June 21, 2026
Dial M for Monopoly
1983 Northern Telecom Commodore Phone
Canada’s weird Commodore phone has fans swooning and commenters roasting Bell’s big-brain mess
TLDR: In 1983, Commodore had to sell a special Canada-only phone with its modem because local phone rules were so restrictive. Commenters are split between loving the bizarre retro history and roasting the telecom giant for what looks like an all-time bureaucratic scam.
This is the kind of retro tech story the internet lives for: in 1983, Commodore wanted to sell a modem in Canada, but Canada’s phone rules were so strict that the company had to bundle it with a special rotary phone made by Northern Telecom. Sounds clever—until commenters realized the twist was basically: Commodore got stuck with a pile of phones that barely solved the problem in the first place. The crowd’s verdict? Equal parts fascinated, amused, and absolutely ready to drag old-school telecom bureaucracy for filth.
The strongest reaction was aimed squarely at Bell Canada and the era’s monopoly madness. One commenter flat-out called it a “brilliant move” by the phone company to dump a “huge batch of useless extra phones” on Commodore, which is about as polite as the thread gets. Others piled on with international solidarity: someone from Holland chimed in to say their country had its own “idiotic regulations,” before everyone basically agreed that the 1980s were a wild time for anyone trying to connect gadgets to a phone line.
But the thread wasn’t all rage—there was plenty of nerd joy too. One user gushed that the site was “so nerdy and so cool,” while another flexed their collection of bizarre old Commodore merch, including an AM radio and wristwatches, proving this company would slap its logo on literally anything. And then came the comedy sniper shot: a commenter praising the article’s “em-dash density,” which is exactly the kind of deeply online joke this gloriously niche relic inspires. For retro fans, it’s not just a phone story—it’s a soap opera about monopoly rules, corporate workaround theater, and one extremely Canadian tech oddity.
Key Points
- •Commodore’s VICModem was not directly usable in Canada because Canadian phones were hardwired rather than modular.
- •Bell Canada approved a Canadian VICModem bundle only if the phone was made by Northern Electric, met federal regulations, and was sold only with the modem.
- •The supplied Northern Electric phones carried Commodore branding but were standard hardwired models, leaving the original compatibility problem unresolved.
- •A regulation requiring connected phones to remain fully functional prevented Commodore from modifying the phones by removing or altering the handset connection.
- •Commodore engineers created the VIC-1605 adaptor switch, which used RJ-9 and RJ-11 connections plus a toggle switch to route the line to either the phone or the modem.