We couldn't message ppl back then. No cell phones, no computers. We could write a letter though. It was actually a lot cheaper than placing a local phone call. AT&T would charge by the minute. They were called The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company at that time. I still remember using rotary phones as a child and when the change happened. The phone company got its marching orders that we all had to move to the digital age. They started a massive nationwide door-to-door campaign to collect and destroy every last beautiful, made in the USA, heavy, that would last forever, rotary phone. It was non-stop propaganda urging us customers to get rid of our old phone and make the switch. The great rotary phone purge. Well at least that is how I remember it. Given that I was little at the time. After DTMF tones came to our dimension everything changed quickly but slowly so that we would build our own digital cage. Going digital made things easier but it also destroyed the fabric of our society. It allowed VOIP, offshoring, outsourcing, surveillance. During the rotary days you didn't have to push any numbers to speak to a customer service representative. You would just call any company and an American woman would answer. That's it very easy. Pay-phones used the tones to denote when money had been inserted when making a long-distance call. One specific tone equalled one nickel, and multiples of that tone (i.e. two or five) would be strung together to represent dimes and quarters when inserted by the caller. So before they caught on you could record the sound, play it back, and hack a public phone. A great hacker John Draper who went by the name of Captn' Crunch discovered that the toy whistle enclosed in a box of Cap’n Crunch cereal, if one of the holes was covered, produced a 2600 Hz tone. This little whistle allowed you to place free calls, blue-boxing exploits. I would gladly exchange all the conveniences that I have now to go back in time. No traffic stop cameras. No surveillance. If you said something you could just deny it. It wouldn't ruin your life. House parties, dance clubs, concerts, all social gatherings were great because no one had a phone. We laughed, we bonded, we had more trust, we communicated, we looked each other in the eye. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMyVsFG-hA8 I can't help but feel CERN destroyed our dimension. We seem to have gone full crazy once they turned that thing on. Here are some videos if you want to check out more about tech at that time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugTKmveF2G4 https://garydrobson.com/2014/06/03/the-origins-of-phreaking/