So, on February 14, 1876, Bell filed an application with the Washington Patent Office, and on March 7, 1876, the American received a patent. He called his device a “talking telegraph.” The Bell tube could alternately transmit and receive a signal. The American scientist’s telephone did not have a ringer; it was invented a little later, in 1878, by Thomas Watson. When someone called the subscriber, the telegraph began to whistle. The range of such a line did not exceed 500 meters.

Note that Alexander Bell was officially considered the inventor of the telephone for a long time. And only on June 11, 2002, the US Congress, in resolution No. 269, transferred this status to Antonio Meucci.

Converting a talking telegraph into a landline telephone

Bell's talking telegraph went through many metamorphoses before becoming the modern smartphone.

So, in 1877-1878. American inventor Thomas Edison improved the device. He introduced an induction coil into the circuit, and in the microphone he replaced the carbon powder with a carbon rod (such microphones were used until 1980). This made the communication clearer and louder. Now telephones, unlike public telegraphs, have become household devices.

In 1878, the first telephone exchange appeared in New Haven. The following year, Paris took over the baton. Since 1881, telephone exchanges began to open in Berlin, Riga, and Warsaw. In Russia, namely in Moscow and St. Petersburg, they appeared in 1882.

It is worth noting that the first telephone exchanges were manual - the connection was made by a telephone operator. But in 1879, American engineers Connolly and McTight invented an automatic switch. Now people could reach each other by simply dialing a number.

Beginning of the 20th century marked by a real telephone boom. All over the world there was active construction of telephone exchanges, of which there were more than 10 thousand by 1910, and long-distance lines serving more than 10 million telephones.

It turns out that in just about half a century the telephone has gone from a pipe dream of inventors and enthusiasts to the most widespread phenomenon, allowing millions of people to communicate at a distance. It is from this time that humanity can no longer imagine life without this device. But when did it start to turn into a smartphone?

The advent of mobile phones. The history of the modern smartphone

In 1969, world leaders in the telecommunications market began to think about improving the wired device. They wanted each subscriber to have their own number, which would be relevant not only in the country where it was registered, but also abroad. Stockholm Technical School graduate Esten Mäkitolo was one of the first to come up with such an idea. However, for the practical implementation of the Myakitolo concept, powerful technologies were required, which appeared only in the 1980s.

Therefore, it was only in 1983 that Motorola was able to release the world's first cell phone. Although experimental calls from a prototype were made in the 1970s.

It was a handset weighing about 0.8 kg and measuring 22.5 x 12.5 x 3.75 cm. The battery allowed communication for as long as 35 minutes, but it took a little more than 10 hours to charge it. Of course, it cannot be compared with modern devices, but for that time it was a huge breakthrough.

Motorola very quickly had competitors who began to release more and more advanced and intelligent models each time. So, over time, a calculator, alarm clock, calendar, camera and many other applications and functions appeared on the phone. In the 2000s. Phones with an operating system began to appear, which turned them into personal computers. Today, using a smartphone, you can do more than just call a friend or send a message. For him it is primitive. It can communicate with satellites, take large-scale pictures, play music, not to mention reading books, watching movies and multitasking.

If you find an error, please highlight a piece of text and click Ctrl+Enter.