I said that many times while running the young engineers out of my office. Class of 76 here….. crap, I am old.
My gawd man, you mean you were the third choice And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W's Where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after Committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly Looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father Rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And They was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the Bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest Father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' ugly 'N' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me
We had a party line. Our ring was a long and two shorts. It was also long distance to call our neighbors across the road. Road not street and gravel at that.
Dang.... so what was it like living before electricity was invented.?? Did you also walk to school in the snow.....uphill.....both ways.??
...you guys remember when the TV remote control just had ONE button each for "channel" and "volume", and would change it in just one direction until it got to the end and then would cycle back to the beginning of whatever? So if (say) you wanted to turn the volume down, you had to click it for "up" a bunch of times (louder, louder, LOUDer, LOUDER, LOUDESTTTTT, then softest) to get to the right volume? (As a kid, that made it really hard to sneak into the TV room to watch Star Trek without being heard.)
I remember when there were FSS stations (I know redundant) everywhere. You could actually walk in and talk to a live briefer. I loved the clatter of the teletype machines. The other day I made one of my students call 1-800-WX-Brief because she had only used ForeFlight for her weather source. She was shocked that there were people who actually gave weather briefings.
Could ya dial based on that! Let’s drift a little here. AR. [aviation related]. Ever hear a Controller giving you a ‘thirty’ with a traffic call?
..when you can remember the smell when using those Selectric typewriters you keep reading about in this thread. …when the remote control for the TV in your hotel room was a panel behind your headboard hardwired thru the walls to the TV. …when you learn someone has a “car phone” and discover it is actually a mobile radio telephone installed in a car. …when getting a pager made you feel important. If it activated when you weren’t near a land-line you went to a pay phone to return the call.
I got checked out to do the radar plots…get it off the teletype and plot on the grid map…CM2 CN3… And you leaned in so no one around could hear you, because conversations weren’t public.
My older sister talked of a time when HP made the best test gear in the business and they defied you to buy any of it. (Their sales folks were that bad)
We had a program that would punch a deck of cards-either regular or pinochle. They were ok in a pinch but we could all read the holes from the back so it was hard to bluff.
I have a HP 41CV sitting on my desk that is my daily go-to calculator. It was purchased in 1978. I have the card reader that goes with it and a couple of application modules.
I’ve driven a truck with a non-synchro transmission. I’ve programmed a computer with core memory. I’ve edited (inserted characters) on an IBM keypunch by holding the source card with one hand and typing with the other then letting go and DUPing the rest. I’ve edited multi-track analog audio tape with a razor blade and scotch tape. I’ve balanced multiple carburetors with a vacuum gauge and my ears. I’ve used a slip-stick (a.k.a. Slide rule) to take real physics tests. I can use (quite readily) a manual E6B. Class of ‘77, child of the 1950’s barely.
I used to be quite good at clutchless shifting. Not so much now, due to lack of practice. I carried a CR-5 in my pocket for over 30 years. I can still manipulate that fairly well, although I’ve graduated to the bigger CR-3.
I have as well, today I don't think I could see the numbers good enough to use a slip stick with out reading glasses....
Everybody’s doin’ a brand new dance now, Come on, baby, do the locomotion! I know you’re gonna like it if you give it a chance now Come on baby, do the locomotion (The song I associate most with 8-track for some reason)
When I was in college in the late 1960s, I was doing volunteer work for the University of Washington's public TV station. One of the times I was there, they were splicing the two-inch wide video tape.
I remember memorizing phone numbers and dialing the phone. And carrying dimes for the phone. Now I just speak into my phone and tell it who to call...
