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Dynatac Cellular Telephone

National Museum of American History

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Object Details

Motorola Inc.
Description
Motorola produced the DynaTAC cell phone in 1984 after more than a decade of work in cellular research and technology. The Motorola DynaTAC (an abbreviation of Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage) was the first commercially available portable handheld cell phone. The phone was a 9-inches tall, weighed 2.5 pounds, had 30 minutes of battery life, and sold for $4,000. The Federal Communications Commission divided the country into market areas and licensed cellular service to two companies per market, one affiliated with a wired telephone company and one non-wired franchise. Cellular One was the company formed by the American Radio Telephone Service and Motorola to offer cell service in the Washington D.C. area, the company that sold and provided service for this DynaTAC phone.
Credit Line
from Daniel Henderson
ca 1990
ID Number
2003.0095.046
catalog number
2003.0095.046
accession number
2003.0095
Object Name
portable telephone
cellular telephone
Physical Description
plastic (overall material)
metal (overall material)
Measurements
overall: 19.6 cm x 4.2 cm x 7.5 cm; 7 11/16 in x 1 5/8 in x 2 15/16 in
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Work and Industry: Electricity
Communications
American Enterprise
Exhibition
American Enterprise
Exhibition Location
National Museum of American History
National Museum of American History
Record ID
nmah_1191361
Usage of Metadata (Object Detail Text)
CC0
GUID (Link to Original Record)
http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746aa-56f3-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa
There are restrictions for re-using this image. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page .
International media Interoperability Framework
IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more.
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