Touch tone phones (DTMF) were first deployed at scale in the US in 1963, but they would have been in development at the Bell System for quite a while before that. Possibly also some limited deployments. This ad from 1956 teases a future without rotary dials.
DTMF also led to the rise of Blue Boxes and Phreaking.
I grew up in a house with what I thought were rotary phones that looked like this, with the dial on the wall mount, but I can’t find any pictures. I know they were rotary, but I’m guessing I don’t remember the handset correctly. One of them was this color! The other was a darker brown. We did a bunch of work to the house in the mid 90s, but kept one of them. It caused a lot of problems when my folks switched from dial-up internet to DSL. They had to get rid of it.
deleted by creator
There were also rotary phones with keypads for a while.
When you pressed a key, you would hear a “dit, dit, dit” sound (for 3 as an example). My first phone in my room was a hand me down that worked that way.
Wow, I don’t think I ever saw one of those! The first phone I had in my room was a touch tone I made from a kit haha. It was just a handset, I don’t remember how the hook worked. Maybe it had an on/off switch?
I made a phone kit too later and it wasn’t a real dual tone phone either actually.
When you pressed the 9 button, it just sent 9 pulses at 10 pulses a second.