365 Holidays - My 26th Year of Life: November 18

On this day in 1963 the Push Button Phone came to be available commerically:

Henry Dryfus, an industrial designer working for Bell Telephone, is credited with inventing the interface notion of the pushbutton, working as a consultant to Bell Telephone. One of the first prototypes of the design was made of wood showing how early prototypes can be quite effective in communicating new concepts and getting customer feedback. The version that Bell Systems / Western Electric introduced in 1962 at a World’s Fair in Seattle and as a commercial product on November 18, 1963 was based on this wooden model (third photograph above). They replaced the basic design language from a circle to square to visibly highlight the change from dial to pushbutton design. (expertvoices.nsdl.org)

Most phones today don’t have a different tone for every key anymore...I guess some cell phones do, but not mine...saddness. They used to have music books you could buy to play songs with your phone. Sure now you might get a few different tones, but not all different ones…unless you have a really old phone. Funny how now how a lot of people don’t even have a home phone…I think that is weird. Also…that means no answering machines. I also remember when caller ID first came out and I thought it was so cool. It is weird to think that everyone just used to pick up the phone whenever it rang having no idea who was on the other end. Also, I don’t know anyone’s phone number anymore. I know my parent’s house phone & cell phone numbers because they haven’t changed since before I had a cell phone. I also know my best friend’s house number because growing up I would call it just about every day…”Hi Amy!” Other then that…I am pretty lost. In a jam I might be able to remember Jared’s cell number or maybe my friend Adriane’s because it has a lot of the same number in it. Hmm…now that I am thinking about this, this could be a serious problem if I am stranded somewhere and neither of my parents are home. I vow to learn a couple other numbers!

So, if you have a cell phone that plays different notes for every key then don’t worry if you don’t have the iPhone or all these so called "apps"…you can play songs!