<p>for the middle-aged architects out there:
leroy machines
pin-dot overlays
chemical changes to a sepia print
pen & ink drawings</p>
<p>for the real old-timers: setting up our own pins at a bowling alley!</p>
<p>Splicing 8mm movies (that had to be sent to Kodak for developing), and synchronizing the soundtrack with the reel to reel tape recorder for a creative school project!
(What we could have achieved with video! Hah!)</p>
<p>Knowing my Alphabet, I can still look up words in the dictionary faster than my kids can google them…</p>
<p>Writing out checks by hand and actually mailing them via the Post Office
Counting out your exact change when someone pays in cash at a store
Actually paying cash for something
Cutting and pasting on drafts of a paper or manuscript you are writing and correcting
Percolating coffee
Punching to holes in Punchcards to go into your room-size computer</p>
<p>Repairing messed-up cassette tapes and cassettes</p>
<p>By poking a pencil in the hole and re-winding it? Oh yeah. Or, to be daring, giving a quick pull to the cassette tape and hoping it rewinds itself. </p>
<p>And from the wit and wisdom of Dr. Duncan from ZITS:</p>
<p>“Back in my day computers had to be programmed by punching tiny holes in hundreds of cards that had to then be painstakingly arranged in perfect order (pause) That’s when geeks were geeks, my friend” </p>
<p>And, in reminiscing about his huge dorm speakers:</p>
<p>“Hook these bad babies up to a receiver, slide the vinyl out of the album sleeve and put it on the turntable, put the needle in the groove and you’d have 30 minutes of fairly distortion-free music. (pause) Then you’d flip the album over to play side two”. To which Jeremy replied “Who ARE you? Thomas Edison?”</p>
<p>hahah k: What about amonia based blue print machines?</p>
<p>Another general one:
Licking stamps</p>
<p>Advanced cassette tape repairs: prying open the cassette, unwinding the messed-up tape; rearranging it; Scotch(R)-taping ripped pieces, putting the whole thing back together; hoping it’ll play now (this last step is critical)</p>
<p>Anyone remember this skill?—The art of flicking and swishing the cloth diaper while flushing the commode and not losing the diaper into the plumbing? Or (if there is only one commode in house), the art of holding your bladder so that you are not the next one that “has to go” while there is a diaper soaking in the toilet?</p>
<p>Ammonia based blueprint machines. I still have my prints done that way. It costs a third as much! We drew everything with pen and ink when I worked in Germany 1985-89.</p>
<p>You must not use CAD!! :eek: </p>
<p>I confess, though I loved hand drawing, CAD is amazing–and keeps getting better. We have our own HP printer–and are considering an upgrade to super fast printer. HP stuff goes forever. The prints aren’t expensive–and my lungs are healthier I am sure! Printing out or even rolling out a set of real blueprints would like to kill you some days…LOL</p>
<p>I am sure I will feel the same about models one day. Still doing the building models by hand–but the site models cut by computer are phenomenal–especially when when doing a model for a mountainous 3000 acre site. My fingers ache just thinking about having to cut that out, countour by contour.</p>
<p>I’m a one person firm doing mostly additions. I haven’t felt any great need for CAD yet. (I did learn version 5.0 or so of AUTOCAD in German - it was very unwieldy back then.) I go out to my prints - get me out of my home office - so someone else is getting poisoned. I don’t miss running my own prints!</p>
<p>Setting 3 1/2 inch diskettes to write protect. Now was that open or closed hole?</p>
<p>Post on licking stamps reminded me of grocery store “redemption” stamps: Collecting them each week, piling them up in a drawer, then organizing a family stamp sticking party (card table, sponge in a dish to wet stamps on) making a huge mess and then having a cache of Blue or Green or Orange stamp books that would be traded for items in a catalogue. I got my first and only baseball glove this way. I believe we also had a stepstool, a manure spreader, and a set of very floral “tv” tray tables acquired this way–and some very ugly “throw” pillows that my mother did not like us to throw.</p>
<p>And then there were the gas station dish sets one acquired cup by cup…</p>
<p>Adjusting the TV antenna</p>
<p>Does anyone remember these: </p>
<p>Collecting the tin foil gum liners and folding them to make a zig-zag chain.</p>
<p>Ripping the little horizontal piece of fabric off a boy’s shirt (we used to call them ■■■ tags).</p>
<p>Inserting shiny new pennies in your new penny loafers before the first day of school.</p>
<p>Using white liquid shoe polish on your canvas sneakers (in a pinch, rubbing them with white chalk).</p>
<p>Keeping track of your budget using a budget book.</p>
<p>Figuring out driving directions by yourself and highlighting your route on a paper map.</p>
<p>Chopping and shredding vegetables by hand (no food processors)</p>
<p>Grinding meat using a cast iron, bolted-to-the -able hand meat grinder.</p>
<p>Using a manual can opener.</p>
<p>Making book covers out of brown paper shopping bags.</p>
<p>“Erasing” the entire screen on the Etch-a-Sketch so you could see the mechanism inside.</p>
<p>Remembering to “undo” your Tinker Toy constructions before humid days (if not, the wood would swell and the connections would be impossible to pull apart).</p>
<p>Learning how high you could life your arm when writing on the blackboard in front of the class without your A-line mini-dress riding up to your waist.</p>
<p>Trying to look cool while carrying your books in a briefcase to school.</p>
<p>Pulling your snow boots off without leaving your shoe inside.</p>
<p>Oooh - I love this thread - it brings back such memories!</p>
<p>Collecting soda can tabs.</p>
<p>
I had forgotten about this! Bet there were alot of moms that hated all of us girls that destroyed their boys’ shirts.</p>
<p>Wow, we never did this (ripping piece from shirts) & don’t recall it ever happening at any of the schools I attended. Wonder what years this involved?</p>
<p>I clearly remember girls tearing them off of the boys shirts. On the same level as poorly masked aggression and sexualized behavior seen where boys yanked girls bra straps and snapped them. Seems to me though that the girls were seldom ratted out and punished.</p>
<p>Those loops were hanging loops found on the pleat of button-down shirts. They were called ‘fruit loops’ where I lived and yes, we too pulled them off. That would have been in the late '60s when the local boys school had a dress code required button down shirts, ties, and jackets. (And hair that didn’t touch the collar.)</p>
<p>As someone who made a lot of spare change over the years by doing hand mending for people, I will assure those of you who pulled them off that in fact it does very little damage to the shirt.</p>