Term of the Moment
CarPlay
Definition: DynaTAC
An early family of cellphones from Motorola. Introduced in 1983, the DynaTAC 8000x was released a year later as the first commercial cellphone in the U.S. DynaTAC stood for "Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage." See Motorola and cellphone.
The DynaTAC 8000x
The First DynaTAC Call
Weighing more than a pound and a half, the DynaTAC created a revolution in mobile communications. It cost $3,995 at the time when a minimum-wage worker in the U.S. would have had to work nearly 30 weeks to gross that amount. (Image courtesy of Motorola, Inc.)
Martin Cooper made the first mobile phone call in 1973 on a prototype DynaTAC. This photo was taken in 2007 as a reenactment of that event. (Image courtesy of Rico Shen.)