It's been years since I've seen a landline, but as of a ~decade ago you could still dial "rotary" by tapping the receiver hook with the correct spacing. (1 click to dial a "1," 2 clicks to dial a "2," etc. with a pause between digits.)

In my case I use a small gadget to convert the pulses to DTMF tones, which feed into a voip connection. The point is that the device itself still works, unlike much iot crap which can't be made to work once the server goes down.