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In the early 90's I had a phone with buttons but there was a switch you could push that would cause the buttons to make rotary phone noises. I think this was meant for integrating your phone with... whatever the hell kind of systems were still around that required rotary phone signals?
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Nov 24, 2019 00:20
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Yup, that's it: tone and pulse dialling. Pulse being the old system that took a while to be upgraded out in the backwaters. Fun fact: you could emulate pulse dialling by tapping on the receiver hook the same number of taps as the number you wanted to dial.
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Nov 24, 2019 00:39
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Animal-Mother posted:In the early 90's I had a phone with buttons but there was a switch you could push that would cause the buttons to make rotary phone noises. I think this was meant for integrating your phone with... whatever the hell kind of systems were still around that required rotary phone signals?
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Nov 24, 2019 01:39
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I remember the heady days when there was only THE phone company, an all-powerful organization of which you lived in existential fear
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Nov 24, 2019 02:13
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Shut up Meg posted:Yup, that's it: tone and pulse dialling. Pulse being the old system that took a while to be upgraded out in the backwaters. Tying up the phone booth as I patiently knock on the receiver 6,873,945 times
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Nov 24, 2019 03:33
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Do party lines still exist. I remember being really confused about the Kinks song Party Line, since the idea of picking up the phone and having someone else in on your call just seemed bizarre. It's like that episode of Seinfeld too. One of my friends told me about growing up with a party line, and basically, one neighborhood had one phone line. Another thing is the operators. Songs like Sylvia's Mother, Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels) and lots of movies deal with interactions with the operator. But I've never, as someone in my 30s, ever dealt with an operator. Hell, there are movies where they tell the operator to keep trying until they get a response on the line, and it could be hours. Just blows my mind.
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Nov 25, 2019 01:08
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There are a few still around but they’re in extremely remote places. The only one I directly know of only has one person on it now, but it’s still billed at the cheaper party line rate.
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Nov 25, 2019 01:51
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A lot of old internet stuff from the late 90s is already horribly dated, only kept alive because there's still enough people talking about it and it probably won't be too much longer before it's completely incomprehensible. Modem sounds, having to share internet with the phone line in general, AoL's "You got mail" and slow internet speeds (56k no). The old ICQ chats, do people still randomly message strangers on modern chat programs just to have one-on-one conversations? Scudworth posted:So that's fun but let's get to the movie version of Casino Royal from 2006. I already hated the movie for switching from baccarat to hold'em.
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Nov 25, 2019 02:36
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super sweet best pal posted:
just a few weeks ago people were texting their "number neighbors" (their numbers off by one digit) and posting the results. Plus, there was that fad of "chat with a random stranger who wants you to touch their penis!" style programs.
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Nov 25, 2019 06:24
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mystes posted:I think the phone companies also charged extra for touch-tone dialing, and in some places they continued doing so for a very long time. Yes, touch-tone phones were extra. Also colored phones (anything other than white or black) and "designer" phones like the Princess. It also cost extra to have an unlisted number. quote:I remember the heady days when there was only THE phone company, an all-powerful organization of which you lived in existential fear. That's why they could get away with it.
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Nov 25, 2019 14:38
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Cat Army
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MightyJoe36 posted:Yes, touch-tone phones were extra. Also colored phones (anything other than white or black) and "designer" phones like the Princess. It also cost extra to have an unlisted number.
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Nov 25, 2019 15:32
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Crankit posted:Thats the SOS beeps, sms only has two long beeps. shameful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scFR4sYnVDc
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Nov 25, 2019 17:37
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The intro to the Simpson’s has Baby Maggie in a forward facing car seat in the front seat. Which I guess wasn’t too abnormal in the late 80’s. The fact they even had a car seat probably made them progressive.
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Nov 25, 2019 23:43
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Krispy Wafer posted:The intro to the Simpson’s has Baby Maggie in a forward facing car seat in the front seat. Actually cars having seats has been commonplace since the 20s at least
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Nov 25, 2019 23:58
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TIL not everyone drives sitting on a fruit crate.
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Nov 26, 2019 00:01
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Krispy Wafer posted:The fact they even had a car seat probably made them progressive. ?? Car seats for children were normal in the 60's, safety standard regulated in the 70's, and mandatory by the 80's.
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Nov 26, 2019 00:32
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shame on an IGA posted:I remember the heady days when there was only THE phone company, an all-powerful organization of which you lived in existential fear Apparently AT&T earned so much money from the phone charges that not only did 9 nobel prizes come out of their research department (including the transistor and other important technologies) but everybody in their research lab was entitled to twice their pay in research budget a year.
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Nov 26, 2019 12:13
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Scudworth posted:?? Car seats for children were normal in the 60's, safety standard regulated in the 70's, and mandatory by the 80's. Sure, but usage was inconsistent and generally stopped sooner than was safe. I was like 4 and injured in a Ford Pinto accident and it wasn’t weird at all that I was rolling around unbuckled in the back seat. My younger siblings got proper car seats several years later, but only stage 1. By the time you could sit up you graduated to a restaurant style booster seat. Even in the 90’s advocates were still fighting the ‘my baby is safest in my arms’ mindset. I don’t recall seeing a rear facing car seat until the 90’s. Sticking your car seat in the front seat only seemed to completely stop with mandatory airbags. In short our parents sucked.
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Nov 26, 2019 14:10
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Krispy Wafer posted:Sure, but usage was inconsistent and generally stopped sooner than was safe. I was like 4 and injured in a Ford Pinto accident and it wasn’t weird at all that I was rolling around unbuckled in the back seat. My younger siblings got proper car seats several years later, but only stage 1. By the time you could sit up you graduated to a restaurant style booster seat. Even in the 90’s advocates were still fighting the ‘my baby is safest in my arms’ mindset. The car seat thing keeps changing since the 80s (rear-facing, front facing, rear seat, front seat, until 4 years old, etc.) just like the advice of how babies should sleep. When my kids were infants, it was "always put them on their stomach." Then it was "never put them on their stomach." Not sure what it is now.
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Nov 26, 2019 14:21
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MightyJoe36 posted:The car seat thing keeps changing since the 80s (rear-facing, front facing, rear seat, front seat, until 4 years old, etc.) just like the advice of how babies should sleep. When my kids were infants, it was "always put them on their stomach." Then it was "never put them on their stomach." Not sure what it is now. As someone who had a kid this year I can confirm it's still the latter. But really the whole barrage of professional advice hurled at new parents has some terrifying undertones. "Sometimes babies just die and we, the entire worldwide body of child doctors, have no idea why! Suffocation maybe? JK LOL, no one knows! Anyway, here's our best guess at keeping your newborn alive. Hope you're one of the lucky ones!"
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Nov 26, 2019 15:27
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I had kids 4 years apart. Things we were told to do for the first one we were told never to do with the second. It’s always changing. I can’t think of any movies that go into enough detail about child rearing to confuse new audiences. Maybe how everyone kept grabbing Dr. Spock’s book in Raising Arizona?
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Nov 26, 2019 21:28
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I wonder how many babies have died because the Simpsons taught people to put the baby in the car the wrong way.
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Nov 26, 2019 21:48
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shame on an IGA posted:I remember the heady days when there was only THE phone company, an all-powerful organization of which you lived in existential fear Lol if it was a company instead of a literal organ of the State
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Nov 26, 2019 22:00
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British Goons, do y'all still have the Creepy Government Surveillance Vans checking for Illegal Party Televisions? when is that going to get recycled as a Dr. Who throwback plot? edit- one thing that's going to vanish within our lifetimes, probably already functionally extinct outside of Nick At Night, are jokes about visiting friends after vacation and suffering through a slide show of travel photos. it was always presented as something to hate and endure, but with instagram influencers and poo poo i think modern folk would enjoy it, instead? PHIZ KALIFA fucked around with this message at 06:33 on Nov 27, 2019 |
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Nov 27, 2019 06:31
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shame on an IGA posted:I remember the heady days when there was only THE phone company, an all-powerful organization of which you lived in existential fear When Harrogate starts stealing nickels from payphones in Suttree, it is kinda regarded as a big loving deal that'll eventually bring down heat from on high.
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Nov 27, 2019 06:35
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:British Goons, do y'all still have the Creepy Government Surveillance Vans checking for Illegal Party Televisions? when is that going to get recycled as a Dr. Who throwback plot? mystes fucked around with this message at 13:41 on Nov 27, 2019 |
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Nov 27, 2019 13:39
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:edit- one thing that's going to vanish within our lifetimes, probably already functionally extinct outside of Nick At Night, are jokes about visiting friends after vacation and suffering through a slide show of travel photos. it was always presented as something to hate and endure, but with instagram influencers and poo poo i think modern folk would enjoy it, instead? IT Chapter 1 had a slide projector in a pretty important moment and it probably confused the heck out of a lot of tweens. I'm going to guess the stereotype was played up in media, like the dumb husband trope. If I'm visiting someone's house I probably enjoy their company and I can think of a lot worse things than sitting around getting a buzz on in the dark watching some vacation slides.
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Nov 27, 2019 14:10
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:edit- one thing that's going to vanish within our lifetimes, probably already functionally extinct outside of Nick At Night, are jokes about visiting friends after vacation and suffering through a slide show of travel photos. it was always presented as something to hate and endure, but with instagram influencers and poo poo i think modern folk would enjoy it, instead? In many cases, it's not even necessary. When I travel, I upload any photos I take instantly (or whenever I get back to wifi), so there's no need to bust them out when I have company; my friends have already seen them, liked, commented, etc. The only people I show photos to in person is my dad, since he doesn't do a lot of computer stuff.
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Nov 28, 2019 02:41
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The ghosts of technology in today’s languagequote:Yesterday, on Twitter, I asked: I wonder sometimes what would be the oldest extant word based on technology no longer in use. Taping an interview? Dialing someone? A fair amount of this has been covered here already, but not all of it.
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Nov 28, 2019 03:21
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Krispy Wafer posted:Sure, but usage was inconsistent and generally stopped sooner than was safe. I was like 4 and injured in a Ford Pinto accident and it wasn’t weird at all that I was rolling around unbuckled in the back seat. My younger siblings got proper car seats several years later, but only stage 1. By the time you could sit up you graduated to a restaurant style booster seat. Even in the 90’s advocates were still fighting the ‘my baby is safest in my arms’ mindset. Oh yeah total lack of car safety is bizarre to hear about. In the 50s my dad’s parents took a corner too fast and he fell out the backseat and hurt his arm.
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Nov 28, 2019 20:49
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My dad used to get out the slide projector every once and awhile to show us pictures from previous years etc. it’d be like a family trip/history slide show (this was in the 80s) Feels like computers tried to make that obsolete but watching on a monitor wasn’t the same but at the same time people were sick of getting film developed as slides all the time so it just kinda died.
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Nov 28, 2019 23:45
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mystes posted:You're talking about the "TV detector vans" which don't actually do anything and just drive around to scare people into paying their license fee, right? yes, i've heard rumors that at least some of them could pick up EM radiation? obviously the simplest answer is most likely but george orwell wrote 1984 for a reason
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Nov 29, 2019 05:39
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yes i know the reason was the fascist treatment of language in the spanish civil war. i'm a high school english teacher. that's literally the only fact about the book anyone is required to know. the point is, engliand? bad. PHIZ KALIFA fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Nov 29, 2019 |
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Nov 29, 2019 05:39
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:yes, i've heard rumors that at least some of them could pick up EM radiation? obviously the simplest answer is most likely but george orwell wrote 1984 for a reason quote:Someone filed a Freedom of Information request to find out how these supposed detector vans worked, but the request has been denied, and these magic detector vans shall remain a state secret. The BBC claimed that it could not reveal the details of the van "because if it did so it would damage the public's perception of the effectiveness of TV detector vans."
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Nov 29, 2019 06:34
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:edit- one thing that's going to vanish within our lifetimes, probably already functionally extinct outside of Nick At Night, are jokes about visiting friends after vacation and suffering through a slide show of travel photos. it was always presented as something to hate and endure, but with instagram influencers and poo poo i think modern folk would enjoy it, instead? No, humblebragging and/or overlong, overshare-y descriptions of your lesiure time/personal life are still frustrating when people are trying to show you it on their phones or on social media.
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Nov 29, 2019 14:32
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Sorry to get side-tracked given thread has moved on a bit, but do people in early teens really almost never see cash etc? The UK is arguably one of, if not the most, debit/contactless friendly major economies in the world, and there are still times where you might need cash. Kids don't get cash from grandparents and so on? US, given its geography, has usually been 5-10 years behind on stuff like this, so I just kinda imagined cash was still moderately present outside of bigger chains and major metropolitan areas.
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Nov 29, 2019 16:49
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Jeza posted:Sorry to get side-tracked given thread has moved on a bit, but do people in early teens really almost never see cash etc? The UK is arguably one of, if not the most, debit/contactless friendly major economies in the world, and there are still times where you might need cash. Kids don't get cash from grandparents and so on? Cash is all over the loving place in the United States. People who claim they haven’t touched it in the last six months live in a bubble. It’s straightforward to live cashless if you want to but there are a lot of things where metal and paper are superior choices.
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Nov 29, 2019 17:39
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Jeza posted:Sorry to get side-tracked given thread has moved on a bit, but do people in early teens really almost never see cash etc? The UK is arguably one of, if not the most, debit/contactless friendly major economies in the world, and there are still times where you might need cash. Kids don't get cash from grandparents and so on? Honestly, the only time I worry about having cash is when I'm traveling (in case the credit card gods decide to shut my card down for suspicious charges) or if I'm going to a fair or something like that there you might be dealing with people who don't do credit cards. Or vending machines. Somehow, they always require cash and ones that take credit cards are rare. The final reason are tolls. If you don't have EZPass you need cash. One thing to consider is why people use cash. Some people use it as a form of money control. People who follow David Ramsay, for example, claim that spending cash makes you more aware of your spending, so there's that. Currently, in the US, about 30% of transactions are done with cash, and it's pretty consistent across age groups. Cemetry Gator fucked around with this message at 23:16 on Nov 29, 2019 |
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Nov 29, 2019 23:13
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Yeah I've been of the opinion for a while that cards are probably a huge liability to impulse spenders. Some people just can't help their drat selves and while that's their prerogative, they should have the option to at least use cash if they feel it'll be at least a speed bump to draining their bank accounts.
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Nov 30, 2019 00:28
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PHIZ KALIFA posted:yes, i've heard rumors that at least some of them could pick up EM radiation? obviously the simplest answer is most likely but george orwell wrote 1984 for a reason I know (from the mouth of a BT tech on an open day) that BT repair vans, when they've been called in for bad wifi coverage, sometimes do the llegal trick of tuning the radio to a common frequency band and driving around. They usually find someone running their washer or dryer and they pay them to replace the machine with a new one where something something is shielded.
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Nov 30, 2019 00:55
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