When I was a lad, if you were not at home and you wanted to call someone, you had to go to these things called "phone booths" and insert "quarters" into it. Then to talk to the right pesron you had to punch in a seven digit number that was only exclusive to them. But heres the kicker kids, you had to either memorize the number or have it written down. Anyone could use the booths, they were for the public you see. And sometimes when you called their house they wouldn't be there, and the phone would just ring and ring and ring until they eventually got home or you hung up. However if they were rich enough some people had these things called "answering machines", these were gadgets that would answer the phone for the person and ask you to leave a message, and it was stored on magnetic tapes. If you were lucky and the person was home, they would answer saying "hello?" or "how can I help you?" because there was no way of knowing who was calling or where they were calling from.