Something that’s a bit of fun at hacker camps such as the recent EMF Camp is to bring along a wired phone and hook it up to the on-camp copper network. It’s a number on the camp network, but pleasingly retro. How about doing the same thing at home? Easy enough if you still have a wired landline, but those are now fast becoming a rarity. Help is at hand though courtesy of [Remy], who’s written about his experiences using a 1960s Dutch phone as a SIP device.
The T65 was the standard Dutch home phone of the 1960s and 1970s, and its curvy grey plastic shape is still not difficult to find in that country. The guide covers using various different VoIP boxes between such an old machine and the Internet, but there’s more of interest to be found in it. In particular the use of an inline pulse-to-tone converter, either the wonderfully-named DialGizmo, or perhaps closer to our world, a PIC-based kit.
So if you can lay your hands on a VoIP box it’s completely possible to use an aged phone here in 2024. Remember though, a SIP account isn’t the only way to do it.
J. de Kat Angelino, CC BY 3.0.
I use an Auerswald COMpact 5020 VoIP. With that you can user virtually every phone. From a 70 year old W48 to a ISDN or VOIP phone.
And it can connect to any type of landline.
Also the 5020 is quite ancient itself now, so you can find it quite cheap on eBay.
Auerswald! We used to have an good old Auerswald ETS 1404 at home..
Such PBX systems are great to test vintage PC modems, fax machines, old telephones.
They simulate the old landline ready tone, provide the ringing voltage etc.
The Vonage “locked” Grandstream HT802 I got off Ebay does dial pulse and has been working nicely for me. $20 and unlocking instructions (USB to 3V3 serial adapter required) on the web worked for me.
I have one of those (bought new and unlocked), can confirm works great with my old Soviet made dial phone.
We have a Ooma system for VoIP. The primary motivation was to be able to use our “landline” number when we sign up for things, so we dont get as much spam on our cell phones. And caller ID still works (the voice version is a hoot with certain names)