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'You Had to Be There': As Technologies Change Ever Faster, the Knowledge of Obsolete Things Becomes Ever Sweeter (theatlantic.com)

Posted by msmash on from the man's-search-for-meaning dept.

Alexis C. Madrigal, writing for The Atlantic: There's a question going around on Twitter, courtesy of the writer Matt Whitlock: "Without revealing your actual age, what's something you remember that if you told a younger person they wouldn't understand?" This simple query has received, at this date, 18,000 responses. Here is just a tiny selection: A/S/L, pagers, manual car windows, "be kind, please rewind", "Waiting by the radio for my song to come on so I could record it on a cassette tape", floppy disks, the smell of purple mimeograph ink, WordPerfect, busy signals, paper maps, Winamp, smoking in the hospital, the card catalogue. Our favorite response, "The remote to change the channel on the TV was attached to a box that was attached to the TV", which elicited a response, "What about the remote that was really a clicker... In that it clicked like a frog toy",

47 of 546 comments (clear)

  1. first by bigger · · Score: 5, Funny

    Remember when calling 'first' was cool?

    1. Re:first by gnick · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Winamp really whips the llama's ass. I'll be using it until it stops doing its job.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    2. Re:first by dstyle5 · · Score: 2

      Same here, it is running right now on my PC. :) I do get occasional grief/ribbing from my younger co-workers because I still use it but it works fine, so why not use it, IMHO.

    3. Re:first by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 2, Informative

      VLC Player. Does video as well and has a plugin for most formats.

    4. Re:first by Hallux-F-Sinister · · Score: 2

      load"$",8
      Actually, I remember when I didn't need ",8" at the end, and instead would type load"*" and get something like "PRESS PLAY ON TAPE". I had a Datasette, before I got a C= 1541 floppy drive, necessitating the ",8" business. Ah... the good old days. (C'mon... LOAD, DAMNIT! It's been 20 minutes!)

      --
      Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
    5. Re:first by KozmoStevnNaut · · Score: 2

      Foobar2000 is the best music player out there, by a huge margin.

      --
      Eat the rich.
  2. What's going on here? by 31415926535897 · · Score: 2

    What is this, the yearbook?

    Oh crap, it just hit me, are we all about to die?

    1. Re:What's going on here? by Kjella · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Oh crap, it just hit me, are we all about to die?

      On a geological time scale, we're all about to die momentarily.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    2. Re:What's going on here? by pjt33 · · Score: 4, Funny

      It could be worse. We could be all about to die permanently.

    3. Re:What's going on here? by clovis · · Score: 4, Funny

      What is this, the yearbook?

      Oh crap, it just hit me, are we all about to die?

      You are dead. All humans at dead. You think you're remembering this crap because we're doing brain dumps from the parts we found.
      We're trying to figure out what went wrong with the design.

    4. Re:What's going on here? by SuricouRaven · · Score: 2

      How about next time you put a bit of redundancy in the vital organs. And leave out the stupid appendix.

  3. Really? by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 5, Informative

    Pagers: doctors and first responders still use them. Some work via satellite, meaning there are no network dead spots.

    Pretty sure I've been in a car with manual windows (and manual transmission, even!) in the last year.

    Busy signals? Pretty common when calling a business -- once there's a call on call waiting and one on the line, 3rd caller gets a busy.

    Paper maps -- maybe road maps aren't as common, but any hiker typically gets a paper maps of a park, and maps of buildings like museums are often given out.

    1. Re:Really? by mrbester · · Score: 2

      If you learn to drive and pass your test in an automatic, you are not eligible to drive manual in UK. Only those who have to have automatic (usually medical reasons, but there are those who deliberately choose it) learn in a car that has it.

      --
      "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
    2. Re:Really? by vux984 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Its not that a PBX would be too costly... its "why bother"? Its not even on their radar as a 'problem' that needs 'fixing'.

    3. Re:Really? by Shotgun · · Score: 2

      Pretty sure I've been in a car with manual windows (and manual transmission, even!) in the last year.

      Been in one? Hell, I bought one earlier this year.

      --
      Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
      Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
    4. Re: Really? by Tempest_2084 · · Score: 2

      My dad made me learn on a manual. Itâ(TM)s a useful skill to have. I still drive a manual to this day. Makes a dandy car theft deterrent too.

    5. Re:Really? by rworne · · Score: 2

      That's just to keep the American tourists from stealing them.

      --
      I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
    6. Re:Really? by havana9 · · Score: 2

      Pretty sure I've been in a car with manual windows (and manual transmission, even!) in the last year.

      In Europe most car are sold with manual. In Italy you are required to make the driving exam.
      Anyway small cars like the Fiat 126 with an engine ripped from an underpowered motorbike have to use a manual to have a decent torque. Actualy the first model of 126 and the older 500 and 600 have an unsyncronized manual gear. yuo had to do "Double clutching". Anyway I have always had manuals, becaue I haved had small or compact cars, made by Fiat or Renault.

      Busy signals? Pretty common when calling a business -- once there's a call on call waiting and one on the line, 3rd caller gets a busy.

      Paper maps -- maybe road maps aren't as common, but any hiker typically gets a paper maps of a park, and maps of buildings like museums are often given out.

      I have a VoIP landline with unlimited national calls on other landline phones so I use it snd if for some reason the router loses the internet connection if I try to use the wired phone I get a busy signal.
      If i phome auntie on the landline I'll get a busy signal too.
      By the way phone to an elderly relative instead of digging on Facebook or twitter is still better, and in half an hout you'll get a complete staus update on other relatives and friends...

  4. Flying without passport? by mi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Technology my tail! What about things changed by our caring, loving, and omniscient government? When traveling — by air or train — without registering with authorities was possible? When being mistreated at the airport would cause the mistreater to be disciplined, rather than the victim — arrested?

    When one could buy health insurance for about $140/month (just over $200 in today's money)? Remember?..

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    1. Re:Flying without passport? by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 2

      Pretty easy to take the train without ID in the US -- just buy Amtrak tickets using a pre-paid credit card. If you go up to the window, they might ask for ID -- last time, I pulled out an expired university ID just to fuck with the guy and he grunted something and sold me the ticket. I've never been asked for ID on the train itself.

      Commuter trains never ask for ID, nor would it really be possible for them to do so due to time constraints.

    2. Re:Flying without passport? by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 2

      Yep, these articles were from 2011-2012. TSA attempted to make themselves relevant in this area -- Amtrak politely told them to go fuck off, that they already have their own security and don't need more.

    3. Re:Flying without passport? by mi · · Score: 2, Insightful

      it started during the reign of G. W. Bush's idiot son.

      Bush signed the law creating TSA, I'll grant you that. But it was meant to merely transfer airport security from private firms to government employees (a Fascist streak so common to all people in government).

      Obama didn't do enough to roll it back.

      Obama not only didn't roll it back, he presided over the Agency asserting a role much wider than imagined 10 years earlier. The agency smugly reminded us all, that it is in charge of all transportation — not merely by air. He didn't have to do it — no lawmakers were pressuring him into it. The agency is part of the Executive branch and reports to the President. Had it been merely an oversight on his part, they would've remained as were in 2007. No, he caused them to expand — either by giving them explicit instructions or simply by appointing an Authoritarian-minded head.

      some cop could harass you for "acting suspiciously" or whatever, but this isn't common.

      Such harassment could happen, and it does happen. But it is illegal — and outrageous. Amtrak et al demanding papers is perfectly legal and commonly accepted as necessary "to keep us safe". That's the feature of the past, that I lament passing... Unlike payphones and tape-recorders.

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    4. Re:Flying without passport? by david_thornley · · Score: 2

      There's really only one practical way to stop the rise of insurance costs: find a way to keep the population healthier.

      There's other things that can be done.

      Drugs are often fantastically expensive in the US because there's not much effective pressure limiting them. Other countries generally negotiate prices for sales inside their borders. This is also complicated by FDA testing requirements that can be unduly expensive.

      Since there is no national health insurance or care policy, a lot of care happens in emergency rooms, where by law they can't turn someone away until they're stable. Not only is this a really expensive way to treat someone, it doesn't cover any sort of prevention or follow-up, so in many cases it's only possible to get the more expensive care. The emergency room won't keep you in insulin, but it will treat certain complications of your diabetes. Since it's not legal to require payment before treatment, and there's lots of people who can't afford sky-high rates for unnecessarily expensive medical care, it goes into the general cost of health care and health insurance.

      Again, since there is no national health insurance or care policy, there's a strong tendency for healthy people to try to avoid paying for health insurance, which means the rates have to be set higher because there's more care per policyholder.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  5. Rotary dial on a party line... by bobbied · · Score: 2

    Oh yea, I lived that one. It was one step up from the crank, talk to the switchboard operator thing...

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    1. Re:Rotary dial on a party line... by HockeyPuck · · Score: 2

      "Number please....."

    2. Re:Rotary dial on a party line... by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 3, Informative

      I've used a manual phone as recently as the late 1990s. It didn't have a crank -- you picked it up and waited for the operator to go on the line. It looked like a normal 1970s desk phone with no dial.

      Granted, this was in a rural part of Eastern Europe, not North America.

    3. Re:Rotary dial on a party line... by WillgasM · · Score: 2

      When my dad was a kid, the telephones ran over two strands of barbed wire fence. That all came to an end when farmers started putting in metal corner posts.

    4. Re:Rotary dial on a party line... by MoaDweeb · · Score: 2

      Party line number 304D Ring: Two short, one long.

      --
      New Zealanders are well balanced with a chip on each shoulder. One represents Australia, the other the rest of the world
  6. Reel to reel magnetic tape by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

    At a previous job, we used to get NOAA ocean data on tape. Along with the tape came a piece of paper telling you what the header and record sizes were on that tape because none of it was standardized - the (FORTRAN) program I'd written to read the tape had to be tweaked each time.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  7. My parents' remote control by Snotnose · · Score: 5, Informative

    Whichever of us kids was closest to the TV.

    1. Re:My parents' remote control by Zaiff+Urgulbunger · · Score: 2

      Whichever of us kids was closest to the TV.

      Also, voice-child-interface-latency aside, TV channel changes where *INSTANT*.

      None of that waiting a second in case you're typing a multi-digit channel number; which was bad enough...

      And none of that taking for f-u-c-k-i-n-g E-V-A-H HDMI/HDCP/whatever-it-is negotiation/hand-shaking.

      Bloody modern technology! Back in my day... etc... we may have only had three TV channels to choose, and even those only transmitted during the day... but we was happy then!

      Lawn etc etc.

  8. The irony, it BURNS! by Thud457 · · Score: 2

    Whoops, the dead media list at Bruce Stirling's Dead Media Project 404s.

    Luckilly, Archive.Org is on the case!

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  9. Re:Atari 2600 Expert Here by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I remember walking up to the gate at the airport to see folks off, or to wait for them to arrive.

    I remember when there was no TSA, I remember when there wasn't even a metal detector.

    I remember in high school, many kids had rifles and shotguns in the racks behind their seats of their pickup trucks IN the school parking lot, because they had been hunting before classes started.....

    I remember kids (myself) playing freely in the neighborhood and beyond 100% unsupervised ...which was the norm for all kids.

    I remember being able to feel quite safe going for day trips across the MX border in Nogales and such places, and not fearing a drug killing might get you, at worst, you might drink too much tequila and come home with a black velvet Elvis picture.

    I remember when you used to say "Thank You" to someone, they would replay with "You're Welcome"...instead of "no problem".

    I remember when you used to buy something in the US, and it didn't take you 15 fucking minutes to find the "English" version of the instructions.

    I remember growing up, and in games, there were winners and losers....and ONLY the winners got the trophy.

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  10. 2 minute wax cylinder records by mark_reh · · Score: 2

    to play on my Edison Standard Model B player.

  11. What I Miss Most? Life Before The Internet Age by Tempest_2084 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It sounds stupid, but sometimes I honestly miss being bored. When you got bored you got creative to keep yourself entertained. That sort of creativity by necessity has died with the rise of the Internet and 24x7 continual entertainment. Kids growing up today will never know that sort of creativity.

    I also miss being able to go completely off the grid. If you wanted to get away from everything (and everyone) you actually could. Now days there's really no easy way to do that. You're always under surveillance and you're always tethered to 'the system' somehow (your phone, your credit cards, etc.).

    The last thing I really miss is having conversations with random people. Yeah that seems strange to say, but 'Back in the day' when you were waiting in a line or at a bus stop or something, you'd generally make friendly conversation with the person next to you, if just to pass the time. Today no one actually talks to each other anymore, everyone has their face down in a phone (I'm guilty of it myself) or have their headphones on. We're losing the art of human interaction. Hell, I've been with a group of friends who were actually texting each other rather than talking even though we were all right there. It was both eye opening and sad. Those days are gone I suppose.

  12. Watching scrambled porn ... by PPH · · Score: 2

    ... on cable TV.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  13. Station Wagons by coolmoose25 · · Score: 2

    You know, the monsters like that 70's show's Vista Cruiser. Mine was a Buick Le Sabre Estate Wagon, with the rear facing 3rd row seats. For reference, see the movie "Used Cars"

    --
    Brawndo: It's what plants crave!
  14. Re:Atari 2600 Expert Here by boristdog · · Score: 2

    Hell, my friends and I used to goof around in the airport when we were bored. We'd even walk down the airport jetways late at night...and sometimes there would be a plane sitting there, open and completely empty.

  15. Re:It's official.... by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Slashdot has become Facebook.

    I can't count the number of times I've seen this question/meme on my FB newsfeed.

    And yes, I can count, I was a math major waaaay back when before I became a CS major.

    It's not Facebook or anything in particular.

    South Park sort of nailed it on the head with their Memberberries episodes.

    There's been a huge wave of nostalgia going on in the last few years. Remakes, reboots, alternate universe settings, etc.

    We got remakes, reboots or sequels for Star Wars, Blade Runner, Jurassic Park, Jumanji, etc.
    We got classic videogame consoles from Nintendo and others.

    I think Agent Smith was sort of telling the truth in The Matrix when he said the peak of human evolution was around the mid 1990's.

    After that, we had businesses, marketing and governments take over everything, so everything is depressing and sucks, thus the urge to recall the "simpler modern times" is very strong... and businesses are marketing the hell out of it while the government is making notes of who's eating memberberries.

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  16. Clicker? by Shotgun · · Score: 3, Funny

    When I was a child I WAS the remote, you insensitive clod!!

    --
    Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
    Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
  17. Re:I 'member! by asylumx · · Score: 2

    Seriously, so much nostalgia in the world today! I remember when people weren't so nostalgic.... ;-)

  18. Re:PRESS PLAY ON TAPE by TheFakeTimCook · · Score: 2

    LOADING...

    LOAD 8,1

  19. Try explaining BBSes to kids by grasshoppa · · Score: 5, Funny

    "It's like the internet, only local"

    "Why? Couldn't you connect to a BBS across the country?"

    "Well, you could, but you'd be hit with long distance charges like you wouldn't believe"

    "Long distance charges?"

    "Damn it, get off my lawn"

    --
    Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
    1. Re:Try explaining BBSes to kids by slew · · Score: 2

      "Well, you could, but you'd be hit with long distance charges like you wouldn't believe"

      Clearly, you weren't doing it correctly ;^) There were "numbers" you could dial get around that... ;^)

  20. My partial list by John+Jorsett · · Score: 3

    EPROMs you had to erase under ultraviolet light
    Keying in the bootloader on your minicomputer using front panel switches
    Taking your card deck to the "computer center", then waiting a few hours to go get your printout
    Turning off the TV and seeing the picture collapse to a little bright dot that slowly fades away
    Mylar punch tape for those programs you either couldn't afford to lose or that you loaded over and over and over again
    Wall-mounted punch tape rewinders
    Computers with a vast array of front-panel light/buttons representing registers, which you could alter by pressing them
    Calculators that had stations wired to a base unit via half-inch-thick cables, and that cost more than your car
    Guys who'd come to your house with dairy products and leave them on your doorstep
    Drive-in movie theaters

  21. Re:Lawn darts! by Major_Disorder · · Score: 2

    I have fond memories of lawn darts.

    And the funerals for my three brothers. They never did figure out that there was no need to play defence. :)
    I far prefer being an only child anyway.

    --
    First law of people: People are generally stupid.
  22. Space Exploration by dwarfking · · Score: 2

    So many of the comments here talk about technologies from the 80's an later that I have to give my story.

    I remember back in 1969 sitting in front of the television in July watching the news on the first Apollo moon landing. When the space ship was returning to Earth I recall the anticipation of where it would actually splash down in the Pacific but not totally sure where.

    Then in 1981 I watched as the Columbia space shuttle launched from Florida and 2 days later landed exactly on target in California.

    And sadly in 2003 I watched the same shuttle burn up.

    And then watched as the shuttle program was shutdown.