Monday, May 24, 2010

March of the Gadgets

A while back, in one of my posts, I mentioned in passing the old film projectors (and the reel-type movies that came in the big old metal cannisters) that we had back when I was in school. In a comment to that post, my friend Lime, who is probably 12 or 13 years my junior, noted that they still had those projectors when she was in school. Which got me to wondering just when VCRs drove the old-style film projectors out of the schools. Any of you young whippersnappers care to enlighten me?

Those little 'background technologies' are, for me, a fascinating glimpse of history, sort-of a more 'mundane' version of 'Where Were You When. . .?'. I'm not even really talking about the big 'foreground stuff', like how my grandparents were born into a world in which horses were the main engines of transportation and work, and before they died, they saw men walking on the moon. Rather, I have in mind the more 'background' stuff that you don't particularly think about, but that significantly color the day-to-day ways that you live your life. Like my grandma's old wringer-style washing machine, and stuff like that. . .

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My dad is old enough to remember when Rural Electrification (one of FDR's Alphabet Agencies) came to his dad's farm. Which, conversely, means that he's old enough to remember what life was like before his dad's house had electricity - the gas-light spigots on the walls, doing chores by lantern-light, and stuff like that. . . I remember as a kid, being aghast that they didn't have TVs when my dad was a kid (my dad's speech is still full of little idioms like, "Holy mackerel, Andy!" that I found out much later were relics of the radio shows he listened to in his childhood).

This all came rushing back to my mind when my kids were similarly aghast that, when I was a kid, we didn't have VCRs. And how do I explain to them the trips we took to the store when I was a kid, with an armload of vacuum tubes to check on the drug-store's Tube Tester, to find the one that was fritzed, so we could replace it, and get our TV working again?

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Jen and I have tended to be a tad 'behind the curve' when it comes to 'technological innovations' (which at least had the beneficial effect of sparing us from 8-track tapes). It was well into the 90s when, in the space of a year or two, we got our first microwave oven, our first VCR, and our first cordless phone. Most of which was driven by our in-house population boom - microwave ovens meant that we could heat an after-school snack in 30 seconds or so (which becomes more critical when you need four or five of them in quick succession); a VCR meant that we weren't held captive to network TV programming, and a cordless phone meant that Jen could conduct her daily business on the phone without being tethered to within 25 feet of the phone (before we 'went cordless', we bought an extra-long 25-foot cord for the handset, so Jen could reach about half of the main floor of our house). The cordless phone also eliminated the coiled cord snaking through the house for the kids to 'clothesline' themselves on. Although we have found that it's handy to keep an old cord-style phone tucked away, in case the power ever goes out. . .

I still have, stashed away in my attic, boxes of 12-inch black-vinyl discs (and a turntable to play them on, although I'm not sure it would be compatible with my stereo anymore) which constituted my collection of recorded music from my college days. By the early 80s, the market was well on its way over to casette tapes, which were in turn driven out by CDs in the 90s. So, I've rolled over my music collection a couple times. By now, I've got most of my favorite old vinyl albums on CD, but there are a few that haven't been issued on CD yet, and probably never will be. . .

Likewise, my library of VHS movies has mostly been converted to DVDs by now, but there are a few that never will be. We bought a combo VCR/DVD a couple years ago, with the intention of converting some of the old VHS tapes to DVDs, but I think you need at least a Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering to program that stuff. But at least the combo unit will still play the old VHS tapes, so as long as it lives, we've still got access to them. . .

With phones, we're already to the point where cell phones are ingrained in our daily lives, and we can't quite imagine how we ever got by without them. I got my first cell phone on a promotional deal from my car-insurance company, when I started commuting an hour one-way to work, figuring that I would be glad to have it if I ever had car trouble 50 miles from home (which I did, and I was). I made maybe a half-dozen 'emergency' calls a year on it, and that was fine. Then, some years back, 4M talked us into getting a 'family plan' so we could all be in closer touch. Of course, he had other things in mind beyond simply keeping in touch with his parents, and we quickly learned that he could receive calls from other people than just us, so we entered into a whole new realm of trying to manage our kids' cell-phone usage. Which I'm not sure we've managed yet; at least, not terribly effectively. Some of our friends have dispensed with their 'land lines' altogether; we're not quite to that point, but it's not an exotic concept to us anymore. . .

It's funny, but I remember when fax machines were this gee-whiz new technology (maybe 15-20 years ago?), and now hardly anybody faxes anything anymore. Mostly because of e-mail. And you can all congratulate Jen, who got her first e-mail account about six months ago, and has finally decided that she really ought to check it, maybe even as often as daily (I think the other day she had something like 75 items in her in-box; so she's getting some rudimentary 'training' just reading and deleting them)

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Here's a kinda cool one - I'm 54 years old; I graduated from high school in 1973. I think that my class was within a year or two of being the last one that was actually taught how to use a slide rule. When I was a college freshman, electronic calculators were still fairly exotic - a high-end 'scientific calculator' still cost something like $750. The Engineering College had one in the library that they kept locked to a heavy table, and you had to sign up for time on it. So you'd systematically work through your homework to get the problems to where they were finished except for the last few calculations that you needed the calculator for.

The college bookstore still carried a full line of slide rules when I arrived as a freshman; by my junior year, they were gone. My freshman roommate had a very basic 'four-function' calculator (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division), and we would have a steady stream of guys on our floor, coming to our room to use my roommate's calculator. Until one of the other guys on the floor came back from Christmas break with one that had a square-root key; then everybody (including us, when we needed to calculate a square-root) wore out the path to his door. My junior year, my folks got me a 'scientific calculator' for Christmas (which cost around $60; which shows how the 'market' had changed in just a couple years). And of course, now banks give away calculators - the size and thickness of a credit card - as a 'bonus' for opening a new account (or was that a few years ago, and utterly lame by now?). . .

My dad retired in the late '80s. One Christmas, a couple years after that, we were down at my parents' house for Christmas. All the gifts were handed out, and we were all sort-of sitting back, watching the grandkids play with their presents. My dad stood up, excused himself, and walked back down the hall. He returned a couple minutes later with an oblong black rectangular package. "You might as well have this," he said. "I don't suppose I'll be needing it much anymore." I immediately recognized it to be the leather case containing his slide rule. It was like an old warrior handing down his sword. I didn't know what to say; I was incredibly touched. Jen was in tears at the 'symbolic significance' of it. I still have my dad's slide rule; in fact, I've made a few minor repairs to the black-leather case. I still know how to use it; I suppose I should teach my own kids, if any of them are interested.

I know that, even now, it's mostly a museum-piece. But it wasn't that long ago - within my own lifetime, much less my dad's - that those little sticks of wood-and-ivory were the work-horses of scientific and engineering calculation. . .

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So - what about you all? What 'gadgets' do you remember that were common-as-air, once-upon-a-time, but have long-since gone by the board?

11 comments:

  1. I loved my transistor radio and kept it under my pillow to listen to a local spooky radio show late at night. Back when all the popular music was played on AM and FM was for old fogeys.

    VCR's in school must have happened after I graduated (1981). I remember my friend got a VCR around 1980 and it was really fun to be able to rent movies and watch them at her house. My parents, at the time, believed that the only people who bought VCR's were those interested in renting porn. I'm not kidding. They always made me tell them what movie I had watched.

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  2. Well, I used to use a typewriter a lot. There are about three working ones in the world now, I think. And are there any pay phones left? Phone booths! Where would Superman change these days?

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  3. I remember the films in grade school, while the VCRs made an appearance in high school. Maybe the late 1980's depending on what school a person attended and how quickly they adapted to the changes. I remember my father picking up our first VCR, I think in 1985 around.

    In reference to Suldog, I used a typewriter all the way into high school even though computers were slowly being introduced. Still had one when I graduated in 1993. And, there are still pay phones! I just saw someone using one today by the grocery store entrance.

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  4. I remember when my dad came home one afternoon with our first microwave oven. I must have been in late elementary school, probably early junior high. The thing was monsterous and incredibly expensive, and my mom fought against having it at all because she didn't believe it was possible for it to do all that microwave ovens were promised to do. Now, honestly, since she lives alone, it's about the only way she cooks!

    I also remember when my neighbor friend's family got a VCR. I was in early high school, and had to wait a few years before my family would get one. I'd be at her house every weekend and we'd watch rented movies. Always rented, never bought, because I can remember the VHS movies cost hundreds of dollars at that time.

    Also, in my mom's basement are huge containers filled with all my albums. We don't have any stereos with turntables anymore, but oh, how I wish I did!

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  5. Cocotte - Transistor radios are a good one! I mostly used mine to catch ball games from the West Coast. . .

    I guess I'm a little surprised that VCRs hit the schools that late; but I suppose that makes sense. . .

    1980 is about when I saw my first VCR, too; a buddy taped the 'Miracle On Ice' hockey game. . .

    And you know, we always want to know what movies our kids are watching at friends' houses, too. . .

    Suldog - Typewriters! Yes! My parents gave me a typewriter as a HS graduation gift (so very practical, my parents). I don't know if there's any good way to tell my kids about what a pain in the ass it was, that making a mistake meant re-typing a whole page (to say nothing of how, being an engineering student, it was a major PITA to type math equations). I think word-processing programs are one of the greatest inventions of my life. . .

    And I recall one of the Superman movies from the early 80s or so, making a sight-gag about the 'phone booths' of the day, which weren't the enclosed ones you and I grew up with. . .

    Michelle - So you basically corroborate Cocotte, that VCRs hit the schools in the late 80s. . .

    And yeah - some of the grocery stores around here still have pay phones, too. . .

    faDKoG - Yeah, those early microwaves were pretty clunky, weren't they?

    And I remember, too, how cool it seemed when VHS tapes got to be actually reasonable to buy. . .

    And you know what gives me a chuckle? That there's a small set of 'sound snobs' that's actually more-or-less reviving black vinyl; they actually like the scratchy hiss-and-pop. . .

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  6. Let's see. . . I remember lots of things mentioned in your post and the comments. In addition to those, I'll add:

    Keypunch cards! When I took computer science in college we had to create and run decks and decks of keypunch cards. Oh the woe when an errent comma or tragic typo on one card trashed a whole program. Sigh. . .

    Rotary telephones You truly dialed these instead of punching buttons. Just imagine! I also remember party lines too when you always had to listen before dialing to make sure none of the neighbors were on the line.

    Clotheslines Everybody had a clothesline and only the lazy people used their clothes dryers on any but the worst weather days.

    Wringer Washers I used to help my grandma do the laundry and loved running the newly clean sopping wet clothes through the wringer.

    Outhouses Yep the kind that's just a wooden shack over a hole in the ground with a handy stack of corncobs nearby.

    Okay, I fear I'm starting to sound much older than I am, but my grandparents' place was pretty old fashioned even for the time (1960's) until they moved to town so I remember lots of things most my age don't.

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  7. Hi, Jan; good to see you in the Yard again. . .

    All good stuff; I remember most all of it. And as long as we're on rotary-dial phones, how 'bout TVs that you had to walk across the room and turn the dial to change channels?

    When I was in college, there were horror stories of guys whose PhD thesis was two or three boxes of punch cards, spilling them when they tripped on the stairs. . .

    I once told Jen I was gonna get her a Solar-Powered clothes-dryer, and she got all excited until I handed her a coil of rope. But we hung our clothes on a line in the warm months, right up until we moved to our new house ten years ago (it doesn't have a good place to run a line, like the old one did).

    My grandma also had a wringer-type washing machine, at least into my teens.

    I'm not sure, but I think I remember my paternal grandparents still having an outhouse when I was a small child. At any rate, you can still find outhouses (aka pit toilets) at the more 'rustic' state parks in Michigan. . .

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  8. i have to confess i have never actually touched a slide rule. i think it has to do both with my age and my severe math allergy.

    i recall as a child, visiting my grandmother who was a switchboard operator. i thought she was some sort of genius to know where to plug all those cords and to do it so fast.

    as a teacher i think to classroom technology. i remember film strips and slide shows as a student. heck, i actually still have my own slide projector and heaps of slides. as a kid i remember the purple ditto worksheets but even as a student teacher i had to learn how to use the ditto machine. then i learned why some of my teachers seemed so happy to go run off dittos when the class got unruly...

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  9. Hi, Lime!

    Listen, if you ever do feel the need to touch a slide rule, I got one here. Just, you know, in case. . . ;)

    I don't think I ever lived anywhere that had a live human switchboard operator. Altho, probably into my college years, we could still dial '0' to get an operator.

    I remember film strips. I don't think my kids would have any idea what they are. . .

    When I was in grad school (77-78), I taught a couple classes, and I had to use the ditto machine, too (is that the same thing as a mimeograph, or was that something else?). And yeah - the ditto-buzz. . . This raises another question - when did xerox-type photocopies drive dittos out of the market?

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  10. i think a ditto and mimeograph may be the same thing. mineral spirits and purple ink and wet papers? yes?

    all i know is i did my student teaching in 1990 and was SHOCKED to discover the school where i was teaching still relied on dittos.

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  11. Lime - Well, I know that by 1990, xerox-type photocopying was well-established. I've got lots of photocopies in my files from the early 80s, even the late 70s. So yeah, I'm with you - I'm a little shocked that anyone was still using dittos in 1990. . .

    According to Wikipedia, dittos are not the same thing as mimeographs. . . Just, you know, in case you (or anyone else) are interested. . .

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