I have noticed phones with a handset (like the one in the image) have a little cover that resembles something like a cold camera shoe under the bottom of the handset’s top speaker holder. Is there a use for it? It has a line bump in the middle, but it doesn’t go all the way from both sides, it leaves a gap. I have also seem some of them have extra space on the top of the cover, and some don’t.
Why would you attach an image that does not show what you are referring to?
See fig. 1 (unrelated)
If you’re talking about this thing, it serves two purposes. It is the hook that opens and closes the line (hangs up and picks up the phone), and it is used by this thing
to keep the handset from falling off the base when it’s mounted on a wall.
Or maybe you meant this thing. Yeah, it keeps the handset in when the base is mounted vertical. You can see that it’s slanted in the back.
That’s so it slides in and out on this other slanted lip on the handset instead of getting caught on it. You can take the handset off just by pulling it directly away from the wall.
Btw, on Trimline phones it is reversible for if you’re not hanging it on a wall. It looks like this when you pull it out.
Does that white semicircle on the bottom of your nails represent blood or platelet deficiency?
Where have you heard that? It’s just what regular fingernails look like.
You guys still have fingernails?
This is the tumblr foot artist with a weird foot gene that his entire family had too all over again
lmao
Please link this.
Hmm, source?
It is a normal part of the nail:
Interesting that the wiki article mentions its absence could be indicative of health issues.
Oh hey I’ve got two and a half of those health problems
Neither. Just a healthy lunulae.
Wait… what do your nails look like? Maybe you are not ok?
Does blurting or absurd insensitive claims make you an asshole or autistic?
How oddly specific. Are you, perchance, afraid of garlic?
If you dont have that white thing on your nails you should see a doctor, you are missing something vital from your diet.
If you don’t recognize it I would suspect your entire family is lacking something it needs in its diet. All healthy people have it.
Exactly this. It’s called a “hook” and when the phone is “off the hook” that’s the thing it is off of. Being off the hook means the phone is powered up and connected to the local loop. When the phone is “on hook” that means it is disconnected from the loop and awaiting the pulsed ring signal.
Desk phones have a reversible hook so that it keeps the button depressed when the phone is in the cradle but doesn’t catch when you attempt to pick it up.
On modem signals in the old days, the + was equivalent to “flashing” the hook, or quickly disconnecting and reconnecting to the loop, and the AT command H1 told the modem to go “on hook” while H0 told it to go “off hook”.
Back before the DTMF network, when everyone used pulse modulated phones, the “pulses” were caused by going in and off hook in a specific pattern. You could actually make a phone call from a rotary payphone by flashing the hook in the pattern that mimicked the rotary dial pulsing the line as it rotated back to home position.
In the really old days, the hand crank served much the same purpose, but actually supplied electricity to the local loop; when the phone was on hook (which was a big metal thing the earpiece sat in) someone else turning the crank would make all the phones on the loop ring; you picked up if the ring matched the number of rings for your extension.
Yes! Another phone nerd!
One small clarification. There’s not really anything special to the pulses for pulse dialing. One pulse for the number 1, all the way to nine pulses for number 9, and then ten pulses for a number 0.
In the 80s there was a way to cheat phone booths in Germany: With a small tool that had an adjustment screw you could position the hook switch to an exact position where the phone booth had already connected the line but did not yet power up the rest of the machinery (including coin counters)
You could then call arbitrary nunbers by pulse dialing using the hook switch (the rotary dial was still powered down)
Basically a EU pulse dial version of phreaking.
My father, who died this year, used this a lot too make “free” calls in the 80s.
Me, deep in the night, reading about modem signals and off the hook. I love forum threads. They have taught me more than I can imagine.
So that’s how you used the old hand crank phones, I never know. I thought you turned the crank to get power into the phone and then told the person working the switch bord who you want is to talk to. And that when you were telling you sometimes needed to re turn the crank to get more power.
Much better than the older design which cannot be mounted on the wall.
And the even older design that didn’t even have a bell integrated in the base. The bell was in a separate bell box.
Or one of these real old designs that didn’t even have a bell. It has a buzzer that’s barely audible (it might even just be the phone’s speaker, idk). Also, the microphone and the earpiece aren’t in a convenient handset.
This one is a replica made in probably the 1970s or 1980s. It’s funny, when it was made it was a replica of something vintage, but now it actually is vintage.
You have a very interesting phone collection and I appreciate you sharing! Unlocked memories I didn’t even know I had! 😃
Huge props for the unexpected old phone exhibition. It was very interesting, thank you :3
Dude those are really cool phones. I had forgotten how much I miss rotaries.
Well, cannot be wall-mounted like the one in your picture but those phones did get wall-mounted in slightly different shape.
Interesting. I’ve never seen a phone like that. Usually the wall mounted versions of the Model 500 had a hook for the handset in the front of the base to hang the handset vertically. This one looks like a different company than Western Electric though. I’m guessing it’s a UK company, because it’s 999 for emergencies (or at least it’s not US). You’ve got me curious enough I feel like I’m about to go down a rabbit hole.
Edit: yep, it’s a UK company called GPO. This is their model 741:
https://www.britishtelephones.com/t741.htm
https://gpospares.co.uk/gpo-spares-gpo-bt-741-wall-dial-telephone-two-tone-grey.html
What a cool design! I would love one for my collection.
Not just a U.K. company, the GPO were the General Post Office and ran the entire phone network and more: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Post_Office
Oh, I was not aware you are into this as a collector, now I feel honored to be able to show you something new!
I live in Europe, not the UK though, so maybe that explains why these are familiar to me. Although another user said they saw one in Ohio.
We had a yellow one like that hanging on our kitchen wall in Ohio, so they were definitely around.
Like and follow for more astonishing technologies from bygone eras!
(Do people really no longer have phones on their desks or what?)
What the heck is a camera shoe?
I got mine in a set that came with a poop knife.
Get any good sticks with that?
I got some, they cum in a smelly box
could had posted a picture of a horse it would be just as helpful but a lot funnier
You’re description only leaves me with more questions. I have no idea what you’re talking about, and therefore have no answer.
Lots of people in this thread answering the question but they’re kind of just guessing what you’re talking about.
Perhaps you could circle the bit in question because it’s either a holder for the headset or a way to mount the entire device onto a wall or something else depending on if we’ve interpreted your words correctly.
English is not my first language and I don’t understand what camera shoe mean. But I think I know what you’re asking for. That phones can be mounted on a wall and what you’re asking for is there so the handset doesn’t fall off.
It’s ok. English is my first language and I don’t understand what OP means by “cold camera shoe.”
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Native English speaker here, I don’t have a clue what a “cold camera shoe” means either…
Hello, fellow null
This is the camera shoe for a Sony DSLR
Edit: note that this is a “hot” shoe because it has contacts that can power accessories. A cold shoe is just a mount. You can use to to attach a flash or a microphone for example
I’m pretty old and even have a camera that uses these things, and took a class on photography; never heard them called a shoe until reading this thread. 🤷🏻♂️
You probably grew up in the age of rotary phones too, hu? The last one I used was only … uh… 35 years ago, I think.
An old hack that not many knew was that you could tap the hang up switch to dial numbers. Example, tap 3 times = 3, tap 10 times = 0.
Rotary phones did the same thing which is why you had to wait for the whole thing to spin back, it was tapping the line to dial out.
Trainer at my Judo club used that to call my parents with the gym-phone that had its disc locked with a padlock, when I got injured. He was great.
Holy shit I’m old
The intersection of people who aren’t five figures into photography and know what a hot shoe is, and people who recognize a wall mount phone trend old.
Or just anyone who’s worked at a help desk.
LOL, you definitely don’t have to be five figures into photography to know what a hot/cold shoe is. Most consumer and prosumer cameras have one.
20 years ago the pocketable digital cameras that took over the consumer market didn’t have hot shoes. 30 years ago the compact point and shoot viewfinders that were the weapon of choice for vacationing didn’t have hot shoes. Today neither are relevant and are all outclassed by smartphones, and there is hardly a consumer camera market.
You don’t have to spend five figures for that exposure, but it’s going to be an intentional hobby.
Not sure if this is what you’re describing, but phones like the one you pictured have a reversible tab for use if you mount the phone to a wall - if the tab is sticking up, it keeps the receiver from falling off the cradle.
Here’s a site selling them, but it has a diagram showing where it’s located:
https://www.zcover.com/store/catalog/zCProduct.php?wp=WP_CI881CTR&zPath=212-213-255
Thank you for providing a source, even still I’ve never heard the words “cold camera shoe” before, and nowhere is it written in the screenshot you provided, but apparently some people in this thread know what a “cold camera shoe” means And I find this all very amusing.
and additionally amusing that OP knew to use those words to describe the thing even though OP didn’t know what the thing was intended for! Cuz I mean I know what the thing is intended for but I never knew it was called a cold camera shoe 😆
Yeah, same! I thought I had a pretty good guess from the context, but “cold camera shoe” is a new term for me. Glad Lemmy has such a great community though, there are some awesome responses in this thread!
It’s for a hook to keep the handset on when the phone is mounted flat on a wall. It can usually be slid/folded down or removed when its not need.
It holds the receiver in place. Generally the ridged end is used for wall hanging installs, the flat end stores it away until needed since the desk is horizontal.
Are you talking about the attachment point for a shoulder rest?
So the phone can securely hang with the base attached to the wall.
