tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377385119326285192.post7136522100081185275..comments2024-02-23T00:27:41.196-08:00Comments on Refugees From the City: Some NostalgiaJohn the Scientisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03467337009577733553noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377385119326285192.post-24601056591653561232008-10-13T14:22:00.000-07:002008-10-13T14:22:00.000-07:00Up until a few years ago, my father was still on a...Up until a few years ago, my father was still on a party line...and my step father still is. They have no cable, and seven years ago, the farm where i grew up finally got running water. (we always had running water, but it had to be trucked in, and measured every few days to make sure that we didn't run out. The closest city finally ran water lines out that way)<BR/>I grew up getting milk from the barn, eggs from the chickens, and we had a hand pump in the back yard for when we wanted drinking water...saved on trucking the water out to us)<BR/><BR/>I scored older than dirt..but I would love to be able to trade a lot of what i have now, for the way it used to be.kimbyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18202011517037727838noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377385119326285192.post-31937432030109243222008-10-11T06:30:00.000-07:002008-10-11T06:30:00.000-07:00Great stuff... I remember that Star Trek game - I ...Great stuff... I remember that Star Trek game - I played it when I was in the 6th grade on a PDP-11 (I think it was) with those green-and-white paper printers. Only the sysadmins had CRT monitors. Later, in college, we still used those green-and-white printers to print out our programs written on the Vax 11/780.<BR/><BR/>It's true that the bottle vending machines, candy cigarrettes, etc disappeared fast, and I sure remember the pain of trying to get the bottles out of a stiff machine. I always wondered why the bottles didn't break. The coke machine at our church costs .10 when I was in elementary school, and I remember thinking it was a horrible travesty when the price went up to .15.<BR/><BR/>Although I saw those old wringer machines around, no one in my family still had one that I can remember. We did, however, still have party lines and word-prefix numbers in rural NC when I was very young. My great-grandmother still had a phone with no dial where you had to call the operator (by turning the crank) and say something like "Hey Flo, can you ring up the grocery store, I need them to deliver some milk and sugar". At school, we still had mimeo machines until I graduated high school, because the schools I attended simply couldn't afford Xerox machines, which cost thousands. <BR/><BR/>I still know people (here in rural NC) who farm with horses.<BR/><BR/>My point (I think) is that it seems kind of like we're hitting a wall with regards to technological and social change, but I'm not positive that's true.<BR/><BR/>I think I'm going to do another post about this.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377385119326285192.post-35179034384959626482008-10-09T18:25:00.000-07:002008-10-09T18:25:00.000-07:00Oh yes, I remember all of your tech ones. I used 8...Oh yes, I remember all of your tech ones. I used 8-inch floppies when I learned Pascal on a mainframe in 7th grade when I was in the Johns-Hopkins science and math program they have over the summers at selected colleges. But by the time I got to college, the 3 inch floppies were coming out.John the Scientisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03467337009577733553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377385119326285192.post-52774818206693328912008-10-09T18:22:00.000-07:002008-10-09T18:22:00.000-07:00I subscribe to "Chemical Heritage", and a recent a...I subscribe to "Chemical Heritage", and a recent article on the history of technology noted that early 20th century people didn't all hop in cars at once - there was considerable overlap with horse-drawn vehicles and automobile, horse plows and tractors. Due to cost, conservatism, bugs in new technology, and lack of fit-for-special-purpose new technology, it takes a while for technology to fade. The poorer you are, and the more rural area you live in, the more likely you are to have experiences that overlap with previous generations. I used punch cards long, long after magnetic media restored them because my mom was a teacher, and the county school library system used them because they didn't update that computer system until 1976. <BR/><BR/>I saw Howdy Doody in reruns because I lived near DC, and the home station for that show still ran them.<BR/><BR/>The school system still used mimeograph paper (I miss the smell of that ink) long after copiers were in use in business, again for budget issues.<BR/><BR/>My grandmother's elderly washing machine had a wringer because it still worked and she saw no need to buy a new one. So the term "tit caught in the wringer" makes me cringe, because I know exactly how painful that would be. :)<BR/><BR/>Some things do fade quickly, though. They still had table-side juke boxes, glass-bottle dispensing soda machines (remember how the metal bottle top used to score your hand when the machine wasn't well-oiled and you had to yank that sucker out), Green Stamps, blue flash bulbs, wax coke-bottle sugar water and candy cigarettes, but those things stopped rather abruptly, and I don't think people even 5 years younger than I remember them. <BR/><BR/>I certainly don't remember word-prefix numbers, party lines, or newsreels.John the Scientisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03467337009577733553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377385119326285192.post-14972526236265590282008-10-08T17:01:00.000-07:002008-10-08T17:01:00.000-07:00Huh - I scored "older than dirt" too - although I,...Huh - I scored "older than dirt" too - although I, too am either a very young baby boomer or elder gen-Xer, depending on who you listen to.<BR/><BR/>From your added techno-antique list, I've used all of those except the tv antenna control. I used to play a pure-text Star Trek game - and enter data into a computer that echoed each line to a printer, rather than displayed text on a monitor.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com