That is just one component of a phone. A phone implies a few more functions, the main ones being the ability to transmit 2-way voice communication, and to dial any other phone. And even modern 2-way radios used today on ships, planes, CB, etc. are still not called phones.
Then why didn't you (or the FAA for example) just call them "phones" but "2-way radios"? That undermines the rest of your point.
The concept of a modern phone* implies simultaneous 2 way voice and also dialing functionality. A "phone mode of operation" just mimics some of that functionality. Otherwise every 2-way voice radio ever used would be called "phone". But they're not because they aren't.
Defending such a clickbaity definition of "a phone" is surprising especially in a community like HN where I expect people to be more precise with terminology.
*and that's the concept that matters. Today using a 100 year old definition of a phone is just as inappropriate as a 20 year old definition of broadband.
"phone", as you are asserting, is a colloquialism for "telephone".
Radios don't have a "phone" mode of operation because they mimic telephones. "Phone" does, and always has meant "audio". We don't call radios "phones" for the same reason we don't call them "audio". Likewise, phonographs aren't named after telephones, either.
But you brought the argument that radios have "a phone mode of operation". The "voice" mode [0] is colloquially called "phone" because of the telephone-like functionality. This is why it's also called radiotelephony and not just telephony. To highlight the similarity to telephony but still make it clear that it's a radio and not a telephone.
Now the article is written in 2020, when "wireless phone" means only "wireless telephone", something different from the radio presented in the article. And clickbaity titles are all the rage. Which was my point.
Telephone literally means “far voice” in Greek. A device does not require a dial pad to be a phone. The article establishes earlier radio communication as using basically Morse code (telegraphy). This is a “phone” because it uses voice (telephony) instead of some other signaling.
It’s not a common use of the word phone today but it is a reasonable interpretation based on the technology of the time and how it was used.
I don't think the Greek roots of the word matter to our understanding of the modern word. It does look more like radio and that the words "wireless phone" are there only for clicks.
If someone asks you for your phone, you won't ponder if they mean your "far voice". However, if we start discussing what is a phone and isn't (does it have to dial?), then suddently etymology is very relevant. I personally love etymology, because it let's you cut through the not-always-useful baggage accumulated around words.
They aren't technically lizards, but closer to birds according to current knowledge (pedants will even say that cladistically, birds are dinosaurs) . But I love etymology despite the fact that neologisms often don't mean literally what the roots say.
It's true that Etymology (the source of the word) is neither Definition (a documented meaning of the word) nor Usage (how most people use a word). Your example of dinosaur is fair for showing this, nobody from the outset conceived of the Dinosaur as really just being a "terrible lizard" (this makes me imagine a very lazy gecko, can't be bothered to actually do much "You are a terrible lizard").
BUT telephones really are about voice communications at a distance and not about the particular mechanics that were popularized with the public telephone network. Telephone "numbers", dialling, all that stuff was added later and isn't part of the telephone concept. So although the Latin etymology isn't why these were telephones, they were anyway.
"Terrible" has two meanings though -- invoking terror and being crap. Ivan the Terrible wasn't a crap Czar -- he just was somebody you didn't want to get on the wrong side of.
They probably looked quite cute -- but so do hippopotamuses, which despite being herbivores kill more humans than do lions. Never underestimate a large animal. Even cows can be deadly.
In modernity it has two meanings, but its roots are tied to terror. It's only been adapted as a colloquialism to mean "crap". Somewhat like how "aweful" and "awesome" have drifted to mean totally opposite things when their suffixes and etymology suggests they should and originally did mean something very similar.
> The term is derived from Ancient Greek δεινός (deinos), meaning 'terrible, potent or fearfully great', and σαῦρος (sauros), meaning 'lizard or reptile'
According to wiktionary [1] mighty is a reasonable interpretation of deinos.
> New Latin dīnosaurus, from Ancient Greek δεινός (deinós, “terrible, awesome, mighty, fearfully great”) + σαῦρος (saûros, “lizard, reptile”). Coined by paleontologist Richard Owen in 1842.
So dinosaur can be reasonably interpreted to mean "mighty reptile".
In fact the next sentence from the wikipedia page you linked suggests that was the intended meaning:
> Though the taxonomic name has often been interpreted as a reference to dinosaurs' teeth, claws, and other fearsome characteristics, Owen intended it merely to evoke their size and majesty.
But this article isn't about dinosaurs so it actually doesn't matter at all.
Describing the device in the article as a "wireless telephone" seems reasonable to me. It allowed voice communication at distance without wires.
Your question is answered by the rest of the sentence you didn't quote.
Describing the device as a "radio voice transceiver" might be more technically correct but I'm not sure how it makes the headline any better. Nobody uses that kind of language to describe a CB radio or cell phone, even though that's technically what they are.
The device fits within a reasonable interpretation of what we understand as a wireless telephone and how the device was used.
The headline could have been written "WWI pilots had CB radios" but then our pedantic argument here would be about what spectrum was used.
"The first commercial installation of a telephone dial accompanied the first commercial installation of a 99-line automatic telephone exchange in La Porte, Indiana, in 1892"
"The first experimental telephone exchange was based on the ideas of Puskás, and it was built by the Bell Telephone Company in Boston in 1877. The world's first state-administered telephone exchange opened on November 12, 1877"
Phone lines that were 1:1 were even older, but not by much (Bell's patent is from 1876)
That's a description of the radio bands. The device itself is never referred to as "a phone". No authority that I know of calls a 2-way voice radio "a phone" unless it's an actual phone (modern definition applies). The article used it to get more clicks but (I assume) an amateur radio operator insisting on wrong terminology is surprising.
Are any authority, manufacturer, or expert user officially calling the radios on any plane, ship, etc. a "phone"? Does the FAA, Motorola, any CB operator, police or emergency services ever call their radios "phones"?
"Phoning" is used for a lot of conceptually similar or analogous actions without implying the use of an actual phone. Like when a device or software "phones home" without being a phone. The device and the concept of the action are independent. We've called devices "telephones" for more than 200 years now and the earliest ones were just megaphones. Very loose decades or centuries old references to a "phone" aren't relevant for an article written today.
My point is according to any reasonably modern definition of the words, what's presented in the article is a radio and not a phone, and the usage of "wireless phone" in the title is just an attention grab. Perhaps "biplanes had those days' equivalent of wireless phones in the cockpit" would have been more appropriate... and less clicky.
Until relatively recently, military signallers who carried radios were called Radio Telephone Operators - manuals are still full of references to radio telephones.
Early 'car phones' were simply multi-channel 2 way radios with a switchboard at the other end. You'd pick up the receiver, flip to a channel with no voice traffic, announce your personal code (DR83229 for example), and ask the operator to patch you through to a phone number.
my first exposure to mobile phones was through a Perry Mason episode, and I was flummoxed. I was so enamored that I held my first mobile phone that I had purchased in the early 90's with glee.
> (Prince published his findings after the war, in a 1920 journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE). If you have a subscription to IEEE Xplore, you can read Prince’s paper here [PDF].)
Is this for real? A 100 year old paper is subscription only?
Wireless telephony = voice sent over electromagnetic (radio / wireless) waves; sometimes referred to as radio telephony, although using radio was more common in US and Germany than UK until after the First World War.
And as a few other commentators pointed out, dialling is not an essential part of a telephone.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 136 ms ] threadThen why didn't you (or the FAA for example) just call them "phones" but "2-way radios"? That undermines the rest of your point.
The concept of a modern phone* implies simultaneous 2 way voice and also dialing functionality. A "phone mode of operation" just mimics some of that functionality. Otherwise every 2-way voice radio ever used would be called "phone". But they're not because they aren't.
Defending such a clickbaity definition of "a phone" is surprising especially in a community like HN where I expect people to be more precise with terminology.
*and that's the concept that matters. Today using a 100 year old definition of a phone is just as inappropriate as a 20 year old definition of broadband.
Radios don't have a "phone" mode of operation because they mimic telephones. "Phone" does, and always has meant "audio". We don't call radios "phones" for the same reason we don't call them "audio". Likewise, phonographs aren't named after telephones, either.
Now the article is written in 2020, when "wireless phone" means only "wireless telephone", something different from the radio presented in the article. And clickbaity titles are all the rage. Which was my point.
[0] http://www.arrl.org/voice-modes
These only transmitted CW which was used to send Morse code.
It’s not a common use of the word phone today but it is a reasonable interpretation based on the technology of the time and how it was used.
That's not how words work. Dinosaur literally means terrible lizard, but they aren't lizards nor necessarily terrible.
> It’s not a common use of the word phone today
Lol so why use it in an article today?
Dinosaurs and lizards diverged at the lepidosaurs. A dinosaur is not a lizard. They share a common ancestor.
BUT telephones really are about voice communications at a distance and not about the particular mechanics that were popularized with the public telephone network. Telephone "numbers", dialling, all that stuff was added later and isn't part of the telephone concept. So although the Latin etymology isn't why these were telephones, they were anyway.
Em...no. it means "mighty" in the sense of "power beyond limits".
Em...yes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur#Etymology
> The term is derived from Ancient Greek δεινός (deinos), meaning 'terrible, potent or fearfully great', and σαῦρος (sauros), meaning 'lizard or reptile'
> New Latin dīnosaurus, from Ancient Greek δεινός (deinós, “terrible, awesome, mighty, fearfully great”) + σαῦρος (saûros, “lizard, reptile”). Coined by paleontologist Richard Owen in 1842.
So dinosaur can be reasonably interpreted to mean "mighty reptile".
In fact the next sentence from the wikipedia page you linked suggests that was the intended meaning:
> Though the taxonomic name has often been interpreted as a reference to dinosaurs' teeth, claws, and other fearsome characteristics, Owen intended it merely to evoke their size and majesty.
This is consistent with the meaning of deinos: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B4%CE%B5%CE%B9%CE%BD%CF%8...
[1]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dinosaur#Etymology
I don’t think you understand - they aren’t reptiles, mighty or otherwise. They’re lepidosaurs, but they aren’t reptiles.
"Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur
"The Lepidosauria (from Greek meaning scaled lizards) are reptiles with overlapping scales."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepidosauria
In fact, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptile it doesn't look like dinosaurs are lepidosaurs at all.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dinosaur#Etymology
"Mighty reptiles"
But this article isn't about dinosaurs so it actually doesn't matter at all.
Describing the device in the article as a "wireless telephone" seems reasonable to me. It allowed voice communication at distance without wires.
Your question is answered by the rest of the sentence you didn't quote.
Describing the device as a "radio voice transceiver" might be more technically correct but I'm not sure how it makes the headline any better. Nobody uses that kind of language to describe a CB radio or cell phone, even though that's technically what they are.
The device fits within a reasonable interpretation of what we understand as a wireless telephone and how the device was used.
The headline could have been written "WWI pilots had CB radios" but then our pedantic argument here would be about what spectrum was used.
"the computer that the ancient greeks made"
"the ancient egyptian automobile"
"the subway of pipes underneath rome"
etc
"The first commercial installation of a telephone dial accompanied the first commercial installation of a 99-line automatic telephone exchange in La Porte, Indiana, in 1892"
Phone exchanges were you told an operator who you wanted to talk to are older. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_exchange:
"The first experimental telephone exchange was based on the ideas of Puskás, and it was built by the Bell Telephone Company in Boston in 1877. The world's first state-administered telephone exchange opened on November 12, 1877"
Phone lines that were 1:1 were even older, but not by much (Bell's patent is from 1876)
Example:
http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Regulatory/Band%20Chart/Band%...
Early military radios had a switch labeled "CW" and "Phone".
In radio parlance, "CW" was Telegraphy and "Phone" was Telephony, so in this context the term "Phone" derived from the term "Radio Telephony".
"Phoning" is used for a lot of conceptually similar or analogous actions without implying the use of an actual phone. Like when a device or software "phones home" without being a phone. The device and the concept of the action are independent. We've called devices "telephones" for more than 200 years now and the earliest ones were just megaphones. Very loose decades or centuries old references to a "phone" aren't relevant for an article written today.
My point is according to any reasonably modern definition of the words, what's presented in the article is a radio and not a phone, and the usage of "wireless phone" in the title is just an attention grab. Perhaps "biplanes had those days' equivalent of wireless phones in the cockpit" would have been more appropriate... and less clicky.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotelephone
but, I was in no way the first, and it turns out there were over a million mobile phones in cars in the 1960's, with a little more pedigree to what we now have than the biplanes: https://weburbanist.com/2012/09/18/remember-millions-of-mobi...
Is this for real? A 100 year old paper is subscription only?
Wireless telegraphy = Morse code used electromagnetic (radio / wireless) waves
Wireless telephony = voice sent over electromagnetic (radio / wireless) waves; sometimes referred to as radio telephony, although using radio was more common in US and Germany than UK until after the First World War.
And as a few other commentators pointed out, dialling is not an essential part of a telephone.