Around what time, do you think, did first phones that allowed their owners to walk around freely been invented? Until recently, I have thought that it was around mid-seventies. What a terrible mistake! Once again it becomes apparent that everything new is simply well forgotten past.

    People over at Popular Mechanics magazine have dug through the archives and found a genuine mobile phone advertisement dated august 1915! Since you obviously are thinking that there is some bullsh*t involved here, let me clarify. What makes a mobile [cell] phone differ from, lets say, a stick? It can be used to make calls; it can be easily transported, fits into a pocket, and does not lose functionality away from home and it works in batteries. Other stuff like 48 different versions Tetris, interchangeable color cases and WAP-browser are not necessarily features that each and every cell phone should have.

    The picture on the left shows a great-grand father of today’s mobile phones. Its funny, but this dinosaur from 1915 perfectly fits our definition of a mobile phone. Well, except that this phone has to be connected to the wires via special hooks in order to be used. But today’s models are pretty much useless as well if you go too far from re-transmitting antennas. So this phone was “mobile” to the full extend of this term – only drawback being a rather small roaming zone.

    This marvel worked on batteries, so everything is fine here as well. It did require a rather massive pocket however: the phone weighted about a kilogram and had dimensions similar to those of a carton of milk. Oh, and just like today’s Nokia and Ericsson, this phone had a flip-up, although passive, cover with a microphone as well.

    It would be really cool to see this phone in real life, but I'm sure it would be a pretty hard thing to find nowadays. Moreover, it is very interesting just how much did a minute of airtime cost back in 1915 and if there were free nights and weekends offered to people who signed a one year contract.

    The advertisement in Popular Mechanics also says that when closed, the phone would be about the size of a pocket camera. This spawns few thoughts. First – a banal one – the incredible technological progress of twentieth century. Second – far from trivial – just how great pockets were back in 1915.