The CellPhone Celebrates Its 40th B-Day Today

[dgstorm]

Break out your party hats and eat some cake because today the cell phone just became "over the hill." That's right, the cell phone just hit the big "Four-O" today. Time to setup your fake rubber poop and whoopy cushions because it's a cause for celebration. Just think about this... back in April 3, 1973, Marty Cooper, the inventor of cellphones placed the first cellphone call to his rival over at Bell Labs, Joel Engel. Eventually that device would be made into a commercial product, the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x. It was a 2.5-pound phone and went on sale for $4,000 in 1983.

Now you can find cheap throw-away pre-paid minute cell phones in the grocery story checkout aisle for less than $50 bucks, and our fancy smartphones are more powerful than the old school Cray-1S supercomputer and cost $300-600. Perhaps in another forty years we will simply have telepathic bio-silicon implants...

 

[xtor]

My dad had the briefcase phone in 83-84, they've come along ways.

razr on 215 leak

 

[smalltowngirl13]

I remember my first "cell phone"... wow, how times have changed ...

 

[tgyberg]

My buddy had a bag phone in the early 90's. If you carried it through a mall or took it to a bar, everyone (and I do mean everyone) looked at you like you were a celebrity!

 

[vannDROID]

I wonder how the HTC One would have fared back in 1973?

 

[kodiak799]

My buddy had a bag phone in the early 90's. If you carried it through a mall or took it to a bar, everyone (and I do mean everyone) looked at you like you were a celebrity!

 

[tgyberg]

Hey, that was back when MD's current wife was 18!

 

[jroc]

My uncle had one of those bag phones. I thought he was was the biggest big shot.

Thank you Motorola for what you bought us then and now. Amazing that they are still in the game after all these years.

 

[droidbionicmaster]

My grandmother had one of those and my god they are kinda heavy but I was little lol

Sent from my DROID RAZR MAXX using Droid Forums

 

[FoxKat]

I remember my first "cell phone"... wow, how times have changed ...

My first "Cellular phone" was virtually the same one you're looking at above, but it was hard-installed into my new Toyota Corolla car in 1981 or there about...and YES, it was a Motorola. I was an Insurance Agent for MetLife and I was doing quite well at the time...wow, things have changed! I also had a "bag phone" virtually identical to the one above, except that it was a slightly different model (also Motorola), and the bag was taller and narrow rather than short and wide as the one above (battery was UNDER the handset cradle rather than next to it). ;And yes, I also owned a Motorola 8000X as well (wish I still had it...but it would REALLY be a "Brick" now since it was Analog and we're all Digital :icon_ cry: .

Since then, I've owned mostly Motorola phones, but have also owned Palm, HTC, Audiovox, and one or two other brands which no longer make phones. I'm happy to say that I'm back to Motorola since my HTC XV6800 (Windows), starting with the Droid (OGD), and haven't looked back since. dancedroid

 

[FoxKat]

My grandmother had one of those and my god they are kinda heavy but I was little lol

Sent from my DROID RAZR MAXX using Droid Forums

Heavy is right...they have a rather large (7.2Ah to as much as 10Ah), Sealed Lead-Acid 12 Volt battery in them, no wonder they're heavy!! :blink:

 

[drew96dawg]

I wonder how the HTC One would have fared back in 1973?

Since htc is a Taiwanese company it wouldve probably been destroyed by the government

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