“I never saw any BBs here during the 90s, but I probably should have included pagers in my list; these permitted us to send numeric (only) messages.”

I'm talking about the things where you had to deal with an operator. So if you wanted to speak with a friend, you'd find a public phone, call your friend's pager company and leave your name and the number of the phone you were using. Your friend would then get the number and find a public phone to call you back. Quickly, with luck. I think originally your friend just got a beep ("BB!") to call the pager company for your message. Later the pager itself may have shown some info. (The public phone stall was once a fixture of Chinese life.)

From a language standpoint, the passing of 大哥大 was sad. Not only was the imagery great for both those brick phones and those who usually wielded them -- it means "Big Brother Big" -- but read Da Ge Da it sounded sharp and distinct and was just fun to say.

"This reminds me of the night the Beijing Olympics were announced during 2001."

That reminds me of the night Beijing lost the competition to host the 2000 Olympics. China was so certain it was going to win, it scheduled a live broadcast for the celebration, hosted by the actor 侯耀华. The look on his face when word came through! Memorable because Chinese television never ever features spontaneity.