Last week Jerry & Chris managed to get one of our Western Electric 1964, Model I, Picturephones working. There is still work to be done but we hope to be able to put this on display at the JKL Museum.
For more information about the Western Electric Picturephones:
- http://www.paul-f.com/wepic.html
- http://www.beatriceco.com/bti/porticus/bell/telephones-picturephone.html
I have been interested in telephones for 50 years. Nearly all that time the dream was for a videophone. Now people have the facility on most cell-phones, it turns out that they don’t want to use it. The only thing they seem to use it for is family reunions or if a disaster has happened or something silly. They don’t use if for face to face! The Boffins did not know about the ladies!! They need to “do their face” before a meeting, and an impromptu incoming call won’t allow that! Geoff Mawdsley
It’s going to be great to visit the JKL in the near future and perhaps be able to talk to someone else by Picturephone. I recall in the early years of Disneyland in Anaheim, using their Picturephone demonstration to make a call to someone else using one. I suspect it might have been the late fifties, early sixties. I recall standing in line for a long time to experience it.