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what single feature of a cellphone would most impress someone from the 1970s? (1 Viewer)

Mikael Soderholm

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They do, at least mine (Sony Ericsson T650i), I think most of the phones I've had for the past couple of years have had FM tuners. Perhaps these are local features.

I think what would impress people in the 70s is that this little handheld device has more computing power and memory than probably all of the worlds (non-military) computers combined, if I could only convince them that is it actually so ;)
 

Yee-Ming

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I was amused the other day watching Miami Vice -- and this is from the mid-80s, mind you -- showing Crockett & Tubbs making a stop for Crockett to use a payphone at a bar to call someone (probably the office).

It's not the only instance, but there are many in older movies where a character can't contact someone else being a plot point. Which modern audiences would not find acceptable, unless the writer makes it another plot point to disable the mobile phone, e.g. battery runs out, it is lost or damaged.
 

Joseph Bolus

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LOL! I was viewing a re-run of a Monk episode the other day. He and his secretary were following up on a lead in an abandoned mine when they were trapped by a cave-in. Just as they were about to panic, Monk's cell phone went off! He started by saying "I can't talk right now, I'm trapped in a cave!"

On topic: If we're talking about something like an iPhone, it would be the fact that you could play *movies* and thousands of songs on the thing. Back in 1974 a 10 Meg disk drive was so big that it would typically take three men just to lift the thing. Try explaining to one of those people that the device in the "palm" of your hand contained 8 GB of storage! The Google MAPS feature would also send their eyes to the back of their sockets!
 

Marianne

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I still think that the ability to make a call anywhere would impress someone from the 70s the most. Someone from the early 90s would be impressed with all the other cell phone features available today.

Showing someone from the 70s that they can watch movies on their phone would be like showing a caveman a car. The fact that you can get in it and go anywhere you want is more impressive that the fact that it has a radio, or cupholders!
 

Holadem

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I dunno Marianne. Although they aren't used in everyday life, radios have been around for a long time, so wireless voice communication in the 70s wouldn't be as jaw dropping as you would think. It wouldn't have that Voodoo mystique :).

I think text, photo, video and internet features would have more of an impact. Something like the ability to take a picture of myself or current location and sent it to you, right now. I routinely text my parents and siblings in Africa.

The access to what's going on in the world is right here in my hand: My home page on my cell browser is Yahoo News. It's literally two button presses away. As a news addict, that's pretty much priceless. I sit in a bar late at night, take out my phone, and read bout the latest developments in Bali, or look up elections results in my country. We live in a fantastic age :)

--
H
 

Carlo_M

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Can't you just hook up the Y part of the component cable and not the PbPr and simulate that? :D
 

RobertR

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Actually, that was Captain Picard, Cees. :)

It's funny how science fiction often has a hard time keeping up with contemporary technology. Kirk's communicator has extremely limited functionality compared to today's cell phones.
 

Jason Seaver

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And within the ship, the writers were still thinking in terms of talking to a location, rather than a person: They would call "sickbay", rather than "Dr. McCoy".
 

andrew markworthy

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Slightly off topic, but it must have been ten or so years ago, a colleague borrowed my Apple Newton [remember them?] so that he could demonstrate to a bunch of visiting schoolkids how the technology of Star Trek had at last begun to become reality.

Back on topic - interesting answers guys.

I'd forgotten FM radio in my original list. That would seriously impress a lot of Brits at the very least as stereo radio was still a novelty and not available in a lot of parts of the UK in the mid seventies. Plus. there'd be the massive improvement in sound quality from the headphones.

I guess also that although 'Sony' wouldn't hold many surprises for people, they might wonder who 'Nokia' and 'Ericsson' were. And that's another thing that would surprise Brits - how a phone could work that didn't have 'British Telecom' on it. Until the 1980s the UK phone network was nationalised and run by a state monopoly (called British Telecommunications, but inevitably shortened to British Telecom or BT). The privatisation of BT was one of the key economic and social events in 1980s Britain.
 

Christ Reynolds

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I would think the gorgeous color displays. I recently got an iPhone, and the display is really nice, but compared to what existed in the 70s, I think it would be a giant step forward.

CJ
 

Marianne

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Holadem,

Andrew asked: "What single feature of a cellphone would generate the most excitement or discussion?"

The fact that it is a phone is the first thing that would be explained.
"Oh wow, that's far out man, you mean I can call anyone, anywhere, anytime?"

Then, it would be explained that it also offers the following:

music and video playback
Internet access
text messaging
a digital clock
personal organiser
video games

The poor dude is just trying to get his head around the fact that it is a phone, he won't even hear you explaining the rest of it. :)
 

Chris Lockwood

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> But what single feature of a cellphone would generate the most excitement or discussion?

The fact that the phone can be used almost anywhere.
 

BrianW

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Atomic mass, melting/boiling point, crystal structure, density, atomic radius, electronegativity, normal phase, ionization, oxidation states, fusion, vaporization, heat capacity, covalent raduis, and thermal conductivity.

Of course most of these properties are unknown for the most recently discovered elements.

But after thinking about it, I now think the sheer computing power would be the most impressive thing to me in the 70s. Everything else (mostly) is a consequence of that.
 

Marianne

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Just to continue with making my point, I thought of another way to look at it.

Let us suppose you are walking along with your iPhone (or whatever). You're listening to your music, calling your friends, checking email, etc.

Then someone comes up to you and says that your cellular device can now only do one thing and you have to choose which thing. What are you going to choose (BTW you can't have more than one device).

You are going to choose the phone, because you can get by without all the other things.
 

Chris

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On the other hand, in 1977, we were on a party-line (ours was two short rings, one long) so the concept of "dropped calls" in comparison to your neighbor picking up and listening in is NOTHING.
 

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