SmithAir747 wrote:

I was born in 1975, so here goes...

Awesome post!

TSS wrote:

TV channels showing old black & white movies late at night, many of which were classics, instead of infomercials.

In the US, digital TV has created sub-channels that the mainline stations don't know what to do with, so they are leasing them out to outfits like Decades and MeTV who do a lot of what you are suggesting, showing old-time content.

Guess what? They are doing pretty good with this strategy:

Katz found that the eight top networks available on digital subchannels — MeTV, Grit, Antenna TV, Laff, Escape, This TV, Bounce TV, and Create — were more widely available than leading cable channels such as Food Network, CNN, Discovery Channel, and TBS. The report also found that in Nielsen live-plus-seven household ratings, the top digital network, MeTV ranked 20th out of all cable and broadcast networks, ahead of cable channels such as A&E, FX, Lifetime, TLC, Bravo, and MTV.

“People consider [digital networks] a last-tier option for an advertising investment when, in fact, they’re performing at or above a level of cable networks that are consistently considered for investment,” says Stacey Schulman, executive VP of strategy and analytics for Katz Media Group.

Ref: https://variety.com/2017/tv/news/digita ... 202578117/

I cut the cord a few years ago and I'm pretty happy with over-the-air TV plus internet streaming.

seb146 wrote:

Dirty magazines were such a taboo thing back in the day. Today, we discuss porn openly with no shame. Back in the day, we had to drive across town to a store where no one knew us. Trust me. Porn was much different then.

How old are you seb

Kiwirob wrote:

seb146 wrote:

Dirty magazines were such a taboo thing back in the day. Today, we discuss porn openly with no shame. Back in the day, we had to drive across town to a store where no one knew us. Trust me. Porn was much different then.

How old are you seb

Old enough to remember that porn was dirty. I also grew up in a conservative town.

Possibly the greatest of all....

Johnny Carson (late night has never been the same)

Thought of a few more.

MTV actually played videos
Bands that actually had time to build a catalog before being pushed into oblivion. (Music is so disposable today)
Cabbage Patch Kids (my youngest sister when bat shit crazy for that)
Bubble gum trading cars that would actually have some value down the road.
Stamp collections
Pachinko machines
Gas lines
Homes that breathed, so on a hot day it would have been nice to have AC, but you could usually get by with a fan. Now homes are heat traps they are sealed up so tightly.
Erector set.
Chemical sets. Not the weak stuff they use now. You could really make a mess.
Vacuform
Melt/form in the oven Christmas decorations. Those were pretty cool and my wife and I still put them on the tree.
E-Tickets
Wallpaper, in everyone’s home.

Scrambled porn.

And then shortly thereafter, cable boxes that could simply be defeated with a paperclip

Air Raid Wardens. Ration books, scrap drives.

scbriml wrote:

tommy1808 wrote:

scbriml wrote:

When I started working for British Airways in the mid-1970s, they ran the airline on 4 x IBM 360-65 mainframes in a room the size of a hangar. Those four massive computers had a grand total of 256Kb of memory between them!

The 360-65 wasn't sold with less than 128k RAM, no less than 256 after 1974.

Best regards
Thomas

All I can tell you is that they had been there for a number of years and each only had 64kb of core memory. .

leads to the next question... was it a /65? Not that it was beyond IBM to make something special for a customer, but 64k should be a /30/44/50. You got my curiosity with this /65 Manual, post 74´http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/funcChar/A22-6884-3_360-65_funcChar.pdf

On a 30 or 50 it would be even more impressive, much less computing power than a 65

Bit of an IBM fan here..... our Grandmasster Clock syststem runs on Power PC CPU instead of MIPS or ARM for purely sentimental reasons.... cost/performance/codebase wise they where all equivalent.

best regards
Thomas

DL717 wrote:

When you couldn’t put gas in your car, the attendant did it for you.

In New Jersey your not allowed to pump your own gas.

DL717 wrote:

Thought of a few more.

Bubble gum trading cars that would actually have some value down the road.

While I haven't bought any trading cards in a while I still have all the cards I have collected, and there are some cards that worth some real good money.

So you can't get gas in the middle of the night ?

cranberrysaus wrote:

ltbewr wrote:

Legal racism as to Black persons, mainly in the SE USA.

Sadly not gone yet.

In which state is discrimination on the basis of race lawful? Please, be specific, so w can learn something new today.

---

As for WordPerfect, it ain't dead yet, especially in the legal market. Now in version 16 (I think), fully supported, a vastly superior word processor to Microsoft Turd... errr, Word.

tommy1808 wrote:

Bit of an IBM fan here..... our Grandmasster Clock syststem runs on Power PC CPU instead of MIPS or ARM for purely sentimental reasons.... cost/performance/codebase wise they where all equivalent.

I was an IBMer in the late 80s / early 90s. The place where I worked had a museum that was amazing, if you're into history. It had a full 360 console (more blinkenlights than you can imagine), a SAGE terminal (50s era drag and drop interface using a light pen) and many SAGE components such as core memories, an IBM rifle (?!?) (this is what they made to help the WWII war effort, since they already did woodworking and metal work when they made keypunches), and an IBM cheese slicer (from their early days when they made store products that competed with NCR).

I was around when the predecessor to PowerPC, RS6000, was in development. I also did some PowerPC embedded designs. I miss the clarity of the IBM documentation. No one these days puts in the kind of effort that IBM used to put into documentation back then.

Donald Trump used to be a decent guy. I remember this one time where he helped a lost and confused kid find the lobby of the Plaza Hotel.

Revelation wrote:

... No one these days puts in the kind of effort that IBM used to put into documentation back then.

At least Compuware did

So much has already been mentioned. Let's see:

VHS
Betamax
8-tracks
Cassette tapes
Video stores
Vinyl car seats
Library card catalogs
Metal playground equipment (you haven't lived til you've gone down a metal slide heated to scalding by the California sun!)
McDonald's Halloween coupons
Rooftop TV antennas
No self-serve soft drink machines at restaurants
Stores closed on almost every holiday, not just Christmas
Minimal accomadations for handicapped people (no ramps, etc.)
Leaded gas
No air conditioning in schools
Buying things out of a catalog
Payphones
Dial-up internet
America Online
No 24-hour news channels
Going all the way to the gate without a ticket or boarding pass
Rotary phones

I know I'm missing a lot more.

Mutual of Omaha!

Not just the Wild Kingdom but also the insurance machines in every gate area at airports.

Also matches at every place you go. We used to have a massive collection.

Tugg

Tugger wrote:

Mutual of Omaha!

Not just the Wild Kingdom but also the insurance machines in every gate area at airports.

Also matches at every place you go. We used to have a massive collection.

Tugg

I still have a huge matchbook collection - funny thing is I have never smoked. But yeah, you just never see them at restaurants, bars, stores etc any more.

Hal 9000 was the original Alexa (inspired by a weird post on facebook just now)

OA412 wrote:

So much has already been mentioned. Let's see:

No 24-hour news channels

On that note, when HLN used to be a 24-hour HeadLineNews channel...

trpmb6 wrote:

Hal 9000 was the original Alexa (inspired by a weird post on facebook just now)

I hadn't made that connection before but it's spot on! I have no doubt that Alexa developers are working on installing a camera (or cameras, assuming it doesn't already have one or more installed a la "Smart TVs") and software to enable Alexa to read lips just like Hal did.

Who shot JR ?

Glass thermometers at the doctors office

How about the concept of critical thinking?
My 22 YO Grand daughter just can't make the mental connection that if she destroyed her car, she will be walking. I showed her how to change the oil in her car so the first time she did it by herself she drained the transmission and put 4 quarts of oil in the engine. she knew that something wasn't right and decided she could figure out what wasn't right later.

Her excuse was that she didn't want Micky D's to fire her for being late. I asked how she would get to work if she destroyed her car and apparently the critical thinking involve to understand that life lesson was beyond her.

She sure is lucky that Toyota's are so hard to kill. Never in a million years would I have thought that any car would still run being 4 quarts over filled on engine oil and 4 quarts or so low on ATF.

stratosphere wrote:

Glass thermometers at the doctors office

A little before my time, a doctor counsellings you about smoking while they are smoking in the same exam room as you. Or doctors being assisted by a nurse.

Tri-leads
Dual Density 3350s
VDTs causing carpal tunnel, unless you were a programmer... then you were writing the cost justification for one on your desk.
NFL games in baseball stadiums (OK.. the Raiders still).
Six pro hockey teams in North America, all where ponds freeze in the winter.
Odd-even gas sales.
The high beam switch activated by your left foot.
Draft lottery (ended before I was draft age).
15 will get you 20 (since corrected to 17 will get you 20 in most states)
Verne Gagne, the Crusher, the Bruiser, Dr. X, and Pompeo Firpo (ohhhhhhhhhhhhh yesssssssssss)
Tricky Dick. WIN Buttons.
Fallout Shelters.
Bag Phones, Shoe Phones, (flip phones are still a thing where my dad lives)
13 trunk airlines in the US and three internationals

at 10:00 pm the television would say it's 10 o'clock do you know where your children are?
at midnight the television playing the national anthem and them made a beeping noise and then a circle would appear divided into brightly colored sections
waiting in line a long line for gas, though i'm sure those with Costco memberships would of had this experience.
big catalogs coming in the mail

DLFREEBIRD wrote:

at 10:00 pm the television would say it's 10 o'clock do you know where your children are?

On the local FOX station (WNYW channel 5) they still do that before the 10pm news. (I am from Long Island NY)

sccutler wrote:

cranberrysaus wrote:

ltbewr wrote:

Legal racism as to Black persons, mainly in the SE USA.

Sadly not gone yet.

In which state is discrimination on the basis of race lawful? Please, be specific, so w can learn something new today.

---

As for WordPerfect, it ain't dead yet, especially in the legal market. Now in version 16 (I think), fully supported, a vastly superior word processor to Microsoft Turd... errr, Word.

The quote was legal racism which is alive and well, not discrimination.

Of course, tactics like gerrymandering and voter ID laws are current legal ways to discriminate against minorities

Long division -- do they bother teaching that to kids any more?

I just had to write a check (cheque?) (yes, that means I'm old) for a percentage of a big landscaping project and couldn't be arsed to turn on the computer or find a hand calculator, so I just did it out long hand.

I was surprised that it took me a while to remember exactly what to do, but when I just stepped back and let habit take over it all just worked.

The problem (IMHO) is if you don't teach manual multiplication and division then the yoot will not really know what is going on when they bang away at a calculator. Same goes for fractions, decimals, etc.

On the other hand, you can make a good argument that people of my generation suck at this stuff too, and some how life went on.

Beardown91737 wrote:

Tri-leads

Verne Gagne, the Crusher, the Bruiser, Dr. X, and Pompeo Firpo (ohhhhhhhhhhhhh yesssssssssss)

When we were kids, my friend's Dad knew one of the athletic commisioners in Illinois and he would get us free tickets the the AWA wrestling shows at the Amphitheater in Chicago (yes, they had to be sanctioned as athletic events back then). Anyhow, we met Pompero Firpo backstage and got his autograph - his handwriting was so pretty, almost like calligraphy. Wild Bull of the pampas my ass - LOL.
One of my favorite memories from those shows were we were sitting front row, Bobby Heenan is manager for whatever tag team was in the ring. Bobby's standing up at ringside pounding his hands on the mat to get the ref's attention. One of the guys on the other team runs over and stomps on Bobby's hand. Bobby of course goes into this big spiel screaming in pain and holding up the "injured" hand. After about five seconds he sits down and starts having a casual conversation with the timer sitting next to him. Pretty much ended any illusion I ever had that wrestling was "real"

Revelation wrote:

Long division -- do they bother teaching that to kids any more?

I just had to write a check (cheque?) (yes, that means I'm old) for a percentage of a big landscaping project and couldn't be arsed to turn on the computer or find a hand calculator, so I just did it out long hand.

I was surprised that it took me a while to remember exactly what to do, but when I just stepped back and let habit take over it all just worked.

The problem (IMHO) is if you don't teach manual multiplication and division then the yoot will not really know what is going on when they bang away at a calculator. Same goes for fractions, decimals, etc.

On the other hand, you can make a good argument that people of my generation suck at this stuff too, and some how life went on.

The loss of basic mathematics processes like long division to a computer or calculator is going to be disastrous one of these days.

DL717 wrote:

The loss of basic mathematics processes like long division to a computer or calculator is going to be disastrous one of these days.

One of the most useful things I learned my freshman year in college was "engineering approximation" i.e. predicting the outcome of some calculation ahead of doing it, so you have some idea of what the answer should be so you can check yourself. It usually used some "rules of thumb" to help you do this, and decent or better ability to visualize things. It helped in pretty much every area of science. Interestingly enough or not the best teacher of these principals was the chemistry teacher. She taught us so much about things that were not purely chemistry, such as how to study and how to take tests. She's one of the most influential person in my entire life.

A response in another thread reminded me of how popular "novelty" songs and records used to be.

"Mister Jaws"-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDNlSpKLEEo

"Telephone Man"-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTDzFUlrDYM

For all the old engineering types:

Engineering drawings developed on a dieline machine, delivered by the lady from the reprographic department and stinking of the ammonia developing solution. If left in the light for a few months the blue lines faded to nothing.

This one is rather new, but how about when the Weather Channel had weather forecasts on 24/7? Now you put the Weather Channel on at like 8 or 9pm and they have shows like How Weather Changed History.

Vhf
UHF
Choosing which cassette tapes to travel with (taking up half your suitcase and defining what songs you will listen to over and over)
Deciding whether to take a photo or not because you only have 36 exposures available

zrs70 wrote:

Vhf
UHF
Choosing which cassette tapes to travel with (taking up half your suitcase and defining what songs you will listen to over and over)
Deciding whether to take a photo or not because you only have 36 exposures available

Calling a phone number to get the exact time

Bongodog1964 wrote:

For all the old engineering types:

Engineering drawings developed on a dieline machine, delivered by the lady from the reprographic department and stinking of the ammonia developing solution. If left in the light for a few months the blue lines faded to nothing.

Kind of any hand drawn plan today. Some of the 1960ies and 1970ies drawing are real art.

DL717 wrote:

Standing in line for a movie in a single, giant screen movie theater at noon for a 3:00 show because the noon show was sold out. This wanna be IMAX stuff today is nothing compared with a 70mm film on a 120’ screen. Also said show running in the same theater for months and still being sold out. Jaws, Close Encounters, Star Wars, Indiana Jones...All major events with lines as far as one could see. It was wild. Small screen multiplexes are a joke, though I’ll hand it to a few for a Dolby Cinema. They got the audio down perfectly. Needs some screen size help though.

Speaking of those films, at least the originals, nailed it without CG.

You are spot on with this IMAX comment. I can remember the spool of 70mm film was as big as a washing machine at the local IMAX theater.

A lot of machinery was designed better in the past than it is now. People are not smarter today than in the past. I think people’s ability to think is going down. Should not be true, but there are anecdotes about this. That no one can write a decent essay anymore.

On the topic of things that were actually GOOD >30 years ago... smooth riding American luxury cars... we used to rent new Cadillacs on vacation. The ‘80s were a fantastic time to be a kid, especially television and movies. And music. There was this positive sentiment in the culture. Imagine that.

727LOVER wrote:

Who shot JR ?

Also, who shot Mr. Burns?

In high school I drove an Oldsmobile to my job at Blockbuster Video where I would rent VHS tapes to people.

Tracking and auto-tracking on a VCR

Revelation wrote:

I just had to write a check (cheque?) (yes, that means I'm old) for a percentage of a big landscaping project and couldn't be arsed to turn on the computer or find a hand calculator, so I just did it out long hand.

If I ever stumble across my 5th/6th grade math teacher i am going to profundly thank her for her focus on doing calculations in the head, up to six digits i usually don't bother with a calculator even today.

On the other hand, you can make a good argument that people of my generation suck at this stuff too, and some how life went on.

Here tenth graders learn math I had in 101s at university. But I made a "did you really just type 5*10 into a calculator?" comments to people 15-20 years younger than me more times than I can count.

Revelation wrote:

DL717 wrote:

The loss of basic mathematics processes like long division to a computer or calculator is going to be disastrous one of these days.

One of the most useful things I learned my freshman year in college was "engineering approximation" i.e. predicting the outcome of some calculation ahead of doing it, so you have some idea of what the answer should be so you can check yourself. It usually used some "rules of thumb" to help you do this, and decent or better ability to visualize things.

Here accessment tests for public service and many in private companies have a whole bunch of guesstimate questions, many of them where you just have to hit the right order of magnitude, but often with really large numbers. Just to check if people have a feel for numbers.

Best regards
Thomas

Going to the Merry-Go-Round store at the mall to look at and possibly buy the latest, trendiest, fashion fad: From Freddie "Boom-Boom" Washington's patchwork bellbottom jeans as seen on Welcome Back, Kotter to Madonna's fingerless lace gloves to Michael Jackson's Thriller jacket, Merry-Go-Round had it within a week of it's debut on TV or in the movies, usually in multiple styles in addition to the original. Of course, Merry-Go-Round's stuff was so cheaply made that you'd be lucky to get three wearings out of any of it before it literally fell apart in your hands, but by the time that particular item had (mercifully in most cases) self-destructed the fad had passed and it was on to the next new "must-have" thing.

VHS was new when I was a child (I never used a Betamax tape though); my family got their first VCR in 1985. We didn't get our first DVD player until 2003, when I went out and bought one for the family for Christmas that year (as VHS were being replaced by DVDs by then). As soon as DVD came out, VHS and VCRs fell by the wayside, and I started seeing VHS tapes pile up in thrift stores and in bargain bins as people dumped loads of them and stores dumped theirs.

I still see loads of VHS tapes piled up in local thrift stores. I also see them in antique stores (especially the more collectible old box sets like Star Wars original trilogy and the first 6 Star Trek movies). I have found treasure troves of Star Wars and Star Trek movie tapes as well as VHS of old movies and TV shows I remember from childhood. I have gotten scads of them for $0.99 for 4 individual tapes and just about as cheap for desirable box sets (the aforementioned Star Wars, Star Trek, and other box sets). This morning, walking to work as I do daily (my hour-long walk to work), I saw a huge pile of VHS tapes on tables in front of someone's house in the postwar neighbourhood in Aurora, CO, I was walking through. A huge sign touted "FREE VHS AND DVD". I came away with a decent box load of VHS tapes. I use an old TV/VCR combo to watch these.

Will this happen to DVDs eventually?

Will VHS ever become collectible like vinyl has had its resurgence?

Also, I wonder if minivans will ever become collectible like old station wagons having their resurgence.

SmithAir747

Russia was “the enemy” and no one in government would be caught dead licking their taints like the current batch of Republican traitors are hungrily doing.

#threadclosed

johnboy wrote:

Russia was “the enemy” and no one in government would be caught dead licking their taints like the current batch of Republican traitors are hungrily doing.

#threadclosed

Oh brother. Try to stay on topic.

tommy1808 wrote:

Here tenth graders learn math I had in 101s at university. But I made a "did you really just type 5*10 into a calculator?" comments to people 15-20 years younger than me more times than I can count.

My experience (US public schools from kindergarten through undergrad) was I learned all the mechanics of math through elementary and high school, but not much about the uses of math. Sure we had equations and we plugged numbers in, but not much of why one would do that. It wasn't till 1st year of undergrad when I took some engineering and physics classes where I caught on to why they taught us all those mechanics. If I hadn't gone to university, I'd think of my high school math classes (roughly, algebra and beyond) as a waste of time. Many (most?) of my non-nerd friends do.

SmithAir747 wrote:

Will VHS ever become collectible like vinyl has had its resurgence?

Doubtful. VHS tapes have a fairly short useful life, even when stored in very specific ideal conditions. Vinyl is much more durable, it's was also cheap to bring back into upscaled production. The reason it's come back is also different, ie it's distinct sound. I don't think there will be many queuing up for VHS's slurred sound and rolling dodgy tracking bands.



15 deutschmark to the pound.
Come to think of it, I suppose there'll be many 'young uns' not knowing what a deutschmark or pfennig is.
Penny chews actually costing a penny.
Waiting a week for photos to be developed.
Humane service in an airline's economy class.
TV close down.
Awkwardly delayed satellite link ups.
Eurovision minus the block voting and awful qualifying format. The fun is seeing the weird & bonkers acts, why weed them out? Let em sing!
Mother in law jokes
'Celebrities' being famous for actually doing something notable.
Milkman. Milk delivered to your doorstep daily.
Boredom. Distinct lack of allowing kids to become bored, favouring the need to provide 24/7 'entertainment' (usually by means a mind numbing LCD screen). Periods of boredom have their uses.

727LOVER wrote:

Who shot JR ?

Ha Ha! Totally missed this post.

When Dallas jumped the shark!