100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About

[tj2001]

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/07/100-things-your-kids-may-never-know-about?npu=1&mbid=yhp

There 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 …

1 Inserting a VHS tape into a VCR to watch a movie or to record something.
2 Super-8 movies and cine film of all kinds.
3 Playing music on an audio tape using a personal stereo. See what happens when you give a Walkman to todays teenager.
4 The number of TV channels being a single digit. I remember it being a massive event when Britain got its fourth channel...

[babylonsister]

1. Life without TV clickers, or computer mice. Or computers, for that matter. nt

[Mariana]

43. Our TV had a clicker back in the early '70's.

Of course, there was a long wire connecting it to the TV, but it worked. My dad could turn the TV on or off, change the channel and control the volume from his recliner. My dad built the TV from a kit.

[Clintonista2]

45. My mom still tells us the story of her first TV with a remote control in the '70's

...and how it had a butterfly icon on it. Apparently it was a pretty significant moment in her life, 'cause us kids have heard about it a million times :rofl::rofl:

[Mariana]

46. I know how she feels. It was significant to me because

before that, if Dad wanted the channel or the volume changed, he always called ME to get up and do it!

[FSogol]

2. Card catalogs at the library

roller skates and skateboards with metal wheels

[HopeHoops]

3. We have working Tape, VCR, vinyl, and LaserDisc players.

They're all hooked into the entertainment center. I was just playing old vinyl on the outside speakers this weekend (daughter had a sleepover and I'd made a fire). I started with the Goofy Greats record that has songs like "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini" and the amazingly politically correct "Ahab the Arab". I put on some polka later and they had a blast. I'm not sure the neighbors were all that happy with it, but I shut it off at 10:00.

I've got a few working 8-track players in the basement, as well as a Super-8 projector, and a couple film strip projectors. Don't even get me started on my computer museum.

[anigbrowl]

4. Good riddance to many of those things. The important ones are documented at Wikipedia.

I'll keep the democratization of technology and computing power, thanks.

[superduperfarleft]

6. Personally, I miss small pox, slavery, and a life expectancy of about 30.

Ah, the good ol' days....

[izquierdista]

14. I miss #50

[KansDem]

5. How about those cardboard tablets with the plastic film that you wrote or drew on...

...with a stylus and then you could "erase" by pulling the film up?

Hell, I don't even remember what they were called!

[onethatcares]

12. etch a sketch

it's what has happened to our history. Only thing is, the film is pulled up over our eyes.

[abumbyanyothername]

13. He's not talking about an etch a sketch

On Amazon they call them Magic Slates, these particular variety are called Pirate Magic Slates.

http://www.amazon.com/SmallToys-12-Pirate-Magic-Slates/dp/B0019I6CLS/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=toys-and-games&qid=1248386289&sr=1-7

[Canuckistanian]

21. No, etch-a-sketch had the two contol knobs

KansDem is talking about these:

[Odin2005]

24. I remember those! haven't seen then since I was, like 8 or there abouts.

[KansDem]

34. That's it!!!

Thanks! :hi:

[Mariana]

44. Those are still around, here and there. nt.

[abumbyanyothername]

7. Mixed use farming

You know . . . cornfield AND pasture AND dairy herd AND a few pigs AND grandma's apple orchard AND the walnut stand.

Drove up to Grandpa's farm back in April. Very sad, cardboard looking, getting ready for 140+ acres of pure corn planting, with chemical fertilization. No barn, no farmhouse, no windmill, no tank.

[MountainLaurel]

8. Funny this came up today

A friend of mine noted in an email this morning that she had an experience recently with a college worker who had never heard a busy signal on the phone before, in the age of call waiting.

[madmom]

9. When my daughter was in high school (she graduated in 2003) she had to make a call from

one of the school's "inner offices" and it had a rotary dial. She had to ask how to do it. We still tease her about it. LOL

[SoCalDem]

31. When we married in 1970, we had a PARTY LINE for 2 or 3 months

That was a trip..even then:)

[Mrs. Overall]

10. Liquid Paper--correction fluid.

I remember running to class late, blowing on my essay that I had just typed--trying to get all of the blobs of liquid paper to dry.

[TokenQueer]

15. What about that clunky typewriter?

:hi: Hi, Mrs. Overall!

[Mrs. Overall]

27. Hi, TQ!

And clunky it was. I was humiliated my freshman year of college--my parents wouldn't buy me an electric typewriter (with built in correcto-ribbon), so I had to take my dad's 1939 Royal typewriter to school. I was teased endlessly about my "antique".

[valerief]

11. Having afforable health care. Having a job. nt

[Union Yes]

16. Atari 2600

[Union Yes]

17. Hair Metal

[htuttle]

18. Blue skies, clean water, tolerable temperatures, dry land

...Not having to hide from the gangs of men on motorcycles wearing feathered shoulder pads and little forearm crossbows.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

20. waterworld?

[htuttle]

23. Waterworld, Mad Max, A Boy and His Dog, take your pick...

It sure the hell doesn't look like it's going to be Star Trek anytime soon.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

19. Playing with "chemistry sets" that contained more than litmus paper and plastic cups. (nt)

[DainBramaged]

29. The Lafayette Radio catalog

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafayette_Radio

They even had plans to sell a small nuclear reactor for $5500 in the 50's because my Dad laughed at that one with me.

[Posteritatis]

37. I've heard something neat about the chemistry set situation..

Since they started reducing them to that or less, some people have gotten pretty innovative in figuring out how to play around with chemistry in a useful way. So instead of not learning about chemistry at all like the government and/or Concerned Parents want, there's a decent movement of people digging up the older chemistry textbooks from, say, the twenties and using those to conjure up their own reagents and so on the long way (since even the good chemistry sets would often have some of that stuff pre-perpared).

Anyone wandering down that track's probably learning far more as a result. I just think it's a particularly good example of something backfiring.

[Odin2005]

22. So what? I don't really know how to use a record player, I'm 23.

And VCRs sucked, DVDs are much better!

[Xithras]

25. My son dug a cassette out the other day, and I had to explain how it worked.

"it's like a little VCR tape, but just for sound"

Luckily, we still have enough tapes around that he understood what a VCR was.

[QC]

26. A middle class. n/t

[End Of The Road]

28. Phone booths. nt

[SoCalDem]

30. Dial phones, clock radios that flipped little disc with numbers, homemade pudding

Transistor radios
polaroid instant cameras
film

[Orsino]

32. Retirement pay. n/t

[HarveyDarkey]

33. Lincoln Logs, Erector Sets

beat the hell out of Legos

[Bigmack]

35. "They" slipped one in.....

#79 "The days before the Nanny State".

Sorry, but to me "Nanny State" is code for a country that protects consumers and tries to make a safer, happier country. That term is seldom thrown around when the speaker is talking about the state coddling the big business and banking interests.

[seabeyond]

36. my 11 yr old played with a rotary phone this vacation. lol. he was amazed

playing playing... and i realized he had never seen one. aaaah, bad mama that i deprived the kid so in his education

[Roon]

40. When we were in san antoine

we went to visit a friend who's apartment building used to be a real nice hotel back in the day. The lobby was still there and they still had the crank telephones on the wall. Pretty cool!!

[seabeyond]

41. wow, lol. that is even old days for me... but, i havent had kids see one of those either

how funny

[pipi_k]

38. Drive in movies, home milk delivery, doctor house calls

the traveling junk man, garbage pail stuck in the ground in the backyard and the garbage men coming to collect it

coal delivery to the house. I used to love the smell of it as it slid into the cellar through the little cellar window.


Oh, and edited to add....

TVs and Radios that ran on tubes. My father always seemed to be busy trying to figure out which tube in the TV had gone on the fritz...

[DesertRat]

39. Polaroid instant cameras n/t

[BoneDaddy]

42. And we can point to the generation before and

they can say the same things about us. We can go farther and farther back and see the same phenomenon. We will go forward and the youth of a hundred years will be laughing at what we thought was sophisicated. Humility is a great base for anyone anytime.