Wood cradle desk telephone - 1885

Western Electric made the dial phones and later the TouchTone models. Those things could be tossed across the room, against the wall and still work. Upon the Ma Bell breakup, the smaller branches got licences to made their own phones to work on the system. Then the system became deregulated and anyone could make equipment to run on the 48 volt DC, ground sieze, two wire systems.

I kind of hope designers do a little more than develop random variations and wait for the market to decide. After all that's the way "evolution" works.

at least seventies