Western Electric Trimline Phone - Convergence of technologies.

"Technological convergence" is the combination of devices through a kind of evolution. The most notable of which is the modern cellular telephone. Behold the first (or at least a first) baby step: the Trimline phone, by Western Electric.

You can probably find a cranky person who'll tell you that phones have gotten too complicated, and that they try to be too many things. Your phone has basically become a pocket computer. Sometimes, my desktop PC goes a week without me powering it on, because I can do email, listen to music or podcasts, mess with the web and, if I get desperate, talk to another human being with it.

There are things that phones aren't very successful at yet. Mine doesn't hold my entire music collection, which requires a minimum of 80Gb. But, it can hold an admirable amount of music... certainly more than I, strictly speaking, need to have with me at a given moment. I look forward to carrying a phone in my pocket that can accomodate a 128Gb micro SD card. Those are the ones that are the size of your pinky nail and pose a realistic inhalation threat, should you be brave enough to prize it out of your phone with a set of tweezers. The cell phone is pretty amazing. It is known.

Check it out. "Decorator colors, including new rust and chocolate brown." Brown is making a hideous comeback, people. Keep your eyes peeled for metallic brown paint on new model cars. I think I saw a brown Ford Fusion the other day. My eyes still feel like they didn't wipe thoroughly.

Back in 1980, Western Electric Trimline phone had the (apparently) boast-worthy feature of combining the keypad with the handset. I dimly recall using one for the first time and thinking it was pretty spiffy. Back in '80, you could probably find someone crabby enough to complain that the Trimline was "too fancy" and that phones should be simple like in the olden times, when you had to dial on the base, or better still, you had to crank the crank on the base and shout for Mabel to connect you with the Sheriff, if you heard someone rooting around in your coal shed late at night. Incidentally, this phrase can, even now, be quite suggestive if you work your eyebrows the right way upon utterance.

So, yeah. It's all relative. Combining the two halves of the same device was noteworthy in 1980, just as combining too many communications devices can be a frustration to some people today. For my next feat, I will augur the controversially combined technologies of The Distant Future. Let us remember that those who forget the future are doomed to do it anyway. Let's not forget to not combine the following...

Telephone and Hover-Skis

Telephone and Oscillation Overthruster

Telephone and Microwave Vibrator

Telephone and Nanoblimp

Telephone and Interocitor

Telephone and Trans-Cranial Bore

Telephone and Nuclear Pipe Organ

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