I was aware that there were attempts at video phones starting in the 1930s, but I never knew until now that special booths with AT&T’s Picturephone Mod 1 model were installed in Grand Central Terminal and other American train stations in 1964.

The great Western Electric ad above, from 1969, promised to bring the service from the hub to the home, though this particular video phone was a flop. The copy, however, was prescient about the narcissistic allure of such technology.

Sound and pictures really never came together until phones stopped being just phones and became computers. Below: The AT&T Picturephone demo in 1970. The service cost $160 per month. Also a flop.