10 Modern Technologies We Lived Without in Primitive, Pre-Millennial America

Pajamas Media ^ | 05/08/2014 | PAULA BOLYARD

[Nowhere Man]

The annoying part is ALWAYS this — The DJ talks over the song as it is about to end.

That drove me up the wall too. BTW, I still use VHS tape and a 1982 Zenith TV with rabbit ears.

[fruser1]

I kind of miss those vacuum tube testers at the grocery and hardware stores.

[Nowhere Man]

I recently disposed of a non-remote television set I had purchased in 1991. And it was my primary set well into this century. It was obsolete even when purchased, but having grown up with such sets I thought paying extra for the remote was a waste. Thought about trying to get it fixed, but when Pennsylvania banned old TV’s from landfills I was afraid I might get stuck with it forever.

I still use a 1982 Zenith TV with rabbit ears (and digital converter) along with VHS tape. It does have remote control. Just before Mom passed away just before Thanksgiving, we did find the original bill of sale, April 4th, 1983. It was on clearance, being a 1982 model and it had a remote. The similar 1983 model did not and was a $100 more so we got the clearance model instead. Plus it was cable ready.

I got a TI-99 computer one year for Christmas. After spending 6 1/2 hours writing hundreds of lines of Basic code to accomplish something I could have done with a pencil in 60 seconds, I decided “it will never catch on!” and pushed it to the back of the closet. Total lack of foresight on my part.

The TI-99/4A was my first computer too, got it in 1982 for Christmas. It was a fun machine though and with Extended BASIC, was a great machine. I remember typing in "OLD CS1" and loading programs from tape. I still have it too.

[Nowhere Man]

Remember overhead projectors and filmstrip projectors?

I rmemeber those. "At the beep/bell," turn the knob to the next frame. Usually the audio was from a record or a cassette tape.

How about chalk and chalkboards, and those special chalk holders the teachers could use to draw lines on the board to teach penmanship (back when that subject was taught).

I think they use "white boards" with markers now although in the early 1980's we have small versions of those.

[TomGuy]

WHY DID NOBODY THINK OF PUTTING WHEELS ON LUGGAGE??!?

Because they didn't have to rush from Terminal 12 to Terminal 23 in 7 minutes because of a last minute change in flight numbers.

[Disambiguator]

What about the button on the car floor to turn on the headlights?

We had an old car with a standard (4 on the tree) transmission. If my left foot wasn't all the way on the clutch pedal, I would occasionally hit the high beams while shifting gears.

[Cheerio]

RE: Rotary phones. They were ‘real’ fun when radio stations did that “be the 7th caller and win” contests.

With no "Auto Dialers" (and probably before Dual-tone multi-frequency signaling was introduced in 1963 by the globes most fantastic telephone company AT&T)

[dalereed]

There was no such thing as TV when I was a kid.

[Mogger]

Besides all of the above, there was actually a time when cars didn’t all have air conditioning, power windows and locks, and/or remote entry key fobs with alarms.

I just bought a truck with none of that stuff. A Unimog.

We got electricity and running water and phone (12 party line) when I was 6.

Got electricity at the one room school I went to when I was 7, running water when I was 10, the selectmen never did waste taxpayer money on a phone in the school.

[Sherman Logan]

Wheels on luggage. One of the inventions that made men obsolete.

[Buckeye McFrog]

RE: Rotary phones. They were ‘real’ fun when radio stations did that “be the 7th caller and win” contests.

It's why the paint was worn off the finger holes around the 3, 9 and 5 on our kitchen phone.

[ConstantSkeptic]

We still use our 35-year old Amana Radarange. It's great! My husband has done some basic repairs, and last month we sent the control panel to a fellow in Iowa who repaired it.

My husband hates to get rid of things which still work. That's partly why we still own his first vehicle - a 1956 Chevy pickup which he bought while in high school (about 1971). That's the first vehicle I ever saw with a starter button. On the floor, no less!

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Indoor plumbing, central heat, ball point pens and warm socks that are not scratchy.

[lurk]

Nutella.
Jalapeno cheddar tater tots and jalapeno cheese puffs.
Laser surgery.
Ice and water dispensers on refrigerator doors.
Frost-free refrigerators.
Kindle.
Arthroscopic surgery.

[central_va]

These things occupied a lot of my time.

[a fool in paradise]

6. Video Games - Home video games did not achieve widespread popularity until the release of a home version of Pong sold by Sears during the Christmas of 1975. Those of us who were lucky enough to receive one for Christmas that year hooked the primitive consoles up to our TV sets (often black and white TVs) and wasted entire days mesmerized by the back and forth ping pong action...

[a fool in paradise]

9. Pocket Calculators In the mid-1960s calculators were large, heavy desktop machines that used hundreds of transistors on several circuit boards and required an AC power supply...

[uncitizen]

We got an Amana Radarange in 1976. Three buttons, two twist knobs, no turn tray.

Turn tray? What's that?

[a fool in paradise]

10. Video Cassette Recorders In the 1970s and early 1980s we could have never imagined the concept of the DVD, let alone something as complex (and convenient) as streaming video. We went to movie theaters or waited for the movie of the week on ABC, NBC, or CBS if we wanted to see something other than a sitcom or a game show. The “modern” VCR did not begin to gain mass market traction until 1975 when the systems were standardized and movies became available to consumers. Of course, the “format war” between VHS and Betamax threatened to derail the whole thing, but VHS ultimately prevailed (the die hard Betamax fans eventually fell in line) and remained the top dog in the world of home entertainment until the technology was toppled by the success of DVDs. In addition to giving us the ability to watch movies we had rented or purchased, we suddenly had the ability to record television shows so we were no longer at the mercy of the programmers — and for the first time we could fast forward through the commercials, freeing us from having to sit through the unwelcomed messages in our homes.

The whole issue is now moot. Big Hollywood lost the Betamax decision and now that the market has moved to DVDs, they snuffed out the DVD-R/DVR hybrid machines (you can readily find one or the other but not both in one unit, the Panasonic model I had was forced out of the marketplace and discontinued in the USA). People have gone back to refusing to go out because they might miss some damn tv show.

[fredhead]

Two of the items listed:

We had a Hotpoint B&W TV that had “Power Tuning.” An electric motor was connected to the tuner. You set the channels you wanted it to stop at on the back, and (according to my dad) it had a wired remote with two buttons. One button made it rotate clockwise, the other counterclockwise. It also had buttons on the front of the TV that did the same. Of course the remote was gone by the time I remember that TV. Ended up in my bedroom when we got a color set.

Typewriter - Typed my senior year research paper on an old L.C. Smith typewriter that was my mom’s. You almost needed a hammer to press those keys. Mom typed up many a church bulletin onto mimeograph stencil on that typewriter.