Going on forty years ago, I worked in tech support for a copy that made typesetting systems on Data General minicomputers. The typesetters would have have special-purpose green-screen terminals, but general communication with the system--to boot it, back it up, install new software--happened usually through a teletype. We called it the Dasher, which I think was the name of an earlier variant.
It often happened that the dasher was up close to one wall, and the telephone hung on another wall, well out of reach. It was then that I noticed the asymmetry of telephone handsets. Whether someone had the phone in hand or or not, I could hear their room loud and clear. But if the handset wasn't to an ear, anything I said, even a howl of "No! No!" was lost, a whisper a big room.
Computers have shrunk in size and grown in power, and technical support now has tools we didn't dream of. Still, the other night I was trying to help an older relative through some computer difficulties. Her phone was across the room from the computer, which led to intervals of silence while she went to try out an instruction. We did not get very far, which I think partly owed to a confusion of terms. It is frustrating to spend half an hour not accomplishing something I could manage in five minutes if on-site.
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