Anyone remember these? Prolly not, youse youngins!
(http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/1030/flipphone1th9.jpg) (http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/7674/flipphone2vb2.jpg)
(http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/9968/flipphone4pb6.jpg) (http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/3600/flipphone3fq9.jpg)
The history of flip phones:
Prior to the early 1980s, all phones in the USA were property of the Bell System and were only available on a leased basis to telephone service customers, for a nominal per-unit charge on their monthly bill. Whenever a customer cancelled his/her phone service, the telco would send a serviceman out to retrieve any phones, much like the way cable TV companies do with their decoder boxes today.
Then around 1980 or so, the GTE corporation came out with a few product lines of cheap-o phones marketed directly to consumers for use in their homes. For the first time, if you had your own phones, you'd be exempted from a portion of your monthly equipment lease charges.
One of these products, called "Flip-Phone," is pictured above. Prior to this design, all phones had had seperate receivers and cradles. The Flip-Phone's self-contained, unitary design was revolutionary in that it opened the connection to dial tone whenever the flip-cover was opened, and cut the connection when it was closed. Flip-Phone was compact, could be set down in any position without opening the line, and you wouldn't have to worry too much about it getting knocked over, either. It was not cordless, however, so it was still tethered to the RJ11 wall jack.
(http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/8739/communicatorve8.jpg) (http://img418.imageshack.us/img418/9849/motoroladpc650ed9.jpg)
For whatever reason, this innovative, Star Trek-inspired phone design didn't catch on in the USA until the advent of cellular service in the mid '80s, when Motorola introduced the first cellular flip, the venerable DPC650 model. In its day, the DPC650 was a huge step forward in the miniaturization of cell phone handset technology. Nowadays, the flip design is of course standard in the cellphone industry.
I've been trying to find a video copy of the old original "Flip-Phone" TV commercials that aired in the late 1970s and early '80s. It had a catchy little jingle that went something like, "Flip phone, the new phone you can own..." If any of you has a copy of this vintage TV commercial, please PM me!!!