Times Past: Before the iPhone, there was ...

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Snapshots from the Times archives: Feb. 19, 1967, and April 23, 1978

Expecting a call? In 1967, an ad in the Los Angeles Times Home magazine touted a device that alerted you if the phone rang while you were out (leaving you to wonder only who called).

More than a decade later, even someone with a newfangled push-button phone still needed high-tech help to turn off the ringer.

-- Joan Fantazia