Posted on 07/22/2011 5:55:13 PM PDT by Justaham
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 …
(Excerpt) Read more at shopping.yahoo.com ...
I got a masters degree in 2003. None of my classmates ever used a slide rule.
Manual transmissions
Postage stamps
Pop in glass bottles
Rexall drug stores
Sears
The author has obviously forgotten it--or forgotten basic mathematics. The Apollo 11 moon landing was on July 20, 1969. That was 42 years ago.
I checked on eBay and there are 1200 for sale, LOL.
I think that was way before this ‘author’s’ time.
steam shovels, steam rollers, steam ships
110 Film
Carbon paper
Print wheels
Eating canned sardines
vacuum tube test stations
Replacement headlights half the size of a cantaloup that needed to be aimed
I remember going with my Dad to some kind of store back in the 50s to test the tubes from the tv. It might have been a drug store.
Those who are as old as I and look at this list will find other things that come to mind and the list could become endless. Before credit cards, it didn’t matter if you forgot your check book, all merchants had blank universal checks. Might be interesting to see things that we have today that we didn’t have then - certainly the NSF acronym didn’t exist.
Slide rules are faster than calculators or computers. So is the abacus.
Oil can spouts
Skate key
Milk box at front door
Galoshes (sp?)
S & H Green Stamps
“Manual transmissions”
Probably not since gas prices are getting higher and the Western world is getting poorer. Drive a stick the right way and you can get anywhere as high as 50MPGs on MT Fiestas, Aveos and Civics. Also, high performance MTs themselves have switched over to paddle shift. The MT is going nowhere because it’s so useful.
“Pop in glass bottles”
Pop in glass bottles cool down quicker, so that one’s not going anywhere either.
Newspapers are going to become niche products full of illustrations and announcements of local events such as the local team winning a sports championship or a gubernatorial/mayoral election but with little to nothing else in content.
I still have my original slide rule from the early 70’s (before I could afford a calculator). I often show it to people and always get someone asking what it is. I can still use it, by the way. LOL!
Just today I was manually unlocking the door on my 1984 BMW and thinking about what an old-school thing to do that was.
What’s with the rubber overshoes/galoshes disappearing? I thought people still used those. What has replaced them?
I recall going to a vacuum tube test station in the local Dart Drug with my father in the late 60’s or early 70’s. Wish I could find one now for my old 1930’s radio.
When we first got married, we bought a nonfunctional TV for $6. I pulled all the small tubes out of the back, went to the drug store with a tube tester, found the three bad tubes, spent another $5 or $6 and ended up with a good TV set.
This was in early 1971!
Excellence.
Xer Ping
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