I remember trying to use an old dial phone at an apartment we had back in the 1980s. There isn't enough power coming through the lines, I don't think, to run them any more. It takes more juice to make those bells ring.

I was watching one of the really early episodes of Perry Mason last summer and had a great laugh when watching the woman who had been framed for a murder pick up a revolver and drop it into her purse to take to Perry Mason. It occurred to me that if she'd put a 1957 phone in her purse also, she'd have needed a pocketbook the size of a modest piece of luggage. :)