What year did the personal pager come out?

Question

Without doing a search, do you know what year the personal pager came out?

exitseven · Accepted Answer

I would say 1962. i bought one in the early 80s. It seemed that they were around for at least 20 years.

dreamstar72 · Accepted Answer

Most common used in the late seventies, but in the early sixties.

MrOracle · Answer

I suppose it depends on how you strictly define it. There were "beeper" type devices for on-site use (hospitals, typically) since before WWII, but they got their transmissions from a local radio transmitter - the police from the police station, doctors from the hospital, etc. This happened before the police got voice radio receivers in their cars, so pretty early but I don't know when. These still required the police to find a "police call box" (a phone in a box that dialed directly into the local police station) to respond to a call or ask questions.

I believe the first area-wide type pagers didn't happen until the 60s - this might have covered an area as large as a county, with signals from a network of transmitters.

These pagers were a bit bigger and thicker - and MUCH heavier - than a cassette tape case, and contained a bunch of batteries - maybe even C-cells? It's thick enough.

Motorola Pageboy - late 60s or early 70s

For those who have seen the movie Caddyshack, one of the snooty club-goer characters was named "Doctor Beeper" and carried this style of Motorola PageBoy II, which was longer and thinner:

Motorola PageBoy II, re-branded for the Gencom pager network - late 70s

And it wasn't until the mid 80s that you had pagers with displays - which could display a phone number to call, such as the Motorola Bravo - the best selling pager of all time. I had one myself.

By this time, there were regional networks (usually covering several states) of transmitters. Nationwide service didn't happen until the late 80s. And by the early 90s there were pagers with alphanumeric displays that could receive actual text-based messages - someone would call your pager service and an operator would type out your message for you and send it to the pager. Eventually, email and other Internet-based means allowed direct sending of digital text messages to these pagers, and you also had the first BlackBerry pagers with a keyboard to type messages directly onto.

What year did the personal pager come out?

Not too long after, we got BlackBerry and other "v1.0" smartphones with keyboards that were primarily built for text messaging and eventually basic email. And everyone knows about the iPhone being released in 2007 (and Android in 2008), which killed off all of the v1.0 market leaders like Nokia, BlackBerry, Palm, and Motorola (the current "Motorola" is just a licensed name used by a Chinese company).

Hmm... I guess I didn't really answer your question...

Kaneki05 · Answer

I already knew they were made in 1950s though I couldn't say when they were used commonly besides that of hospitals. Maybe the 70s?

NathanDavis · Answer

I'm sure they came out way earlier, but... I do remember hearing about them in 90's rap, and drug business... so they might have become way more popular and of wider usage by then

also know that it was a thing in hospitals

DryGermanGuy · Answer

1960s James Bond movies have shown them (as a real product).

dustybiker2 · Answer

Let me think.. late 80's?

Sevenpointfive · Answer

i would say 1980

What year did the personal pager come out?

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