When did they start selling cell phones?  I got my first one in 1993.  I know they came out way before then because my sister had a bulky gray one with a very large antenna.  Didn't they come out with them in the 80's and only really rich people use them?  

The mainstream public didn't start using cell phones until the early '90's, like about 1991-1993.  Definately by 1995/'96 I know that most everyone was using cell phones.  

But cell phones were around even in the '60's I believe.  Yes they were only for the rich, or maybey special law enforcement officers that needed a car phone.  In the '80's most cell phones were huge things that were the size of bricks.  Though even until early 1994, I remember a lot of cell phones had to be hooked up to certain power gizmo to work, and needed to be corded to this little gadget.

    Car phones to go back to the early 60's, who knows, maybe even earlier. They looked like regular telephones of the time, except they were in a car. Has anyone seen the "Andy Griffith Show" episode where he was using someone's car phone? He had to sign on before he used it, and sign off after he used it, with call letters, Like CB radio had until the 80's. (Come to think of it, I think that was supposed to be a "message episode" about how progress isn't such a good thing, but be that as it may...) I started hearing the term "cellular phone" in 1983 or 84. I have a videotape made in 1992 that was an instructional video for Motorola cellular phones. They sure have changed since then.

Now,look at em.They're so tiny.they can fit in your palm of your hands. -howard-

Here is a webiste I found....according to this it goes back to 1947.

http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa070899.htm

Here is a picture of the first cell phone, created by Dr. Martin Cooper in 1973.

http://www.girlstartcamp.org/digital1/martin_cooper.gif

Sunvolt, thanks for the link, very interesting.  

I found it funny how in 1947 there were only enough codes to allow 23 simultaneous cell phone calls in a single area at once.  Wow how times have changed!  

Does anyone remember the rates back then?  I had one of those big portable phones that you carried in a bag back in like 89, and it seemed very expensive at the time.  They would give you the phone for like a dollar and then charge you $2.00 a minute to use it.  Who was I fooling with that thing.  More than likely nobody.

Mike

Now,today's cell phones are so tiny,you can even switch hands to talk with one hand and carry something else in another.Just like I do. -howard-

Most of the cell phones I see today are about the same size and shape as the original communicators used on Star Trek.

In the later Star Trek series, the communicators were the size of badges or lapel pins.  I wonder how long it will take till we can do that with phones?  Yeah, it would be too small for a key pad, but with voice-recognition technology, you could just say: "answer", "call mom" "call husband" "call 555-1234" or whatever.

That would be too cool, I think....