You know you are getting old when:

[tonyb]

I got myself a learn-to-type book in my early 20s and spent two longish days going through the exercises. So I kinda learned the “proper” way to type.

But I mostly unlearned it. My want of typing skills did little if anything to lessen my effectiveness in my later writing and editing jobs. My fingers knew where to go without my having to think about it. Of course, that’s to be expected after God only knows how many zillions of keystrokes.

 

[TimeWarpWife]

White-out was for kids. The real typists used this:

If you were a real pro, you tied a string thru the hole in the middle and hung it from a hook at the side of your desk.

I remember those erasers, I hated them because they smudged or tore a hole in the paper. Of course, maybe I just didn't know how to properly use them. FYI, The Monkees' Mike Nesmith's mom, Bette Nesmith Graham, was the inventor of White Out.

 

[scottyrocks]

Being all about anything with wheels when I was a kid, very often I'd hold it by the metal part and roll it along the table.

 

[GHT]

The ultimate in getting old. You click on this thread and the next advert to pop up is:
"When is the right time to check your death and disability benefits?"

 

[Zombie_61]

The ultimate in getting old. You click on this thread and the next advert to pop up is:
"When is the right time to check your death and disability benefits?"

 

[LizzieMaine]

View attachment 143789
The ultimate in getting old. You click on this thread and the next advert to pop up is:
"When is the right time to check your death and disability benefits?"

See, the Boys don't miss a trick.

 

[Trenchfriend]

I will start my Playstation 1 in the next minutes. 20 years old. With Ace Combat 2, Gran Tourismo, Abe's Oddysee and so on.
Like the 16 yo boy in the year 2000. And on the same CRT-TV.

Should I think about that?

PS:

 

[BobHufford]

^^^^^ That’s almost new!

 

[Eyeofsauron]

^^^^^ That’s almost new!

View attachment 143953

I'll bite. This was the most amazing computer ever, at the time. You could actually write a program and get results immediately. This was the only one at our high school and I spent as much time there as I could. Wrote a basketball game, tried a baseball game but ran out of RAM. Oh the RAM was 16 kb. And you can see the storage was cassette tape. Wrote a program that solved some sort of calculus function that I can't remember what it was. Now my phone has more processing power, I tell my kids about it and they laugh.

 

[3fingers]

My high school got 2 similar machines when I was a senior. Access was mostly limited to advanced math students, so I got very little time on one. I will admit that I didn't see at the time what the big deal was.

 

[Eyeofsauron]

My high school got 2 similar machines when I was a senior. Access was mostly limited to advanced math students, so I got very little time on one. I will admit that I didn't see at the time what the big deal was.

I actually was a student teacher. Before we got this we were hooked up to the community college mainframe via a teletype. You saved your programs on paper punch tape. You could still get an immediate result, but it was all on paper, and everything was static. With this you could have very basic visuals. For us nerds this was nirvana.

 

[ScionPI2005]

 

[Eyeofsauron]

View attachment 143975

Yes, very funny love it.

 

[2jakes]

"Machines" in my high school.

Chalkboards were either black or green.

 

[Eyeofsauron]

"Machines" in my high school.
View attachment 143976
Chalkboards were either black or green.

Feet flat on floor, hands at the correct position, then hit those keys as hard as you can. Oh the memories.

 

[2jakes]

Feet flat on floor, hands at the correct position, then hit those keys as hard as you can. Oh the memories.

"Hit those keys hard" is the reason some of the letters on my Mac keyboard are no
longer working.
I now use voice diction to text.
Problem with this is v.d. will pick up every
word you utter including profane words.
I forgot and after a conversation, I went
back to Mac who had copied every single
word and was ready to send.
I very carefully deleted the text!

 

[LizzieMaine]

First computer I ever laid hands on was a Radio Shack TRS-80, which appeared in a radio station where I was working in 1986. Nobody could make much sense out of it, especially after someone spilled a glass of water into the keyboard. "Someone."

That station was located next to the local office of the Bangor Daily News, and our news office abutted theirs -- the BDN bureau chief had his own proto-computer up against the wall on the other side of our news director's desk. She would say "Hey, want to hear somebody have a heart attack?" and pick up a bulk tape eraser, switch it on, and hold it against that wall where the BDN computer was. Immediately you'd hear a voice yell "****** IT!!!" Ah, happy days.

 

[scottyrocks]

"Machines" in my high school.
View attachment 143976
Chalkboards were either black or green.

I think I'm the only one in my building that still uses an actual chalkboard.

 

[2jakes]

I think I'm the only one in my building that still uses an actual chalkboard.

4th period history class in high school.
The teacher had a habit of throwing
hard his chalkboard eraser at the guys
on the back row who were talking or
joking around.

Soon, I knew when it was coming by
the look in his eyes.

It was scary because I was not used to
grownups reacting in this manner.

 

[HanauMan]

Takes me back to elementary school. I was the little kid who always volunteered to clean the chalkboard at the end of the lessons. Just loved wiping down the board with that felt eraser, the white chalk dust settling on me as I did so. Sometimes even washed the entire board with water. Only the 'good students' got the privilege to clean teachers' boards. Just as well they didn't know what we got up to out of school....!!