> The fact I can talk on the phone to someone thousands of miles away feels pretty magical to me when I think about all that goes into it. I was a kid in the m

> The fact I can talk on the phone to someone thousands of miles away feels pretty magical to me when I think about all that goes into it. I was a kid in the mid-70s and remember being on a family Summer vacation visiting Europe and my dad needed to have an important phone meeting. The satellite call had to be coordinated via Telexes delivered to our vacation home by messengers. At the appointed time Dad was waiting by the phone (with me hovering nearby). The first call was just an operator who had to coordinate the link by reaching an operator on the other side of the sat link. The operator verified my Dad was present and had a good connection. Then the operator called back a couple minutes later once the other side had verified the same. Then the two operators simultaneously patched the call. The operator must have stayed on the call because my Dad spoke with her at the end to say they were done. I seem to recall this being because the calls were hard to arrange, very expensive and could get dropped frequently in mid-conversation. The event was discussed for days after and the memory still has a magical feeling to me because it was "talking to someone on the other side of the planet!"