105

I'm liberating this one from the evil empire. The original poster recently saw this one at Nagoya, evidently one of the few-ish remaining ones in service. Their post title was:

Orange backlit LCD, check! Phone card slot, check! Japan in 1982 was the future! (An endangered species spotted at Nagoya station)

More examples & angles:
https://www.google.com/search?q=classic+green+NTT+public+payphone+from+Japan&udm=2

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] farmgineer@nord.pub 5 points 3 weeks ago

They're still around. The color will tell you if it can do international or only domestic. They are particularly useful in disasters when cell towers are jammed (or just down after battery back-ups start failing after 24-96 hours depending).

[-] calamitycastle@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago
[-] farmgineer@nord.pub 2 points 3 weeks ago

https://www.ntt-east.co.jp/databook/history-public-phone-1971-1976.html

You can click on the various year ranges, but there have been a variety of types over the years. I don't recall having seen an actual working phone that wasn't green (or is it more yellow? I'm mildly colorblind) and grey.

this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2026
105 points (97.3% liked)

CassetteFuturism

573 readers
1 users here now

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS