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27 May 2005

Swatch Phones and Others...

This is one of my favourite things - a Swatch phone, which has been described as "an icon of 80s design". Note the combination of grey and bright colours - how 80s can you get?!

A 1980s lamp and organiser...

... and a popular BT Tribune phone, released in 1987. The Trimphone, with its electronic warble, and the first push button phones, had arrived in the 1960s, but phones had rather stagnated in the cash-strapped 1970s and early 1980s. Many people stuck to traditional dial phones with a bell ring.

Dial phones remained widespread in the 1980s, but this was the decade of choice and many new models became available, as can be seen on this blog.

By the late 1980s, push button phones were taking centre stage and the electronic warble had all but taken over, but there was still a demand for bell ring phones. With the Tribune phone you had the choice, warble or bell models were available. When BT installed a Tribune phone in my flat in 1988, I was pleasantly surprised to find it had a bell ring. The warble has never appealed to me! The phone remains in use on my hall extension to this day.