The First Phone Call Was 133 Years Ago

magacious writes "March 10 is the 133rd anniversary of the first telephone call. It occurred between Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Thomas Watson back on this day in 1876. But there is some debate about whether Bell is actually the rightful owner of the crown for such invention. Having worked on the idea of transmitting speech using electricity for some time, Bell filed his patent on 14 February 1876, either just before or just after his main rival for the title of inventor of the telephone, Elisha Gray, filed his own. Bell won the patent and Gray died in obscurity."

Comments

Gray died in obscurity

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Of course, the light bulb was only invented in 1879.

Re:Such advances!

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

More like "can you hear me? CAN YOU HEAR ME? HELLO?? *beep*beep*beep* Ah f**ing Verizon!"

and the second call

[petes_PoV]

started "can I speak to Mr Alexander Bell" .... Hello Mr. Bell, how are you today. I wonder if you would take a few minutes to answer some questions ... hangs up in disgust

Re:133

[lilo_booter]

Indeed - apparently no one died that year - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/133

Re:the message:

[JustOK]

But I WAS FIRST POST!

Sincerely,

Elisha Gray

Re:133

[AliasMarlowe]

is such an important number that it's worth a news story by its own

But of course! It's a happy octagonal Harshad integer, and a Blum semiprime. We should read news stories about it every day!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/133_(number)

Re:the message:

[FatLittleMonkey]

Watson, come here. I need you.

"Oh Mr. Bell, you have no idea how long I've been waiting to hear you say that!"

Re:Antonio Meucci

[ubrgeek]

Meucci should have called ahead to let them know he was on his way. ;)

Re:the message:

[cbiltcliffe]

No, I'm sure it was:

"This is the second notice that the factory warranty may be expiring on your car!....."