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05/07/2017 10:48:35 PM · #1
POWERFUL Compters for less than $10,000!


How Babies Used to Fly:


Buster Keaton Rides the First Segway


What cool pictures of weird old-school (or not-so-old) have YOU seen?
05/08/2017 02:42:34 AM · #2
I'll play. here's a smattering of the technology that impressed me and that I immersed myself in as a kid.



Reel to Reel: My next door neighbor had a studio in his garage where he used these to transfer old radio shows to cassettes and sell copies.

Timex Digital Watch: I think you could get these for around $20. The cool thing was, when you were high you could wave these around and the time would "float" out of the watch and it would freak us out. (cheap entertainment)

Texas Instruments TI-10 calculator: These made it clear that there was no longer a need to learn math.

Cassette Stereo / early tape recorders: I always loved how you could record stuff and play it back. I secretly recorded my dad yelling at me to wake up and then I set the tape player up with an automatic timer to wake me up every morning. It was the only thing that would keep me from going back to sleep.

Sony Betamax: Destined to be the dominant format for the ensuing video tape revolution. LOL

Pong arcade game: Appeared in a select few Pizza Parlors.

Microwave ovens were popular in the suburbs where I lived, but all I remember using them for was to reheat Pizza.

Atari Pong for the home: The first home video console I can remember. My neighbor was the first to have one in our neighborhood. This led to the one-upsmanship that got my parents to get one of the first Atari 2600 game consoles in the hood.

My neighbor bought one of the first hundred or so Apple II computers. I was over there all the time playing with it and learning about programming in BASIC. He later bought a Radio Shack TRS-80 and now I practically lived at his house. I was 15 or 16.

Message edited by author 2017-05-08 03:07:06.
05/08/2017 05:03:07 AM · #3
Different, but related:

I remember the first time I saw a CD in a store. The sales person kept tossing it in the air and catching it, to demonstrate just how much tougher it was than a record, and showed us how fabulous the CD playing machine was, too.

I was duly impressed and intrigued, and I asked: "So can you record, as well, or only play back?"
The rude such-and-such actually LAUGHED at me and said: "Ha ha ha...... no, of course you can't record. That takes major machinery, not something anybody could do at home".

I said: "Hmmmm..... maybe not right now..... not just yet.... but I bet it won't be long until we CAN."

His face told me he thought I was insane. I wonder if he remembered our conversation not all that long after our encounter. He he he.....
05/08/2017 06:53:19 AM · #4
Originally posted by Beetle:

I wonder if he remembered our conversation not all that long after our encounter. He he he.....

Go hunt him down and whack him upside the head with one of these and say "It writes 25GB Blu Ray disks, mother f****r!"
05/08/2017 09:52:25 AM · #5
I use the Scan & Go app when I shop Sams Club. The cash-only merchants of my first shopping experiences used a mechanical cash register. It rang a bell when the drawer opened. Now I can skip the wait in line, skip the cashier--I like this!

Curiously, the basic automobile hasn't changed much. To put it another way, the changes in car-technology haven't impacted my driving experience much.

05/08/2017 02:28:43 PM · #6
Originally posted by pixelpig:

To put it another way, the changes in car-technology haven't impacted my driving experience much.


Wait till your car has an unplanned impact.... You will quickly deploy a new view as the airbags and crumple-zones do the same :).
05/08/2017 02:46:11 PM · #7
Originally posted by herfotoman:

Originally posted by pixelpig:

To put it another way, the changes in car-technology haven't impacted my driving experience much.


Wait till your car has an unplanned impact.... You will quickly deploy a new view as the airbags and crumple-zones do the same :).

Whether that new view is positive or negative will probably depend on the amount of shrapnel hurled at you by the airbag inflator.

Speaking of inflators, one of the "Puzzlers" on the radio show Car Talk asked about a car part which has not been been updated, improved, or changed in over 100 years ... the answer being the Schrader valve ...

05/08/2017 06:01:35 PM · #8
Back when THIS was the norm, I quit a job because the boss wouldn't give me a 25-cent-per-hour raise (which I needed to break even on living expenses). That's how I ended up becoming a photograspher, actually, but that's another story. Anyway...

05/08/2017 07:04:26 PM · #9
Originally posted by Bear_Music:

I quit a job because the boss wouldn't give me a 25-cent-per-hour raise (which I needed to break even on living expenses). That's how I ended up becoming a photograspher, actually, but that's another story.

I can just imagine it... *cue flashback music*

05/08/2017 07:55:01 PM · #10
Sic 'im, Dino!
05/08/2017 08:33:46 PM · #11
Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Back when THIS was the norm, I quit a job because the boss wouldn't give me a 25-cent-per-hour raise (which I needed to break even on living expenses). That's how I ended up becoming a photograspher, actually, but that's another story. Anyway...



In high school I was an assistant manager in our McDonald's. I opened on Saturdays... had to be there by 5:30 am. So, my parents said my curfew (as a high school senior) was 9pm every night of the week. I did it.

I once met Ray Kroc (McD's founder). He was "impressed by" me and wrote me a wonderful letter of recommendation.

I wonder if I still have that...

05/08/2017 09:23:49 PM · #12
Originally posted by Lydia:

I wonder if I still have that...

If you do it's probably worth more on eBay than you earned in a week at McD's ... :-(
05/09/2017 12:29:53 AM · #13
Originally posted by GeneralE:

Originally posted by herfotoman:

Originally posted by pixelpig:

To put it another way, the changes in car-technology haven't impacted my driving experience much.


Wait till your car has an unplanned impact.... You will quickly deploy a new view as the airbags and crumple-zones do the same :).

Whether that new view is positive or negative will probably depend on the amount of shrapnel hurled at you by the airbag inflator.

Speaking of inflators, one of the "Puzzlers" on the radio show Car Talk asked about a car part which has not been been updated, improved, or changed in over 100 years ... the answer being the Schrader valve ...



I listen to Car Talk also and find your bit of info about the Schrader valve worth remembering especially being a trivia buff. Thanks!
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