While reading my daily geek.com, I came across this article they blogged about. For those of us in our middle years it is really quite interesting. To get you started, I have reprinted two or three from each section, but to read them all you will have to click the title or end of the article to go to the source. What really makes me feel old is the inclusion of 90s things like the Playstation… 😮
Oh, be sure to click the link at the source about the young teen trying out a Walkman for a week, the MP3 player of the 80s.
UPDATE: I just visited Worthy Christian Forums, and apparently someone posted this same article, but with 37 more things (plus more in the replies)! At a glance, I could see they weren’t just tacked on to the end and I’m too lazy to figure out which are new, so CLICK HERE TO GO TO READ ALL 137 THINGS
Audio-Visual Entertainment:
1. Inserting a VHS tape into a VCR to watch a movie or to record something.
8. 8-track cartridges.
Computers and Videogaming:
19. The scream of a modem connecting.
22. Using jumpers to set IRQs.
33. Having to delete something to make room on your hard drive.
The Internet:
38. Using a road atlas to get from A to B.
44. Filling out an order form by hand, putting it in an envelope and posting it.
56. When Spam was just a meat product — or even a Monty Python sketch.
Gadgets:
58. Putting film in your camera: 35mm may have some life still, but what about APS or disk?
69. Vacuum cleaners with bags in them.
Everything Else:
70. Taking turns picking a radio station, or selecting a tape, for everyone to listen to during a long drive.
81. Han shoots first.
86. Finding books in a card catalog at the library.
(beginning of actual article follows below)
100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About
By Nathan Barry
July 22, 2009
8:00 amThere are some things in this world that will never be forgotten, this week’s 40th anniversary of the moon landing for one. But Moore’s Law and our ever-increasing quest for simpler, smaller, faster and better widgets and thingamabobs will always ensure that some of the technology we grew up with will not be passed down the line to the next generation of geeks.
That is, of course, unless we tell them all about the good old days of modems and typewriters, slide rules and encyclopedias …
Rotary dial televisions with no remote control. You know, the ones where the kids were the remote control.
That there was a time before ‘reality TV.’ AMEN, brother.
Putting film in your camera: 35mm may have some life still, but what about APS or disk? (I’m gonna getcha with the Kodak Disc. We actually had one.)
“Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.” But they’ve already seen episode III, so it’s no big surprise. (BOOO on Eps 1-3)
Yeah, yeah, we’re old… thanks for rubbing it in! I might be able to start a list of things that are coming around that I won’t know about!
I say go for it! Except, it would be “things I wouldn’t know about if I didn’t just research them.
Or maybe just things aren’t made anymore, but are in some older songs still played on the radio?
How about Kodachrome film? Roller Skates with Keys? Transistor Radios? That is just off the top of my head, I’m sure there are more.
Rollerskates with keys? Um, Justj, you just outdated me on that one….I seem to recall a song about “I got a brand new pair of rollerskates, you got a brand new key…” Ha, just kiddin’! We had a big Hi-Fi in the house when I grew up and we listened to records all the time. My favorite record was Frankie Valle and the 4 seasons….
Funny I read this just 2 days after I had to show the new girl at work how to work the typewriter. She’d never seen such a contraption…..oh boy…..
My father still has a rotary dial phone. It drives me crazy. We did put a second phone in the house that is touch tone, but he likes the old rotary…
Thanks for sharing that, Derek! It made me smile remembering those things. Smiling is good!
I vaguely remember roller skates with keys… now I have to do a quick check to see if I’m older than I thought or if Mare’s memory isn’t so great 😉
I had roller skates with a key at a very young age (70s), but by the 80s I was renting the hi-top shoe style we normally think of when we think of skates. Of course, those were replaced by roller blades, of which I still have a pair I never use.
Of JustJ’s list, I only don’t think I’ve heard of Kodachrome.
Ok, maybe I do remember roller skates with keys….but I don’t really remember the key part. I had these horrible metal skates that attached to your shoes….those had a key???? Maybe my mother just never let me know there was such a thing as a key…..so I wouldn’t lose it.
No worries, taylhis, I am WAY older than you…..and yes, the memory must be starting to short out here and there…… 😉
The “key” was to adjust the skate to your shoe so it wouldn’t fall off (one size fits all!). If you only had them when you were really young, then it would make sense that your mom held on to it.
I remember the metal ones that fit around your shoe! I am a teeny bit younger, but I think we’re on the same page since my family tended to be a few years behind the trends… And here is a pic of metal ones with a key: http://cgi.ebay.com/Adjustable-Childs-Metal-Roller-Skates-%26-Key-Hardware-_W0QQitemZ200332016917QQcmdZViewItem