Sept. 21, 1983, Motorola's ...first commercial portable cellular phone...

[IcyPeas]

(Plus an old, 1993, New Yorker cartoon.)

Look at the price!!! $3,995

On September 21, 1983, Motorola's DynaTAC 8000X, the world's first commercial portable cellular phone, received approval from the FCC

...............................

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[ProfessorGAC]

1. The Brick!

Our company didn't start giving cellphones to managers until the early 90s.
My first one was a Nokia. Way smaller that The Brick.
Would fit in a shirt pocket. Still much heavier than a calculator, though.
I wasn't aware those Brick phones were 43 years ago, though.
Oh, and that price!!! 4 grand!.

[rsdsharp]

2. There was a lawyer in Des Moines (named Vern Lawyer!) who carried one of those in a briefcase.

I’d see him talking on it in the skywalks once in awhile.

[ProfessorGAC]

3. I Saw Some, Too

But, didn't have one. In his briefcase!
Where the heck else could you carry those things? Even a woman carrying a purse would need an awfully big one to carry that thing.
In 1983, how much cell coverage was there? Not a lot, I'd think.
In the early 90s, when we got phones it worked nearly everywhere in the big cities where our North American sites were. So, pretty useful.

[rsdsharp]

4. Yeah, it was damn near the size of a WWII handie talkie.

[IcyPeas]

6. 4 grand ... no camera, no texts, no flashlight, no apps, all it did was phone calls. LOL

[JoseBalow]

5. $3,995 in 1983 is worth $12,645.87 today

https://www.inflationtool.com/us-dollar/1983-to-present-value?amount=3995&year2=2024&frequency=yearly

[IcyPeas]

7. Omg.

[duncang]

8. Around 1985-1988

The place I worked at gave us as in the crew. A single brick phone for out of town work. That way the customer and our office could get a hold of us.

[chouchou]

9. For 3,995 dollars, that's a damn nice screen and the camera.

[intheflow]

10. I remember being stuck on a bus

during a blizzard in 1985 or so. A guy in a Mercedes stuck in front of us had one of these and brought it in the bus in case anyone needed to call someone to say they’d be late. We were all like, “Whoa! The future is now!”

[Wounded Bear]

11. Marine Corps definition of "portable"...

It has a handle, and/or it isn't bolted down.