Rotary And Cordless Phones Mashup

This pile of hardware marries telecommunications hardware from distinctly different generations. [Andrew D. Farquharson] wanted the retro look and operation of a rotary phone, with the convenience of a modern cordless. He combined the two technologies to achieve his goal.

The first problem was to find a way to translate the rotary inputs to something he could use. There are already a bunch of projects that use rotary hardware so he didn’t have to reinvent the wheel. He followed this guide to connecting Arduino to a rotary phone.

The next step was to interface with his cordless phone. He ditched the case and soldered rainbow ribbon cable to the entire button matrix. An opto-isolator is used to protect the Arduino while making each connection. Finally, he patched into the mechanism which monitors the cradle to see if the handset has been picked up. It sounds like his code lets you enter the number on the dial, then pick up the handset to actual transmit it through the cordless phone.

5 thoughts on “Rotary And Cordless Phones Mashup

  1. I have wanted to do this for years, but now except for business land-lines are history. Would be nice to do this in a classic black 30’s style, the kind in the classic movies. I have one and a WW2 economy dial-pod model too. At work we have a 5 station PBX based on vintage and antique rotary units. It was pure holeywood the other day to watch a youngster just starting on the job be given the task of calling the office before leaving to go on a move. He picked up the handset looked puzzled at the dial then started to push into the holes like push buttons, then he asked for help. We need to find that 30’s era Bell Tell graphic and blurb that shows “how to dial a telephone”, they might have made a movie clip too.

  2. i love builds like this!

    movie clip?

    … but if you dont know how to use a telephone without instruction… you might not be “fit” for tuning in a 1940’s “television” device

    PS: there IS a video, im not bashing what echodelta said, im laughing at the guy at bell that thought someone that cant “figure out” a telephone might have already “figured out” the tuning dials on a 1940’s television.

    ahh, technology, use it to use it,,, so you can use it :P

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