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213A long time ago, in an Australia far away, people didn%u2019t have mobile phones, but they did have coins. These coins were central to the use of a payphone, a public device in which you would lift a receiver, wait for the dial tone and then dial a number, either from memory or from a piece of paper or an address book. One of the heroes of this form of communication was the Gold Phone, designed by Paul Schremmer (who was also responsible for the design of the first plastic catcher on the Victa mower). With push buttons, a prominent information panel and its distinctive colour, the Gold Phone was a mainstay of pubs, restaurants, universities, schools and various commercial buildings. Marketed as a %u2018gold mine for your business%u2019 by Telecom (now known as Telstra), Gold Phones were privately owned units. That meant the giddy owner could open up the unit with their own key and pocket the proceeds %u2013 or, presumably, use them to make calls on other public phones around town. Gold Phones always seemed the fanciest of the public phones, and there%u2019s no doubt their sleek design added to this perception. Sadly, the rise of the mobile phone meant the glory days of the refund chute were numbered.Eventually, in 2006, the Gold Phone was phased out, but surely there%u2019s still one in a caravan park or pub somewhere?%u2018To me, the Gold Phone was the original smartphone. When I was a young reporter for the now defunct Sydney afternoon newspaper The Sun, one of our jobs was to dial the story into the office. In those days, there was a woman in the office, or several women, who would sit there and take copy, as they used to call it. Often you had very little time to get the story out, so you would have to find a payphone to do that; you had to dictate quickly and over a phone that was working.%u2019%u0090ff%u0018%u0017%u0014%u0016%u001a%u000b%u000effi%u0013%u0015%u000e%u0015%u0017ffififffl%u0015%u0017ffiff%u0014ffi%u000efi%u0015ffiff%u0017%u0019ffifl%u0016%u0019%u000bffiff%u0009 %u000efi%u0015 fffl %u0013fiff%u0014%u0015ffiYEAR 1986DESIGNER Paul SchremmerMANUFACTURER Telecom