An Elegy for the Landline in Literature

Re:An Elegy for the Landline in Literature by ghaff on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @09:44AM (#23986563)

There are so many examples. In SF many of Connie Willis' stories revolved around constantly missed connections as someone ran around trying to find someone else. The film Play It Again Sam had a running gag in which one of the characters was constantly calling and giving a phone number about where he was at the moment. Anything written today that depends on a "missed connection" has to explain why someone couldn't just make a cell call (or otherwise do a search and reach someone).

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Re:An Elegy for the Landline in Literature by brazzy on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @09:50AM (#23986615)

I think I've seen it pointed out several times how absolutely bizarre the use of landlines and lack of cell phones is to young readers of Neuromancer - even leaving them wondering whether there is some deeper meaning behind that.

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Re:An Elegy for the Landline in Literature by bitwize on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @10:22AM (#23986971)

I remember Max Headroom successfully predicting video telecommunications, but it resembled a 1980s telephone with a screen. There were even "View-Phone" booths on street corners. Also -- CRTs everywhere.

Some of this was probably deliberate; the show depicted computer consoles with ancient purely-mechanical typewriters. But still, I interpret the tagline "Twenty minutes into the future" as something of a disclaimer.

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Re:An Elegy for the Landline in Literature by ghaff on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @10:31AM (#23987056)

Dick Tracy wrist radio (and Star Trek communicator) notwithstanding, fiction didn't really broadly embrace ubiquitous communications. I suspect part of the reason is that, as the article notes, a lot of fiction uses control of information flows as an important part of plot construction.

And, as you note, video phones were pretty universally envisioned as landline plus screen. As with many things, video has of course evolved much more organically. Initially primarily on mobile and, of course, it's exploded on notebooks/desktops in the current situation.

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Re:An Elegy for the Landline in Literature by at-fates-hands on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @11:41AM (#23987899)

I have a 1986 Playboy and in the "Tech Section" there is a image of a "video phone" which was basically a landline phone setup with a tiny 5" B&W screen with an image of the person you were talking to and it was hailed as the future of communications.

Behold, the Luma Telecom Video Telephone:

Looks like a press release from 1986: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/04/22/Luma-Telecom-Inc-has...

If you wanted some pics: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-mitsubishi-lu...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/fujipc/4578540563

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Re:An Elegy for the Landline in Literature by rsynnott on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @11:47AM (#23988004)

Even weirder, things like this were still being marketed this century: https://www.theregister.com/2004/09/15/amstrad_e3_launch/

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Re:An Elegy for the Landline in Literature by brazzy on Thursday July 30, 2020 @02:53AM (#23995389)

Well, that was 3 years before the launch of the iPhone. It totally made sense at that time.

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Re:An Elegy for the Landline in Literature by ghaff on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @11:48AM (#23988040)

There was a picturephone booth demonstration at the 1964 world's fair: https://ethw.org/Picturephone

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Re:An Elegy for the Landline in Literature by KineticLensman on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @11:27AM (#23987694)

Other stories where a mobile phone would have saved the day: (spoilers)

Romeo and Juliet (Juliet can't tell Romeo she has faked her death)

Assault on Precinct 13 (rioters cut phonelines to a besieged police station)

The opening credits for Terry and June [0] (they are looking for each other in the same shopping centre)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_and_June

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