You have to consider how well-educated folks were in the past, especially about science. Before CAD and especially following the "Victorian Age" objects had a certain ornate character to them in addition to their usefulness. I have some very old Mechanical, Steam, and Electrical books from the 1700's up to 1940's belonging to my great-great-grandfather and on down that are fun to peruse from time to time. To me, at least, much more entertaining than old Sears Roebuck catalog reprints which are also fun to peruse. Kids today are learning subjects in high school that I didn't encounter until college and I'm sure it's been the same for each generation.

 

hi,
Some Victorian 'health' products.
E

 

Yep, they used a lot of mercury and arsenic "health remedies" among many equally bad! Then there were the surgeons. Without the aid of anesthesia, the aim was to operate as fast as possible to eliminate stress upon the patient. One of the fastest renowned surgeons was Dr. Robert Liston "fastest knife in the West End". Robert Liston - Wikipedia

One surgery, 3 deaths!
" Amputated the leg in under 2 1⁄2 minutes (the patient died afterwards in the ward from hospital gangrene; they usually did in those pre-Listerian days). He amputated in addition the fingers of his young assistant (who died afterwards in the ward from hospital gangrene). He also slashed through the coat tails of a distinguished surgical spectator, who was so terrified that the knife had pierced his vitals he fainted from fright (and was later discovered to have died from shock)"

 

“Put the handset into the acoustic coupler.”

Acoustic couplers were the reason that I was the only student to complete a computer science assignment on time. I had used the suction cup pickup (bought from a Radio Shack store) used to tape phone conversations and recorded the tones as I listed my assignment code. When the mainframe crashed, everyone lost their code. But I played my recording back into the acoustic coupler and recovered everything.

 

“Put the handset into the acoustic coupler.”

Acoustic couplers were the reason that I was the only student to complete a computer science assignment on time. I had used the suction cup pickup (bought from a Radio Shack store) used to tape phone conversations and recorded the tones as I listed my assignment code. When the mainframe crashed, everyone lost their code. But I played my recording back into the acoustic coupler and recovered everything.

Wire tap. Did both parties give permission to record the "conversation"? Ha. Good work.

 

Was it the really fast 300 baud one?