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On the 40th anniversary of the first cellphone call

Motorola Microtac

I still remember the first time I saw a guy at a restaurant talking on one of those prehistorically massive cellphones. My dad leaned over and said, “Look at that poor guy. Never let that happen to you. Never take a job that’s so all-consuming that you have to carry a phone around, even during lunch.” A lot has changed since then (although I still often see a lot of validity in my dad’s initial response to these devices) and in the forty years since Motorola engineer Martin Cooper made the first cellphone call. Wired takes a look back at the twelve cellphones that changed our world forever.