Old school stuff with wires all over the place is the rule around here. I have always loved old Western Electric key telephones and I use them (personally modified for my needs without using PBX equipment). I've been using casettes for music since 1970 and VHS tapes for HiFi recording of music and video since 1984. This kind of stuff is tried and true, and lasts for a very long time if properly taken care of (some of this gear is not within view here). And this equipment is very inexpensive nowadays with the end-result of top-notch video and audio entertainment that just about rivals todays electronic junque in my opinion. From control-center-command (shown here) connections are made to the outside my house via over a dozen poles using plenty of open-wire for telephone, intercom and answering-machine monitoring audio. In addition there are two stereo channels that "pipe" music to my backyard/outdoor museum. I have a pretty big backyard. To top things off, my "mobile" phone that I plug into an outside jack has lights that indicate whether the phone line is in use and another if the answering machine light is blinking (connected to the LED within the latter...) Plus intercom buzzer circuits which will send a tone to the house and vice-versa. All via at least a couple hundred feet of personally constructed open-wire poles and hardware.

/analog joe

+++++++++++++++++++