An Elegy for the Landline in Literature

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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