Well, now Happy New Year is over and let's start continuing our daily life. But there's an interesting thing that might caught your interest. If you liked retro-styled things from cars to clock, then you might liked this.
It's an old but yet still interesting and unique phone called Ericofon. Designed by Ericsson's design team in 1940s and built by Ericsson in 1954 (North Electric for USA market in 1961). This phone was unique as it combined both rotary dial and handset into single unit. The phone will only work if the switch hook isn't pressed. It also made in 18 different colors (later 8 for USA) that looks nice and suitable for every room. It changed the world perception of how phones could be designed, creating innovations that todays cellphone still implement the basics of it.
It also has a unique tone called Ericotone (only USA version). It's a chirping sound, created from transistor oscillator that controls it. This was also an innovation in phone design as it was the first phone to implement transistor on it. It's later discontinued in 1972 with the last implemented design called Touch Tone. But this version was rare as it's hook switch was poorly designed and broke easily when the phone was dropped on a hard surface.
Later Ericsson designed a new type of Ericofon to celebrate company's 100th anniversary. It's later called Ericofon 700. It did sold out but never went into American market. Today the Ericofon is weird-looking, old phone compared nowadays phone. But, think again, nowadays desk phone's handset still needed to be picked up and dial it on the telephone set. While Ericofon, just pick it up and dial everywhere you like from the handset as long as the telephone cable still attached. What an 'classic' innovation...
