I too have had little luck getting my hardware to activate the phone’s chimes but that at least led me to another fun quirk. The cabling for the phone has named wires that corresponded to the original switchboard connectors, which looked like enormous headphone jacks. They had two contacts: one at the tip of the plug and one for the collar that sits around the plug behind the tip, separated by insulation. The collar is ring shaped so this part of the circuit is called the ring connection.

Whoever dreamt that naming scheme up? It would be like calling the dial — where you set in the number you wanted to dial with you hand — the hand-set! Or calling a mute button the ear-peace!

There's something so Brooklyn / Portland about wanting to relive this for the romance. It sucked.