pre-internet woes

[meridannight]

pre-internet woes under-30s don't get

lols. can you still remember this stuff? i mean, teletext, jesusfuck. was that ever really necessary?

[Virge]

damn. So are you geld things are better now or do you sit back and wish for the good old days?

[meridannight]

no, i'm glad to be living in the 21st century. what we have now is an improvement from what it was back then. all of that feels like technological infancy and farther-removed than bare 20 years ago.

i have my good old days from growing up, but none of the good parts are associated with technology anyway. technology assists life (the latter is the real thing), and as such it has improved a lot the past 15 years. i have no objections to that.

[LJay]

Anbody remember crank telephones that were about three feet tall and hung on the wall? Or how about placing long distance calls by calling the operator, giving the number and waiting to be called back when the number was connected? I also lived in a place where there were party lines. In that town, you picked up the phone and gave teh operator the number and were connected. She knew your friends anyway, so I wold just say, "Is Mike home?" and she would connect him. When I was in fifth grade, we were actually taken on a field trip to the phone company where a push button phone was demonstrated as a thing of the future and we were taught how to use a dial phone. The phones, by the way, were hard wired into your house and they belonged to the phone company.

[MikeW]

Anbody remember crank telephones that were about three feet tall and hung on the wall? Or how about placing long distance calls by calling the operator, giving the number and waiting to be called back when the number was connected? I also lived in a place where there were party lines. In that town, you picked up the phone and gave teh operator the number and were connected. She knew your friends anyway, so I wold just say, "Is Mike home?" and she would connect him. When I was in fifth grade, we were actually taken on a field trip to the phone company where a push button phone was demonstrated as a thing of the future and we were taught how to use a dial phone. The phones, by the way, were hard wired into your house and they belonged to the phone company.

Yes, I remember all that.

I also remember the first time I saw a modem and a non-local computer terminal: 1974. There was a cradle you put the telephone hand-set on, and dialed directly into the mainframe.

I remember IBM round-ball "Selectric" typewriters:


And Brother word processors:


I don't remember much of what happened yesterday though.

[princealbertofb]

Anbody remember crank telephones that were about three feet tall and hung on the wall? Or how about placing long distance calls by calling the operator, giving the number and waiting to be called back when the number was connected? I also lived in a place where there were party lines. In that town, you picked up the phone and gave teh operator the number and were connected. She knew your friends anyway, so I wold just say, "Is Mike home?" and she would connect him. When I was in fifth grade, we were actually taken on a field trip to the phone company where a push button phone was demonstrated as a thing of the future and we were taught how to use a dial phone. The phones, by the way, were hard wired into your house and they belonged to the phone company.

About twelve years younger than you, LJay, but yes, I remember those. We had one of the first phones in my block of flats and I remember neighbours would come to use ours. It wasn't one that hung on the wall though, it was one of those black bakelite ones, I'm sure. It had a dial. Not long after came the more ubiquitous light white, grey and more phones... When you think how long phones have existed, it's still amazing the amount of progress that has been made in that particular sphere.

[princealbertofb]

Yes, I remember all that.

I also remember the first time I saw a modem and a non-local computer terminal: 1974. There was a cradle you put the telephone hand-set on, and dialed directly into the mainframe.

I remember IBM round-ball "Selectric" typewriters:


And Brother word processors:


I don't remember much of what happened yesterday though.

The very clever series Halt & Catch Fire, which retraces the advent of the first portable computers is really interesting and that was just the 80s.

[princealbertofb]

It's a MUST WATCH series, in my opinion. Explains such a lot about how we finally got there so fast.
What Lee Pace, who stars in it, has to say about it :
http://tv.blog.imdb.net/2014/05/22/halt-...-lee-pace/

[princealbertofb]

I am definitely of a time before those woes were even something to consider... In my day it was vinyl and those definitely got scratched and then would skip to the next groove, skip to the next groove, skip to the next groove, skip to the next groove, skip to the next groove .... unless you moved the needle on.

[matty7]

my nephew cannot understand how we did anything without mobile phones and we had the chat only last week, the world would stop for him if it were taken away lol,

I do remember arranging to meet at the pub and if someone didn't turn up we would just join a different group or we would ask them to join us if they were alone or just a few lads - sure it seemed friendlier back then, people seem so solitary now