Ten things your kid will never see
As technology races forward it’s inevitable that once common sights are relegated to the history books. Here are ten examples of nostalgia that today’s kids will never see.
Tube Television Turning Off
Televisions weren't always sleek and thin, as many of us know there were times where TV's were deeper than they were wide sporting faux wooden frames that dwarfed the actual picture size. When one mustered the strength to turn the dial or press the button which turned the set off, its Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) design would treat the viewer to a wonderful dying robot sound, a sparse crackle of static electricity and the sight of the picture reducing to a pin-prick, or on some sets, a line of bright white light. If any part of the television viewing experience was damaging one's eyesight it was almost certainly watching one's favourite show compress black hole-like into that retina burning singularity. Today's youth enjoy larger screens with sharper pictures and slimmer profiles and while they might see a desk-sized television on the curb their eyes will never suffer the joys of the curious bi-product light show their parents got to know so well. Image courtesy flickr.com/loqueveelojo
Thx 4 the memories!!! ;) lol
Jack Handy’s “Deep Thoughts” app, AND Leisure Suit Larry!!! I feel old…
(What about floppy disks, and computers that are only compatible with their brand? ie, Commodore, Sanyo, etc…)
Too bad about losing analog snow.Woke up to that picture and noise many times on the tube in my years.
It was great example of CMRBR’s (cosmic microwave background radiation) leftover from the Big Bang.
Hmm, I guess you don’t spend any time in accounting offices, dot matrix and roller form paper are still alive and well, I suppose you also do not spent a lot of time shopping, I can think of at least 12 stores near me that still use triplicate forms\dot matrix, I also suppose you never looked at an office supply catalogue?
Got 2 Sony TV sets just like the one in the photo. Both work great even though one is over 30 years old. Like ‘em better that the “fat ass” thin dislays sold today (i.e. all the girls look overweight and fat because of screen stretching). I hate having to buy something every two years because it is obsolete. Long live XP.
How about the old test patterns on the TV? Possible that the guys writing these articles have never seen them – so now I’m old!
You forgot things like dial telephones, party lines, floppy discs and believe it or not I was still pulling the perforated strips off dot matrix paper up until a couple of weeks ago at work.
We still sell this stuff….. guess some kids will see it.
Y’know, all this stuff listed here are all props for period films. Kids will see it.
Mini tape recorders used by secretaries to record their bosses memo’s, and then having to type them out….on a typewriter. How about those steno pools (a room full of women doing nothing but typing all day). 8-track tapes, rabbit ears, transistor radios, a walkman/discman. There’s so much more.
I was doing some cleaning & came across a set of rabbit ears…showed my neighbor’s 20 yr. old son & he didn’t believe that’s what we used to use…lol..
here one that the writer might know about, a sliderule!
Remember the old vacuum tube testers in the hardware store?
The beep-beep of my friends pager always going off!
typewriters!
Although I was never around for them, STEAM LOCOMOTIVES!
Kids see this stuff all the time. A lot of houses still have tube TVs and cassette tapes. Dot matrix printers using that type of paper are being still used on a regular basis. Oki, Epson, and other companies still make dot matrix printers.
Could comment on the other items but this would probably get censored like most comments I try to post.
Needless to say a quickly thrown together article without a lot of thought.
I remember programming with punch-cards. In fact, using a template to code the cards by pencil when a punch machine was not available – one eight-bit word at a time. Paper punch tape form the old TTY terminals…. computers with rows upon rows of lights that actually showed the data moving through the registers (for any of you that know what I am talking about, there are PDP 8 emulators available on-line – if you are interested). LED display calculators; log tables (to go with those slide-rules mentioned by dad), stackable LP record players (turntables, in today’s vernacular), 45′s and 78′s, bias-ply tires, Phone-modems (the ones that you had to put the handset into the ‘cups’), choke knobs on the dash… so many more. Perhaps a list of things our (as in baby-boomers) grandparents saw that we missed might be an interesting follow up.
Programming with punch cards is how I started in the IT business…
I like the idea of making a parallel list showing things our grandparents saw that we’ll never see except in pictures:
- horse-drawn streetcars and delivery wagons
- droppings on the street from the horses involved
- first flights of heavier-than-air aircraft
- major smoke from smokestacks and coal furnaces
- lamentations as the laundry was brought in smudged
- boys wearing breeches (britches) to school
- parents helpless as children died without OHIP
- early cars (no seatbelts, of course)
- widespread employment (indirectly subsidized, but still)
- and on, and on – lots bad, and some good
Just maybe you might remember telephone operators.
“Number Please”…
And.. I rode streetcars to school in Vancouver, BC.
Guess we are the lucky ones eh!!!
Oh good. I thought for a minute it was just me. I have three working tube tvs, also three vcrs, and many video tapes. Not all new technology is so great & will be replaced soon.
YES!! Finally someone else like us that hasn’t jumped on the techno-bandwagon everytime new crap comes out.
We have a 4-level house, each level has a CRT-tv (no wide/flat-screen/LCD/HD tv’s), we have 3 VCRs and the 4th tv has a built-in VCR, we have lots of VHS tapes & only a few DVDs, we just got our 2nd dvd-player earlier this year.
We keep a long corded phone for power-outage emergencies and a huge stack of dot-matrix paper for the kids to use for colouring. They have a cassette player in their playroom & know how to use it to find their favourite song.
The only videogame system we’ve owned is Atari. We/our kids don’t have Wii, Xbox, PS1/2/3, Nintendo DS, iPads, iPhones/smartphones, or any other overpriced technological “must-have”.
So far we haven’t needed or even wanted them. Our house is full of toys, books, games/puzzles, old-style tvs, & other modern conveniences but they’re not the most current versions.
I think our kids have seen more 80s/90s items at home than their peers. One kid wondered why my car didn’t have power windows b/c their vehicle is high-end with all power options & dvd players, haa!
Depending on the item(s), if we still like/use them & keep them around the house, some kids will get to experience things that we did at their age :-)
The 80′s is definitely calling you.
I wonder what your hydro bill is, with all those old TV’s and electronics sucking power. Never mind the space they take up. I for one am glad every one of my TV’s are flat screen. They are also dirt cheap these days BTW. Maybe it’s time you traded up. As for VHS, they don’t sell new tapes anymore, so I’d hate to think of how bad the picture quality is on your old tapes and machines.
Hey, how about your appliances? Are they 20 years old as well? Must be very efficient.
You don’t have to “jump on the techno bandwagon” to enjoy modern technology. I don’t buy every new gadget that comes out either. I don’t own a smart phone (just a basic cell), nor do I own any video game consoles. I do however enjoy the ease and cost savings of modern conveniences.
As for your car, if it still has crank windows, then I’m assuming it’s pretty old, and probably a gas guzzler and a major polluter.
I have two newer cars that are efficient and run clean, and are thus better for the environment. And yes, I have power windows and cruise control. Wouldn’t have it any other way.
In case you think I’m a young guy that has to have all the latest toys, you’re wrong. I’m 62, and still with it, unlike yourself.
A little judgemental aren’t we? With it? That saying went out long ago. Just a sad old coot trying to seem young. Best thing about the past…things could be fixed. Everything is disposible today. If something goes wrong, chuck it because nothing can be repaired. The energy and resources used to keep replacing with new goods is incredible, so good going to the peole that don’t add to that problem. I am also my 60s, some technology I like or want, some not so much. I do miss my VCR, I miss being able to tape shows that I couldnt watch at the time. Yes, I have heard of “on demand” but not an option where I live.. rogers not available and technology not there yet for my sattelite dish. I am definitely looking forward to the day thats available to me. “With it” is doing what is right for you not taking a lot of notice of some old buzzard.
I laugh because I know that in like 10 I will realize that my own generation’s technology is crap and useless- just like everything on that list (short of privacy). New life goal- make my own generations technology look like poo.
Very cool stuff history is so near and sometimes right next door. I think every city should have a museum to display these artefacts that also allows us to inspect and touch these things of the past. History allows us to appreciate what we have today and it seems that progress is not really progress at all.
My great grandfather was at EXPO 67 who took hundreds of photos and brought back tons of EXPO stuff. The whole world gathered in Montreal at a time when travel was without such scrutiny as it is now, three steps forward two back. I am going to digitize all his stuff so that the original can be preserved for my grandchildren and maybe it will become an interactive family tree.