Comments on: Push button telephones introduced November 18, 1963

By: Dave Farquhar

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 17:15:23 +0000

In reply to Magnum. That sounds familiar, I have a similar memory. I seem to recall it had a slide switch to let you choose between touch tone and pulse dialing. Unfortunately that phone is long gone, I wish I still had it.

By: Magnum

Magnum — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 03:33:49 +0000

I remember having a push-button phone that looked just like a 2500, but the buttons activated a spring-driven mechanism which sent the required number of pulses as if it were a rotary telephone.

By: Jon

Jon — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 15:40:32 +0000

Here in the UK push button phones were introduced a few years later, only becoming truly commonplace in the 1980s – when I remember my grandparents still having an old rotary dial phone.

We had a public sector telecoms monopoly with British Telecom (BT) which was originally part of the Post Office. BT was privatised in the early 80s ostensibly to create competition, but that never really materialised at scale, so a public telephone monopoly was replaced with a private one.

Of course now we’re at the stage where the whole public switched telephone network is being deactivated.