Happy Birthday to Your Cell Phone

How many of you have a cell phone? I would probably imagine that some of you are even reading this on a cell phone. Well if you enjoy your cell phone (and most of us do), then today is a day to celebrate it!

It was 40 years ago today that the first call on a cell phone was made! Marty Cooper, who was an engineer with Motorola at the time, made the first call. According to reports, Cooper called Joel Engel, who was working on a handheld phone for Bell Labs. Some reports say the first call was as follows: “Joel, this is Marty. I'm calling you from a cell phone, a real handheld portable cell phone.”

The first call was made from a Motorola DynaTAC, which as you can see in the picture above, was HUGE (at least compared to some of the mobile phones we have seen over the years). The phone was 13 inches long and weighed almost 2 pounds! It took about 10 years for the phone to be available to the general public and was pretty expensive.

Cell phones have come quite a long way since DynaTac. Now most phones max out around 5-6 inches long and weigh just ounces.

I remember my first cell phone call on my dad’s cell phone, which was considered a bag phone, back in the mid-1990s. What do you remember about your first cell phone?