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[Arachno-capitalist]

I want to take something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Crosley-302-Desk-Phone-CR60-RE/dp/B000238LD8
And make it work with my cell phone.
Step 0.5 would be a basic cosmetic connection between the two devices.
Step one would be integrating the two on a basic level so that it rings when my cell phone rings. I have already seen a black model phone like this that plugs into the 2.5mm jack of a cell phone, but that doesn't come in red and does not come with the stand, it is only a headset.
Step two would be a dial interface.
Step three would be a more detailed integration where the red phone would have speed dial for each of its number keys.
End result: I have a red retro style phone next to my black networked office phone. The red phone for my cell phone calls and the black phone for my interoffice calls.


Any ideas?

[Doc]

My first thought would be to rip apart a bluetooth headset and use that.
Some quick searching reveals this and this which shows that others have thought along the same lines.

Edit: Look at that second link first, it's more along the lines of what I'd try, that first one looks like something for Advanced Users.

[Arachno-capitalist]

Awesome yeah, that gets me on the right path.
Voice dialing is an ultimate goal such that I can pick up the red phone say "call the boss" or whatever and bruce Springsteen gets a call from my cell phone contacts. Or more realistically "call hardware guy" and that vendor is called.

[Doc]

I mean a red phone on your desk should ideally respond to 'call Batman' and 'Get me the President' or the Pentagon.
No one need know that this actually speed dials your mother.

Actually, thinking a bit more about it, I'd imagine voice dialing would be easier to implement since that would be handled by your phone, whereas you'd have to find a bluetooth headset that has some sort of dialing functionality on it to get the keypad or rotary dial working on your red phone.
A red phone with absolutely no buttons on it looks kind of more important anyway.

[littlefallsmets]

The only thing more boss than a phone with no buttons on it...

Is a phone with ONE button on it.

This is important.

[Doc]

Possibly a button that is also a light?

[KeithHernandez]

If you could make a really heavy, red, one button, one light bluetooth set up old phone that could make you money.  At least mildly internet popular? 

You could have an optional word like "President" or "J. Edgar Hoover" (that is what mine would be.  I hide my dope in a clogged out J Edgar Hoover book.) by the button.

Man, if this was done right it would be so boss.  You would just have to charge it and have the buttons hidden really well.  Also make it heavy.  Really Heavy.

[Arachno-capitalist]

Ok so what is the deal with making it heavy?

[miles]

Because shit was heavy back in the day?

I guess if you're going to buy something for its nostalgic value, you don't want it to feel like a cheap, plastic piece of crap.

[littlefallsmets]

It is the idea of the metaphorical gravitas turned back into literal gravitas.

ALSO: yes, more fun for smashy-smashy.

[AugustWest]

Ok so what is the deal with making it heavy?

Because actual dial phones that looked like that weighed about 8 pounds.

[Nabubrush]

Now things have gone from big heavy important phones to little crap cordless phones to "what the fuck are you even talking about - you didn't carry your phone around in your pocket?"

[Arachno-capitalist]

Yeah, I don't need to be a hundred years old to know phones used to be heavy. I have seen and used old phones. Old phones weren't even owned by the customer and they were heavy as hell. New phones are so light you can not even tell you are carrying one, and it can do a trillion different things. And it does those trillion different things so effectively that a 1% fuck-up rate is business killing.
I can't generalize for my entire generation, but everyone I know has entirely abandoned the landline phone. It is retarded. Why do I want or need a phone number than can only be used when I am within earshot of a particular fixture? Anyway, don't pretend that younger people don't know what phones are or how they used to work.

The device I am trying to build retains the aesthetic quality of an old phone and recalls the legendary red phone on the president's desk - While being entirely modern day functional. The housing of the phone is easy, that part is easy. The electronic components list I want to buy off-the-shelf and the operations of combining those parts is what I'm trying to get together.

[Choop]

why don't you contact sparkfun (from doc's second link) and see if they can do you one like you're talking, it'd be heck of easier than trying to rig it yourself

[Nabubrush]

Not tryin' to throw stones, A-Cap.