<p>Fun thread!</p>
<p>Floppy disks??? What about key punch cards?</p>
<p>When I first started teaching I had several purple tops to wear when I had to use the mimeo!</p>
<p>lol
what does CB mean anyway？</p>
<p>Sent from my LT18i using CC</p>
<p>CB = Citizen’s Band, as in Citizen’s Band radio.</p>
<p>It’s a two-way radio that doesn’t require a license to use, its popularity peaked in the 70’s.</p>
<p>I guess I really am older than dirt. I used a slide rule for chemistry - 11th grade - 1971/72. I think my family got their first calculator that year, but I didn’t have my own calculator till I went to college and even then I used to go to the science library and check out the HPs with reverse Polish notation to do the complicated stuff.</p>
<p>When DD was in kindergarten (she’s 23 now), DH and I couldn’t help but laugh when she came home talking about her teacher’s giant black CD that played on a machine where you could watch it go round and round. She’d never seen a record. Now she collects certain vinyl records.</p>
<p>One of my most prized possessions is my dad’s slide rule from his college days. I’ve never used one; I was in the first generation of calculator-users. I had to really plead for one; they were more than $200. :eek:</p>
<p>Remember 8-tracks?</p>
<p>Would our younger high schoolers even know what cassette tapes are? Maybe they still remember those.</p>
<p>On slide rules and calculators:
I took two years of chemistry in high school. The first year everyone used slide rules. During the second year, calculators started becoming available. Every few weeks, someone would come in and show off their new calculator–it was always better than the ones the earlier adopters had. By the end of the year, slide rules were history. I used an HP reverse polish calculator all through undergrad.</p>
<p>On phones:
Last spring DS’s cell phone stopped working right before he came home for spring break. So when his flight arrived ealier than we expected, he had to use a pay phone to call. That was the first time in his life he had ever used a pay phone. </p>
<p>My a cappella group’s repertoire includes “Operator” (Manhattan Transfer). We all had to explain to our kids what an operator was.</p>
<p>Rotary Phones…DD said she thinks she’d forget the number by the time she dialed in the first several digits because it take so long. Do you remember how heavy those old MaBell sets used to be…the ones with the brass ringer domes.</p>
<p>Oh, and when she left her cell phone at home (oh the horror of a 3 hour separation) she could not call her SO since she didn’t know his number…only the speed dial key.</p>
<p>My kids wonder why we say “dial” the number…when no one ever dials.</p>
<p>OK…slide ruler users…how many of you had a circular slide rule (I did!!)?</p>
<p>Motherbear…you are so lucky your kid found a pay phone. There aren’t many around here at all anymore.</p>
<p>Some years ago, my D saw a typewriter and asked where the screen was. </p>
<p>She recently saw a typewriter being used (at a passport office, to fill in a form) and was shocked that they are still in use.</p>
<p>I remember in math class we made rudimentary slides rules when we were studying logarithms. 6th or 7th grade, maybe.</p>
<p>This just happened today. I said, “someone would not be likely to be able to pull the wool over your eyes” to D. She had never heard that before.</p>
<p>I still have my side ruler from high school and a typewriter and a reel to reel and a turntable.</p>
<p>Didn’t read every single post so, sorry if this was mentioned…I once (kiddingly) said to my boys “if you don’t stop I’m gonna brain you!!” well I think they stopped breathing, said whaaaaaa??? and cracked up laughing!!</p>
<p>Frankly, I was glad the slide rule has disappeared from memory. I could never, ever get the hang of the sliderule! </p>
<p>A few years ago we were in SF for the King Tut exhibit, where you wait in line before going in. There were some writings on the wall about the discovery of the tomb, and I overhead a child asking his dad “What’s a telegraph?”</p>
<p>Made me laugh. Then I realized that the telegraph was just the forerunner of twitter: having to send a message with the fewest characters possible!</p>
<p>My 15 year old didn’t know that DJ stood for “disc jockey” … “what’s that?” he said!</p>
<p>This is a great thread. </p>
<p>I regularly do the LA Times Sunday crossword puzzle (and only that puzzle), and have several books of them I take with me wherever I go, for use during ‘down time’. A couple of weeks ago I started noticing that ‘my generation’ may be the last to be able to answer some of the clues relatively quickly and easily due to some of the vernacular slipping away. I feel fortunate that "just"aGrandMom was a vocalist and had ‘records’ playing on the ‘Victrola’ all the time, playing standards and show tunes, so I am filled to the brim with lyrics and story lines. We never watched ‘the tube’(!). I did the same with "just"aDaughter, she too is filled with musical knowledge. She did however watch some ‘boob tube’, and when she would watch it with "just"aGREATGrandMom would be asked to fetch ‘the clicker’ for ease of channel changing. </p>
<p>Some of favorites:
Fit as a fiddle.
Right as rain.
Over the moon.
Get off my cloud.
Crazy as a loon.
Ugly as sin.
Not on my watch.</p>
<p>“My kids wonder why we say “dial” the number…when no one ever dials.”</p>
<p>How about that we still mime ‘rolling down the window’ in a car! No one rolls down a window, but no one would know to lower the window if all we did was raise and lower our index finger! ;)</p>
<p>^^I have a 2002 Corolla with windows that roll down. I actually like that kind better. </p>
<p>I do a lot of crosswords too, and I’ve noticed that they often reference things that seem outdated even to someone in her 60s!</p>