posted by Tchoin on Jul 29, 2009:
From an article I read today:
Audio-Visual Entertainment
1. Inserting a VHS tape into a VCR to watch a movie or to record something.
2. Super-8 movies and cine film of all kinds.
3. Playing music on an audio tape using a personal stereo. See what happens when you give a Walkman to today’s teenager.
4. The number of TV channels being a single digit. I remember it being a massive event when Britain got its fourth channel.
5. Standard-definition, CRT TVs filling up half your living room.
6. Rotary dial televisions with no remote control. You know, the ones where the kids were the remote control.
7. High-speed dubbing.
8. 8-track cartridges.
9. Vinyl records. Even today’s DJs are going laptop or CD.
10. Betamax tapes.
11. MiniDisc.
12. Laserdisc: the LP of DVD.
13. Scanning the radio dial and hearing static between stations. (Digital tuners + HD radio b0rk this concept.)
14. Shortwave radio.
15. 3-D movies meaning red-and-green glasses.
16. Watching TV when the networks say you should. Tivo and Sky+ are slowing killing this one.
17. That there was a time before ‘reality TV.’
Computers and Videogaming
18. Wires. OK, so they’re not gone yet, but it won’t be long
19. The scream of a modem connecting.
20. The buzz of a dot-matrix printer
21. 5- and 3-inch floppies, Zip Discs and countless other forms of data storage.
22. Using jumpers to set IRQs.
23. DOS.
24. Terminals accessing the mainframe.
25. Screens being just green (or orange) on black.
26. Tweaking the volume setting on your tape deck to get a computer game to load, and waiting ages for it to actually do it.
27. Daisy chaining your SCSI devices and making sure they’ve all got a different ID.
28. Counting in kilobytes.
29. Wondering if you can afford to buy a RAM upgrade.
30. Blowing the dust out of a NES cartridge in the hopes that it’ll load this time.
31. Turning a PlayStation on its end to try and get a game to load.
32. Joysticks.
33. Having to delete something to make room on your hard drive.
34. Booting your computer off of a floppy disk.
35. Recording a song in a studio.
The Internet
36. NCSA Mosaic.
37. Finding out information from an encyclopedia.
38. Using a road atlas to get from A to B.
39. Doing bank business only when the bank is open.
40. Shopping only during the day, Monday to Saturday.
41. Phone books and Yellow Pages.
42. Newspapers and magazines made from dead trees.
43. Actually being able to get a domain name consisting of real words.
44. Filling out an order form by hand, putting it in an envelope and posting it.
45. Not knowing exactly what all of your friends are doing and thinking at every moment.
46. Carrying on a correspondence with real letters, especially the handwritten kind.
47. Archie searches.
48. Gopher searches.
49. Concatenating and UUDecoding binaries from Usenet.
50. Privacy.
51. The fact that words generally don’t have num8er5 in them.
52. Correct spelling of phrases, rather than TLAs.
53. Waiting several minutes (or even hours!) to download something.
54. The time before botnets/security vulnerabilities due to always-on and always-connected PCs
55. The time before PC networks.
56. When Spam was just a meat product — or even a Monty Python sketch.
Gadgets
57. Typewriters.
58. Putting film in your camera: 35mm may have some life still, but what about APS or disk?
59. Sending that film away to be processed.
60. Having physical prints of photographs come back to you.
61. CB radios.
62. Getting lost. With GPS coming to more and more phones, your location is only a click away.
63. Rotary-dial telephones.
64. Answering machines.
65. Using a stick to point at information on a wallchart
66. Pay phones.
67. Phones with actual bells in them.
68. Fax machines.
69. Vacuum cleaners with bags in them.
Everything Else
70. Taking turns picking a radio station, or selecting a tape, for everyone to listen to during a long drive.
71. Remembering someone’s phone number.
72. Not knowing who was calling you on the phone.
73. Actually going down to a Blockbuster store to rent a movie.
74. Toys actually being suitable for the under-3s.
75. LEGO just being square blocks of various sizes, with the odd wheel, window or door.
76. Waiting for the television-network premiere to watch a movie after its run at the theater.
77. Relying on the 5-minute sport segment on the nightly news for baseball highlights.
78. Neat handwriting.
79. The days before the nanny state.
80. Starbuck being a man.
81. Han shoots first.
82. “Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.” But they’ve already seen episode III, so it’s no big surprise.
83. Kentucky Fried Chicken, as opposed to KFC.
84. Trig tables and log tables.
85. “Don’t know what a slide rule is for …”
86. Finding books in a card catalog at the library.
87. Swimming pools with diving boards.
88. Hershey bars in silver wrappers.
89. Sliding the paper outer wrapper off a Kit-Kat, placing it on the palm of your hand and clapping to make it bang loudly. Then sliding your finger down the silver foil to break off the first finger
90. A Marathon bar (what a Snickers used to be called in Britain).
91. Having to manually unlock a car door.
92. Writing a check.
93. Looking out the window during a long drive.
94. Roller skates, as opposed to blades.
95. Cash.
96. Libraries as a place to get books rather than a place to use the internet.
97. Spending your entire allowance at the arcade in the mall.
98. Omni Magazine
99. A physical dictionary — either for spelling or definitions.
100. When a ‘geek’ and a ‘nerd’ were one and the same.
Link to full article (Wired)
100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About
100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About
posted by z_killemall on Jul 29, 2009:
LOL, most of them are SO true! Nice one
LOL, most of them are SO true! Nice one
100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About
posted by feder on Jul 29, 2009:
Cash will still exist in the real world for a loooong time, it's not going anywhere, many people feel safer having their real money in a real bank.
Going back to the list, I feel that most of the list is true. Personally the saddest one in the list are the photos, before digital cameras you could only take 36 photos and you couldn't see them, every photo had to be planned and they had something special, and after taking the photos you had to develop the roll film and get physical copies of it. Nowadays photos don't mean shit, people take thousands of photographs that they don't even care about, and then they don't even print them.
95. Cash.
Cash will still exist in the real world for a loooong time, it's not going anywhere, many people feel safer having their real money in a real bank.
Going back to the list, I feel that most of the list is true. Personally the saddest one in the list are the photos, before digital cameras you could only take 36 photos and you couldn't see them, every photo had to be planned and they had something special, and after taking the photos you had to develop the roll film and get physical copies of it. Nowadays photos don't mean shit, people take thousands of photographs that they don't even care about, and then they don't even print them.
100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About
posted by WolverineDK on Jul 29, 2009:
feder: I am one of those goons that prefers a real physical copy of my film, and also I prefer having real hard copy negatives of my pictures, cause bitrot can really be a killer, and oh yeah I am still damn proud of having a professional analogue camera.
feder: I am one of those goons that prefers a real physical copy of my film, and also I prefer having real hard copy negatives of my pictures, cause bitrot can really be a killer, and oh yeah I am still damn proud of having a professional analogue camera.
100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About
posted by madhatter256 on Jul 29, 2009:
A lot of retailers and banks (well mostly banks) are trying to make cash obsolete.
It will get to the point where purchases will be done electronically and not a simple cash transfer.
I do like to have cash on me, but I rarely do lol. I use my card all the time as I don't ahve to fumble with coins in my pockets, etc. and if I ever get robbed, it will be hard for them to use my card as it has my picture on it and I can easily call in and cancel it.
One thing I do worry about are the RFI cards that they are developing. They kinda have them out now for some gas stations where you 'wave' your card and it automatically does the transaction and no buttons were pressed.
A lot of retailers and banks (well mostly banks) are trying to make cash obsolete.
It will get to the point where purchases will be done electronically and not a simple cash transfer.
I do like to have cash on me, but I rarely do lol. I use my card all the time as I don't ahve to fumble with coins in my pockets, etc. and if I ever get robbed, it will be hard for them to use my card as it has my picture on it and I can easily call in and cancel it.
One thing I do worry about are the RFI cards that they are developing. They kinda have them out now for some gas stations where you 'wave' your card and it automatically does the transaction and no buttons were pressed.
100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About
posted by Hawanja on Jul 29, 2009:
One we can add to that list is buying a game from a store, instead of downloading it from a live service.
Yeah those are too unsecure, never thought those were a good idea.
One thing I do worry about are the RFI cards that they are developing. They kinda have them out now for some gas stations where you 'wave' your card and it automatically does the transaction and no buttons were pressed.
One we can add to that list is buying a game from a store, instead of downloading it from a live service.
100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About
posted by 7Force on Jul 29, 2009:
I don't remember using tapes for anything myself, so maybe that was something my parents' kids may never know about
Tchoin said:
3. Playing music on an audio tape using a personal stereo. See what happens when you give a Walkman to today’s teenager.
You might as well put "listening to music on the radio" on the list, because when everybody's carrying around iPods, why do you need radio?
13. Scanning the radio dial and hearing static between stations. (Digital tuners + HD radio b0rk this concept.)
What the hell are these things?
47. Archie searches.
48. Gopher searches.
Not if it's up to me..if I ever have kids, I'll keep them far away from those terrible prequels! :110:
82. “Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.” But they’ve already seen episode III, so it’s no big surprise.
100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About
posted by Jamtex on Jul 29, 2009:
This article is a bit disjointed as some of the things mentioned really ceased as far as the later 70s and early 80s where as others are still available even today. A lot of 30 year olds have kids so their kids are aware of these items and the 20 somethings of today don't have kids and probably didn't do half the things on this list.... In your future you're grandkids might never have to even load a optical disc into a drive...
It also can't make up it's mind whether the list is meant to be American or British...
I am sure if this list was written in 1960 then they might have written
1 - The joys of Hoop and stick
2 - Travelling on train and getting a good lungful of soot
3 - Having a choice of 1st, 2nd and 3rd class train tickets
4 - Getting TB and spending countless weeks in hospital
5 - Going to Church
6 - Waiting 30 minutes for the wireless to warm up
7 - Playing in the street
8 - Being able to buy a house
etc
Going through the list a lot of them are pushing it... quite a few items you could buy now.
2 - Super 8 is still available, still used a lot today to make lo-fi films.. Although how many under 35s really had any contact with Super 8 as a kid?
3 - Sony and Panasonic in Japan still actively make Personal stereos, not as many as in the hayday of walkmans but you can walk into a large electronic store in Japan and buy a tape walkman...
6 - Pushing it as even in the late 70s a lot of TVs were push button type TVs.
8 - Yes again hands up all those under 35 that have seen a 8 Track let alone use one, especially as a kid? Maybe they should have added V2000 tapes plus CED and VHD videodiscs...
9 - Vinyl was meant to have been dead 15 years ago but it's still. Ironically it's still better quality then CD (better frequency response) and MP3s (better audio quality generally). Then again with loud music and crappy encoded music, most kids wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyway.
11 - Yes like outside Japan Minidisc ever took off anyway... ironically Minidisc is still a recordable format used in Japan...
14 - Shortwave radio is still around, and will still be around in 20 years time, won't be as big as the hayday of the 60s and 70s but I am sure you can force your kids to listen to it...
18 - I sort of doubt that wires will go completely away due to power induction not quite being ready to power a PC just yet and most wireless items requiring batteries to use and to be honest a wired mouse is probably less hassle then a wireless mouse.
20 - Impact printers are still made and sold and they will probably hear them for places that require multipart print outss
32 - Maybe someone should tell Hori to close down then... 2009 and you can still buy Joysticks, even the Wii has a Joystick...
33 - In the future maybe, but even today you would still probably delete things to free up gigabytes to download more crap.
35 - As yes recording in your bedroom will give you great results...
38 - If you device is dead then a road atlas which uses no power at all still comes in handy.
42 - I am willing to bet $10000 that in 20 years time there will still be magazines and newspapers printed on paper... they decided not to say books which have increased on a 5 years sales basis over the last 25 years...
43 - You mean like Assemblergames?
45 - I'm sure someone is going to go on a murderous rampage and twitter as they do it.
46 - I don't know letters, especially written ones are much nicer to get then emails.
47 / 48 - Not something that normal people did commonly, and especially not many of the 30 somethings here.
53 - Today you still have to wait several hours to download something... I can't see it being much different in 10 years time.
56 - I am sure the Spam company will still be selling spam in 20 years time.
59 - It's already said 35mm film still has life in it, how were they planning to process the film otherwise??? Disc died ages ago, it was a niche product and dies a quick death.
62 - Now all we need is self powering phones and we'll all be happy...
84 - Most schools stopped using trig and log tables back in the early 80s, which means you would need to be 40 plus now to have used them in the first place...
85 - See above...
88 - Not applicable in Europe, UK, etc...
89 - Foil covered kitkats might be shorter and better as the author is writing his own experiences...
90 - Howdy to you americans who always had stupidly named snickers bars.
92 - Or cheque even.
93 - Why will car windows become entertainment centres all of a sudden?
96 - Have all libraries stopped lending books? No and they will still be lending books 20 years from now...
98 - I had to look this up as it's a american magazine, still if it was that good then it would still be around... 1995 was still internet infancy so you can't say the Internet killed it off...
I do think the author could have spend more then 30 minutes typing in drivel.
This article is a bit disjointed as some of the things mentioned really ceased as far as the later 70s and early 80s where as others are still available even today. A lot of 30 year olds have kids so their kids are aware of these items and the 20 somethings of today don't have kids and probably didn't do half the things on this list.... In your future you're grandkids might never have to even load a optical disc into a drive...
It also can't make up it's mind whether the list is meant to be American or British...
I am sure if this list was written in 1960 then they might have written
1 - The joys of Hoop and stick
2 - Travelling on train and getting a good lungful of soot
3 - Having a choice of 1st, 2nd and 3rd class train tickets
4 - Getting TB and spending countless weeks in hospital
5 - Going to Church
6 - Waiting 30 minutes for the wireless to warm up
7 - Playing in the street
8 - Being able to buy a house
etc
Going through the list a lot of them are pushing it... quite a few items you could buy now.
2 - Super 8 is still available, still used a lot today to make lo-fi films.. Although how many under 35s really had any contact with Super 8 as a kid?
3 - Sony and Panasonic in Japan still actively make Personal stereos, not as many as in the hayday of walkmans but you can walk into a large electronic store in Japan and buy a tape walkman...
6 - Pushing it as even in the late 70s a lot of TVs were push button type TVs.
8 - Yes again hands up all those under 35 that have seen a 8 Track let alone use one, especially as a kid? Maybe they should have added V2000 tapes plus CED and VHD videodiscs...
9 - Vinyl was meant to have been dead 15 years ago but it's still. Ironically it's still better quality then CD (better frequency response) and MP3s (better audio quality generally). Then again with loud music and crappy encoded music, most kids wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyway.
11 - Yes like outside Japan Minidisc ever took off anyway... ironically Minidisc is still a recordable format used in Japan...
14 - Shortwave radio is still around, and will still be around in 20 years time, won't be as big as the hayday of the 60s and 70s but I am sure you can force your kids to listen to it...
18 - I sort of doubt that wires will go completely away due to power induction not quite being ready to power a PC just yet and most wireless items requiring batteries to use and to be honest a wired mouse is probably less hassle then a wireless mouse.
20 - Impact printers are still made and sold and they will probably hear them for places that require multipart print outss
32 - Maybe someone should tell Hori to close down then... 2009 and you can still buy Joysticks, even the Wii has a Joystick...
33 - In the future maybe, but even today you would still probably delete things to free up gigabytes to download more crap.
35 - As yes recording in your bedroom will give you great results...
38 - If you device is dead then a road atlas which uses no power at all still comes in handy.
42 - I am willing to bet $10000 that in 20 years time there will still be magazines and newspapers printed on paper... they decided not to say books which have increased on a 5 years sales basis over the last 25 years...
43 - You mean like Assemblergames?
45 - I'm sure someone is going to go on a murderous rampage and twitter as they do it.
46 - I don't know letters, especially written ones are much nicer to get then emails.
47 / 48 - Not something that normal people did commonly, and especially not many of the 30 somethings here.
53 - Today you still have to wait several hours to download something... I can't see it being much different in 10 years time.
56 - I am sure the Spam company will still be selling spam in 20 years time.
59 - It's already said 35mm film still has life in it, how were they planning to process the film otherwise??? Disc died ages ago, it was a niche product and dies a quick death.
62 - Now all we need is self powering phones and we'll all be happy...
84 - Most schools stopped using trig and log tables back in the early 80s, which means you would need to be 40 plus now to have used them in the first place...
85 - See above...
88 - Not applicable in Europe, UK, etc...
89 - Foil covered kitkats might be shorter and better as the author is writing his own experiences...
90 - Howdy to you americans who always had stupidly named snickers bars.
92 - Or cheque even.
93 - Why will car windows become entertainment centres all of a sudden?
96 - Have all libraries stopped lending books? No and they will still be lending books 20 years from now...
98 - I had to look this up as it's a american magazine, still if it was that good then it would still be around... 1995 was still internet infancy so you can't say the Internet killed it off...
I do think the author could have spend more then 30 minutes typing in drivel.
100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About
posted by alphagamer on Jul 29, 2009:
33. Having to delete something to make room on your hard drive.
i always had this problem, and always will. i know, i save WAY too much trash.
33. Having to delete something to make room on your hard drive.
i always had this problem, and always will. i know, i save WAY too much trash.
100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About
posted by Barc0de on Jul 29, 2009:
You can't discuss MiniDisc without mentioning DAT. I m surprised no one thought of DAT, although you're clearly older than I am (never seen an 8track in my life in person)
You can't discuss MiniDisc without mentioning DAT. I m surprised no one thought of DAT, although you're clearly older than I am
(never seen an 8track in my life in person)