Old-fashioned Telephones and Nervous System Long before smart Apple iPhones, before Google phone and Skype services, before smart tablets and wrist phones, there were dial-up and touch-tone telephones.  And old-fashioned wall phones. To use a wall phone, you picked up the receiver, and an operator somewhere in a central office location of the phone company, observed a red lamp light up on the octopus-like switchboard in front of her.  Instantly, she knew someone wanted to mak