The Origin of Telephone

A tin can telephone toy made of two cans connected by a wire.
Image from campfire.andycamper.com

I remember when I was a kid playing “tele-telepono” with my brother and sister. Our toy was made of two empty cans of sardines which we picked up from our mother’s garbage. We made a hole at the bottom of both cans and connected them with a string about 50 meters long. My sister stood on our window while I and my brother hold the other end at our neighbor’s house. Then we talked and laughed and shouted at each other – a fun way of spending time in a remote village, where there was no technology except a battery-powered radio.

This painted a vague scenario of the origin of telephone. According to Wikipedia, “The origins of the telephone date back to the non-electrical string telephone or "lover's telephone" that has been known for centuries, comprising two diaphragms connected by a taut string or wire. Sound waves are carried as mechanical vibrations along the string or wire from one diaphragm to the other. The classic example is the tin can telephone, a children's toy made by connecting the two ends of a string to the bottoms of two metal cans…. The essential idea of this toy was that a diaphragm can collect voice sounds from the air, as in the ear, and a string … can transmit such collected voice sounds for reproduction at a distance.”

Have you played this kind of toy back when you were a kid? We would like to hear your story.