The Busy Signal....forgotten things from recent past...

a reply to: roadgravel

I bought a retro one a few years ago for interior design purposes, it looked cool but was too annoying. I remember bedside clock radio's those were great, and programming my landline to give alarm calls, a now iphones do that.

a reply to: theabsolutetruth

I still use a clock radio but the alarm beep only. Nothing like a good audio jolt to get the brain jump started.

One thing I don't miss is percolator coffee. Time tested method to make a poor cup.

a reply to: roadgravel

I set my phone alarm so I hear the dulcit tones of Caleb Followill singing, it's kinder to my ears than beeping which brings back memories of every morning being a crazy rush of 7.30am commuting.

I bought a bedside tea /coffee maker alarm clock years ago in the hope of saving time but the drinks weren't great and took as much effort as making it myself after adding milk etc and I like using super fresh water rather than it sitting in a machine all night.

www.amazon.co.uk...

originally posted by: roadgravel
Anyone still have an old wind up alarm clock. I remember falling asleep to the sound of the ticking.

I had one. Used to wind it up every night... and you had to wind the ringer spring up too.

originally posted by: interupt42
If I remember correctly, Didn't ATS allow anomous posters? I swear I had posted as an anomous user before I ever created my account?

Yup. What a freaking PITA that was!

To roadgravel:

I still have one of the old alarm clocks here. Somewhere. Now that I think about it, I haven't seen it in a few years. I need to track that down.

The old school overhead projectors. I tried to up load a pic but I just couldn't figure out how to do it!

originally posted by: ladyvalkyrie
I mean, WTF? Who hasn't seen Dumbo? Was the kid raised on some weird cult compound or something?

(raises hand)

I don't think I had seen ANY Disney cartoons until I had kids. Or any Disney movies, other than what came on Sunday nights on "Wonderful World of Color", which mainly were Old Yeller and Davy Crockett.

originally posted by: ForteanOrg
a reply to: Vasa Croe

Transistor radios that ran on 4 x or even 6 x AA batteries.

Have built them as a kid.

When electronic stuff did not have circuitboards, stuff was just soldered together

It took forever for the military to decide that PCB assembly was as tough as point-to-point. I've built a lot of tube stuff this way. And repaired/rebuilt endless TVs and guitar amps that are done this way.

Ironing using an iron heated on a stove

Mom did this, but I've never used one.

When electrical wires ran in tubes mounted on the walls
And switches were knobs you could turn (on) and (off)

The family home in Toccoa was wired knob-and-tube. The old ceramics are still in the walls, but now it's Romex. You couldn't insulate the walls if you had knob/tube wiring, either.

Cat eyes on tube based radios to see how well you had tuned in

These are actually really cool.

Water from a well instead of from a tap

I really wish we still had our crank-up well at the old home. Better tasting water you could not find.

Cars with a rubber knob on the dashboard to spray water on the windshield

I actually had an AMC with a foot pedal that did this.

Portable record players
LP's, EP's, singles and 45 tpm LP's (for better sound quality)
78 RPM records
Record players where you put 10 records on top and it played them one by one
Taperecorders

Had all of them. And we had a big console - remember those? Record player and FM/AM radio in it, about the size of a coffee table?

Horses that were used to plough, pull carts etc.

Had a mule for the plow, but had several horses for running around on. Have ridden them to school and through the drive-in for a joke. Plowing mule sucks. You have to really be a masochist not to use the tractor, but Dad was intent on us being able to do it.

originally posted by: fernalley

originally posted by: Bedlam

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
a reply to: neformore

Do you remember dogpile? It searched multiple search engines!

I think was searchspaniel for a while.

I remember using webcrawler in the beginning. Wonder if it still around.

Altavista was one of my favorite search engines. It found stuff Google never saw.

originally posted by: Mugly
i remember getting the weekly tv guide in the sunday paper and leafing though each day to find out what was on and when...scheduling what i was going to watch.
major bummer when 2 things were on at the same time on different channels and i had to make that decision of what to watch.

writing checks
writing letters

you picked one to watch that night, you caught the other one when it was in reruns!... I watched dark shadows every day after school, so did my best friend....if one of us was gone for several days on family vacation, the other one wrote down what happened and told us everything when we got back!!

I still have a typewriter.....encyclopedias and big boxy monitors...remember when we thought it was great when we could drive to blockbuster and rent movies on video tape, then drive back and drop them off!!

speaking of jukeboxes, my local dennys' just got one , are other dennys doing this??

a reply to: butcherguy

That was a fine computer. I had one of its predecessors: the model I. Man, did I learn a lot from using it! In essence, it is fair to say that buying it was one of the most important, if not THE most important influences in my life. Apart from beer, of course

originally posted by: Vasa Croe
a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

LOL....where is that?

Portmeirion in Wales - been there a few times, odd place and very slippery when wet.

originally posted by: Imagewerx
a reply to: butcherguy

Using BASIC as it's OS wasn't it?

Actually there were 2 versions, some even might say THREE.

Version 1 was 'level I" basic, and it was based on Tiny Basic, Open Source avant la lettre. It was an excellent BASIC as in BEGINNERS All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. I still own the excellent manual by David O'Lien (or David Lien). It had only 3 error messages: "WHAT?" "HOW?" and "SORRY" .. and in fact, that's still plenty even nowadays

Version 2 was "level II" - and it was Microsoft basic!

"Level II consists of a rudimentary operating system and a BASIC language intrepreter (sic). Taken together they are called the level II ROM System. There is a extension to the Level II system called the Disk Operating system, DOS and also an extension to the BASIC portion of Level II called Disk BASiC". Microsoft BASIC decoded & other Mysteries for the TRS-80 (James Lee Farrour, 1981). Yes, I own a copy and still have it

The book came with an annotated dump of the TRS-80 BASIC ROM - but with parts of the code left out to prevent copyright infringements. You had to own a TRS-80 (or have access to one) and then make a dump of the ROM (using a dot-matrix printer, remember these?) first. You laid out the dump over the pages of the book, after which you were able to dig the annotations. Even then Microsoft was already more about copyright than about real tech.

And then there was Level 3 BASIC: an extension which later on became available with the introduction of disk based systems and implemented the full 16 K Microsoft Basic (yay)...

The poster in here who referred to having lost everything when Mum pulled the plug unintentionaly is right: that's how it was. But .. there was a cassette deck that one could plug in and record his/her programs, for later retrieval. Who ever had to sit and stare - white knuckles - to the blinking asterisk on screen - and then, when the program almost had completely loaded see a 'C' appear in front of it (as in 'C'hecksum error) still bears the scars, I'm sure...

originally posted by: roadgravel
Anyone still have an old wind up alarm clock. I remember falling asleep to the sound of the ticking.

Yep...my oldest daughter loves hers and she is 8. I found my old one in my parents house and she uses it, though she forgets to wind it half the time.

originally posted by: PheonixReborn

originally posted by: FyreByrd
a reply to: neformore

DOS!!!

I remember my old boss taking a call from his wife when she was having a problem with their home computer and him shouting "No! Do NOT format c!"

i laughed so hard i had a tear. NOOOOOOOO!

I can go to a gas station in the next town over from where I live. If i pay for anything with my card I hear that old dial up modem and am instantly transported back 15 years.
I once diagnosed that my modem was going out because I had memorized the sound. and in the middle it was missing steps in its process.

I could write a list for days about things that once were and no longer are, and that no one younger than my generation seems to know or care about lol. So this will be somewhat tongue in cheek, and darkly humorous. Thus I sincerely hope no one takes it too seriously. But if I'm honest, the sentiment is earnest, even if the choice of words is not. Here goes...



Not having to dial 1 and then the area code even for local numbers. It used to be that if you were dialing a phone number in your same area code, you needed only to dial the 7 digit number itself. Today, almost everywhere (and if this isn't true where you are, it will be soon,) the fuller format is required even locally.

Watching live concerts with your own eyes instead of through a phone camera. Yes, there was a time when you would look out across the darkened audience and see twinkling lights in people's hands... and they were lighters! Rocking back and forth to the music. Appreciating and engaging with the artist they had paid to see, possibly making a pilgrimage of sorts to do so. Today? Those lights are still there. But they're usually cell phones. *Shudders*

On a related note: people actually being observant of their surroundings and paying full attention to what they were doing, rather than constantly looking down at their phones. Today people look at their phones while petting their animals (who look longingly and confusedly up at them for some scant moment of eye contact which never comes,) driving, walking, hell even while sitting mere feet from one another on the same couch. (Yes, I've seen it happen.)

The pursuit of ever better sonic fidelity, and the appreciation of full albums, complete with inserts. You see, long ago, we had phonograph records. And while I still own many - and love - the sound and "feel" of records, records were replaced by eight tracks and cassettes, as these afforded greater sonic clarity. Then these too were replaced by CDs, further improving audio quality and eliminating the tape "hiss." As time passed, greater bit-depths and sample rates further enhanced sonic quality. This continued until, like so many things qualitatively damaged by it... the internet. Digital distribution requires smaller file formats, which means compression. Mp3s (now mp4s) became the format of choice.

For the first time, the "new" media format was qualitatively inferior to the previous format, rather than an improvement. Yes, my young friends... surprise... mp3s actually sound worse than lossless file formats in terms of absolute fidelity. You are sacrificing sound quality and stereo width and dynamic range for convenience and price. In so doing, the art of the complete album - and the appreciation thereof - has also died an all but complete death thanks to the 24 hour news cycle, and the obsession with singles and their much hyped releases. People used to sit in darkened rooms, a candle or lamp illuminating album inserts, which would color and influence the interpretation of a full album listened to from start to finish. It was an experience. It was a journey. No one has time or patience for that today.

The feeling of owning a complete product. Ever bought a video game lately? Holy crap. Hoop #1: Decide which retailer to buy it at, as each one has different preorder bonuses. Hoop #2: Determine if said game requires the internet to function or not. Hoop #3: Enter your PIN code or other validation process. Hoop #4: Create an account and sign in. Hoop #5: Buy the season pass so that you don't feel like you're missing out or paying even more for the "optional" content the publisher decided to lock, er I mean, create! Hoop #6: Download the day one DLC that's already on the disc (or rather, the 10 kb code that unlocks it.) Video games are downright modular now.

And don't you dare complain about it. If you do, you're being "self-entitled." (Which is the actual term incidentally, not merely "entitled." Entitled means you are entitled to something, whereas what publishers and those who defend them actually mean is that people are falsely thinking of themselves as entitled. For that, you want to use "self-entitled." It's still erroneous, as paying money for a product ABSOLUTELY entitles you to criticize it and its creator, but at least use the right terminology if you're going to make such assertions.) So I will also add to the list:

The normalcy of consumer advocacy and siding with consumers over corporations. Corporations have played a very clever trick: convincing their customers to defend them and be partisans for their horribly anti-consumer business practices. Very clever indeed. Not fooling people like me, but enough people that the tide has turned decidedly away from consumer protections and toward favoring just about anything convenient, cheap, and "fun." Because people genuinely just don't care as long as those criteria are met.

I think that's enough for now. Here ends my lament. Yes, I know I'm just old and out of touch. Once you're over 30, companies no longer market things to you. So, quite literally, these things aren't for me anyway today. And I don't want to come off as bitter. But it's still sad. It will happen to you too, millennials. Just wait...

Peace.

We have an old projector in the basement somewhere that includes movies of my long gone Uncle water skiing at what looks like a forested lake. But is now our downtown area full of highrises and marina's. One of the reels of film is an old stag movie I assume, featuring Marilyn Monroe topless playing with an apple and a open bottle of Coke.
I kid you not, B&W in all it's glory.

I also miss my dad yelling don't touch that dial to myself and brother. :-) I was too young but dad used to drag my older brother up on the roof to turn the antenna in the winter time so we could watch the Stanly Cup finals.
The original 6 teams were ok but when they expanded to 12 there was a lot of roof time involved.

What a great read and I smiled all through this thread. S&F
Regards, Iwinder

a reply to: AutumnWitch657

There are at least two Sinclairs in the Phoenix area. Still with the big green Dino.