geralday opened this issue on Aug 19, 2006 · 11 posts
ockham posted Sun, 20 August 2006 at 10:43 AM
Oddly enough, the original 'self-dialing phone', invented in 1895, had
buttons! A single vertical row, not the modern 3 x 4 rectangle.
The rotary thingie was (I'd guess) Bell's way of avoiding royalties
on the original patent. Nothing else could explain its long reign,
since the rotary motion is unnatural and difficult for most people.