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Things your kids will never know - old school tech!

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wreckedcarzz:
(see attachment in previous post)  (see attachment in previous post)
I'm 47 next week and today it struck me the things the next generation -- and to a large extent, the current one -- doesn't know in reference to many technical things. For example, will kids know:


* What a party line ever was? Or a 'land line'?

* What a 'CD' was? Or an album? or a 45? or all the 'file sharing' we did with cassettes!

* What 8.5x11 means or A4? (how many of us spit out paper for our non-letter writing?)

* What 'batch processing' meant? (now that's old school, baby!)

* DOS, damnit! It was simple, and could be fixed in a snap.

* A slide rule?

* What a 35mm camera was? What 'film' was?

* The tank weight, power, and decibel output of an IBM Selectric!
I'm finally beginning to understand what Grandma was talking about way back when I was a kid. But I miss sure that Selectric.
-zridling (October 21, 2008, 01:13 AM)
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I know everything on that list except the last one - never even heard of the machine. :o

How about:

* Arguing about who would get up to change the channel or turn up the volume
* Being able to tell someone your phone number in only 7 digits (and sometimes even fewer!)
* Wind in your hair as you ride your bike without a helmet
* Why those little things in a form are called radio buttons-CWuestefeld (October 21, 2008, 10:59 AM)
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I know of all these too, but am I mistaken that original phone numbers were 6 digits long?

CWuestefeld, good points. I'd forgotten about pre-remote days. How about:


* The days when they played music on the radio?
* Leaded gasoline!
* The BBS days?-zridling (October 21, 2008, 01:25 PM)
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There is still some AM/FM (non-sattelite) radio music, and I have often asked why the heck it is still called "UNLEADED Gasoline" (hasn't it been long enough? Like those "ONE DAY ONLY" sales that go on for like 5 months?), but what is the BBS? :huh:

What else is like this?

* "Dial" telephone
* "B&W" TV
* "Organic" food-CWuestefeld (October 21, 2008, 01:47 PM)
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The spinning takes-an-hour-to-dial phones! And black and white TV (I Love Lucy and other older shows I watch are in Black and White, before "Technicolor")! Organic food (non-man/machine/pollutant/mutant made) is available, if you know where to look...

I got no idea what a 45 is, a dot-matrix printer, or a LP is, though. I have seen a tube based TV, 5" floppy (litterally) disks, an 8 track player and the old tape backup drives, but not much else I can think of.

In-car phones spring to mind, though. Those were fun to play with while your parents are barking at you to stop playing with them going down the road at 60 MPH... :P

CleverCat:
Still got Drive In Theatres here!

Darwin:
Heh, heh - Brandon, I think 40hz was commenting on the quality of the music played on the radio...  ;)

tomos:
I have seen a tube based TV
-wreckedcarzz (October 22, 2008, 02:18 AM)
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;D definitely a very different generation ;D

45[rpm] = single - they are played at 45 revolutions per minute as opposed to LP's which play at 33(&1/3)rpm
LP = Long playing [record], .. need I say music :-\ maybe!

You can have great fun playing 45's at 33 and vice-versa :D

Darwin:
Wow! I missed the query about 45's and LP's... You might know LP's as "vinyl", Brandon. They're making a big comeback and are ofen used by DJ's (the remixer/sampling sort).

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