You know you are getting old when:

[LizzieMaine]

He and D. Frankenstein Monster get their sport coats from the same tailor.

 

[Fading Fast]

You know what's neat? Coast to coast reception on a UX-200A gas detector tube in a regenerative circuit. Nothing but a few simple bits of wire and metal in a box.

(And unless I'm blooping, nobody even knows I'm there.)

Seriously, though, we're terribly jaded today when it comes to technology. But imagine what it must've been like in 1923, say, for someone born during the presidency of Andrew Jackson to put on headphones and hear a violin playing from Schenectady. There were religious groups in the twenties which taught that radio was a specific instrument of God brought to bear at that specific time to carry his message -- and it's not hard to understand why they believed that when you put it into context.

If you go back (as I know you have) and read the coverage of the emergence of radio, it reads very much like the dawn of the internet in our day, even more so. To your point, it was completely blow-you-out-of-the-water technology that people were ascribing all sorts of wonder and mysticism to. At least when the internet came around, we were used to impressive technology - men on the moon, faxes, etc. - the radio was more startling in its day than the internet was to us.

Think about the time, the steam engine - while impressive - is explainable to anyone who ever boiled water and most people didn't interact directly with telegraph technology, so when along comes this magic box that live voices come out of - in your living room - for many it was their first touch to amazing technology. That some thought it was magic, an instrument of God or the devil (that came up to) is no real surprise.

 

[tonyb]

You know what's neat? Coast to coast reception on a UX-200A gas detector tube in a regenerative circuit. Nothing but a few simple bits of wire and metal in a box.

(And unless I'm blooping, nobody even knows I'm there.)

Seriously, though, we're terribly jaded today when it comes to technology. But imagine what it must've been like in 1923, say, for someone born during the presidency of Andrew Jackson to put on headphones and hear a violin playing from Schenectady. There were religious groups in the twenties which taught that radio was a specific instrument of God brought to bear at that specific time to carry his message -- and it's not hard to understand why they believed that when you put it into context.

I recall a conversation of 20-some years ago with an old gal of my acquaintance who shuffled off not long after that.

Cell phones weren't the latest thing then, but few people had them. Neither of us did, but I offered that I expected to get one when the monthly costs got down to a level I could justify paying.

My elderly friend said that in practical terms most of our gee-whiz new technologies were updates on things that had been around most of her life. Telephones. Automobiles. Airplanes. But more democratized, for the most part.

Digital technologies have wrought changes neither of us would have predicted back then -- such as what we do with these smartphones. I accept funds on the thing, and pay bills and read news stories and make new friends (and adversaries) and purchase consumer goods and ...

 

[Zombie_61]

...Digital technologies have wrought changes neither of us would have predicted back then -- such as what we do with these smartphones. I accept funds on the thing, and pay bills and read news stories and make new friends (and adversaries) and purchase consumer goods and ...

Jeez, I barely use mine as a phone.

 

[BobHufford]

Jeez, I barely use mine as a phone.

I don't think my family knows there is a phone app in there...

 

[Bamaboots]

t was years before I understood the line in the song "Sweet Home Alabama:" "Now Muscle Shoals has got the swampers."

Oh, you Northerners.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

In many small towns the first radio in town was at the general store. Storekeepers bought them to lure in customers. I've talked to a number of old people who said the first time they heard radio was when everybody in town crowded into the general store to listen to the Dempsey-Tunney fight. I believe that was the first boxing match to be broadcast nationwide.

 

[Fading Fast]

Oh, you Northerners.

While I do have my Northerner ignorance (what the heck do you mean you can eat the entire soft-shell crab - what!?), the Muscle Shoals thing was more about being a kid in the early '70s and loving the song but having no idea how albums where made (I assumed the band members played the songs in a recording studio - period, full stop - who knew there were all these studio musicians with their own sounds, techniques, style, etc. augmenting the band). Heck, that song's music is so good the lyrics could be anything and it would still kick butt.

There's a fantastic documentary "Muscle Shoals" that's a few years old now that is very well done. I think it is available on Netflix streaming if you care.

 

[Fading Fast]

...Digital technologies have wrought changes neither of us would have predicted back then -- such as what we do with these smartphones. I accept funds on the thing, and pay bills and read news stories and make new friends (and adversaries) and purchase consumer goods and ...

Depositing checks on it has been an awesome time and convenience saver. With that and ATMs, I can't believe that bank branches aren't going to shrink by a huge number over the next several years. I absolutely marvel at what these "phones" can do.

With the kindle app, I no longer have to carry books around. With maps... it is an incredible piece of technology. Whether all he did was assemble the right players to put it together and market it well or if he did more, Jobs launched the sucker and deserves credit for being a driver of something that truly has changed the world and made many peoples lives better.

 

[LizzieMaine]

In many small towns the first radio in town was at the general store. Storekeepers bought them to lure in customers. I've talked to a number of old people who said the first time they heard radio was when everybody in town crowded into the general store to listen to the Dempsey-Tunney fight. I believe that was the first boxing match to be broadcast nationwide.

First coast to coast heavyweight championship, correct. And miraculously, a recording of most of the broadcast survives -- a small record company in Chicago stuck a microphone in front of a receiver and recorded it round-by-round. The set was not a big seller, and the company ended up going out of business not long after. But it's one of only a bare handful of actual 1920s broadcasts to exist today in recorded form.

The event that really brought radio to mass attention was also a boxing match -- the Dempsey-Carpentier fight in the summer of 1921, broadcast over WJY, a Westinghouse station in New Jersey. While probably only a few hundred thousand people actually heard the broadcast, the publicity it received created a buzz about the new technology that started a wave of public interest in building receiving sets.

 

[BobHufford]

In many small towns the first radio in town was at the general store. Storekeepers bought them to lure in customers.

Now they use Pokémon Go...

 

[Fading Fast]

...My elderly friend said that in practical terms most of our gee-whiz new technologies were updates on things that had been around most of her life. Telephones. Automobiles. Airplanes. But more democratized, for the most part....[/QUOTE]

Just from reading about it, it seems that television didn't have the singular holy-cow moment for the country that radio did. As noted above, the launch of radio was at least equivalent to the internet of its day in the public's interest and awe.

TV seems to have been less of an event. Maybe because (kind of like you noted) the components were there in the public's mind - they saw movies and newsreels and had radios, so while TV technology really was new and different, maybe it felt incremental?

I'm just guessing as it would seem that TV should have been a huge "wow" moment, but from what I've read, it just doesn't seem to have had a "radio" or "internet" period of collective amazement.

 

[2jakes]

I'm just guessing as it would seem that TV should have been a huge "wow" moment, but from what I've read, it just doesn't seem to have had a "radio" or "internet" period of collective amazement.

In 1942 my dad & his buddies stationed in Hawaii on a weekend pass saw a television
on display at a store. This was the first time he had ever seen a show broadcast on such
a small scale.

He told me it was nice but I got the feeling it was not much of a “wow” factor for him.

This from a man who had never been out of his hometown or seen a huge
ship in his life until the outbreak of WW2.

 

[LizzieMaine]

If it had any such thing, it was at the New York World's Fair in 1939, where the RCA Pavillion featured a "see yourself on television" exhibit. You'd line up and file past a camera while looking at a television set showing the image from that camera. Then they'd give you a little wallet size card saying "This is to certify that Your Name has been TELEVISED." I have one on my refrigerator door.

Among the sets displayed at the fair, the one that made the most impression was one with a cabinet made entirely of transparent Lucite plastic, so you could see all the insides that made it work. That set survives, and is currently in a museum in Canada.

One factor in why there was no "OMG" moment for television is the way in which it was introduced. There had been a number of false starts in the 1930s using various systems before NTSC arrived in 1941, and from then until the late 1940s, television was almost entirely a phenomenon of the New York-Philadelphia-Schenectady area, the Chicago area, and the area around Los Angeles. But it got publicity all out of proportion to its availablility, so even people far away from television-equipped areas knew what it was, what it would look like, and how it worked. It wasn't until 1953-54 that television was available in every state, and by then it was an old novelty -- there would be a brief flurry of excitement when a station opened in your town, but you quickly got used to it once you got a set. After all, you didn't want to seem like some kind of a hick or a rube who didn't know what it was all about.

 

[Bamaboots]

There's a fantastic documentary "Muscle Shoals" that's a few years old now that is very well done. I think it is available on Netflix streaming if you care.

FF, yes I've seen the documentary and it is great. The musicians, from the Stones to Willie Nelson, that have recorded there is incredible. Thankfully, there has been a bit of a revival over there and a couple studios are still in operation and I drive by them every time I'm in the area.

The "Northerner" remark was just a jab. Glad you're a fan. Interestingly, many of us here in the state don't care for the song unless it's being played at Bryant-Denny during home games. I guess it's been over played down here and the Skynard repertoire goes much deeper.

Here's a little history of the area. http://www.cityofmuscleshoals.com/?ID=11

 

[Bamaboots]

There's a fantastic documentary "Muscle Shoals" that's a few years old now that is very well done. I think it is available on Netflix streaming if you care.

FF, yes I've seen the documentary and it is great. The musicians, from the Stones to Willie Nelson, that have recorded there is incredible. Thankfully, there has been a bit of a revival over there and a couple studios are still in operation and I drive by them every time I'm in the area.

The "Northerner" remark was just a jab. Glad you're a fan. Interestingly, many of us here in the state don't care for the song unless it's being played at Bryant-Denny during home games. I guess it's been over played down here and the Skynard repertoire goes much deeper.

Here's a little history of the area. http://www.cityofmuscleshoals.com/?ID=11

 

[Fading Fast]

FF, yes I've seen the documentary and it is great. The musicians, from the Stones to Willie Nelson, that have recorded there is incredible. Thankfully, there has been a bit of a revival over there and a couple studios are still in operation and I drive by them every time I'm in the area.

The "Northerner" remark was just a jab. Glad you're a fan. Interestingly, many of us here in the state don't care for the song unless it's being played at Bryant-Denny during home games. I guess it's been over played down here and the Skynard repertoire goes much deeper.

Here's a little history of the area. http://www.cityofmuscleshoals.com/?ID=11

Absolutely took the comment in the spirit you intended, as I hope you did my rejoinder. Drink are on me if we're ever in the same city at the same time.

I love the image of the English Stones in the Deep South - all sorts of cultural combinations going on there.

The funny thing about Skynard songs is that they hardly play to the Deep South stereotypes - some anti-gun / anti-drug stuff in them (which just proves how nonsensical a hard belief in stereotyping is). Also, while I love the song "Simple Kind of Man," I am philosophically opposed to some of its message (yes to the morality of honesty and decency, but I'll take a complex person who pushes the envelope over someone easy to understand, any day) - but with a few beers in me, I'll be happily singing along to it as it is that good.

I also understand the burning out on "Sweet Home Alabama," as I feel that way about a lot of the big hit rock and roll songs as I've just heard them too many times for too many decades and, as you implied, find I enjoy the lessor-known songs by these incredible groups. "Jigsaw Puzzle" and "Stray Cat Blues" are every bit as good as any of the Stone's big hits, and you haven't heard them eighty thousand times.

 

[tonyb]

Depositing checks on it has been an awesome time and convenience saver. With that and ATMs, I can't believe that bank branches aren't going to shrink by a huge number over the next several years. I absolutely marvel at what these "phones" can do. ...

It surprises me that the stand-alone neighborhood branch bank still survives.

Bank of America has but one branch in the entire state of Colorado. It's on the ground floor of an office building in a spendy district called Cherry Creek, directly across the street from a high-end shopping mall with the same name. The branch bank isn't much larger than the in-store banks found in supermarkets.

 

[Fading Fast]

^^^ Tony, I kid you not, there are an insane, absolutely insane number of bank branches in NYC. Some blocks have - no exaggeration -four or five bank branches - Wells, Citi, Chase, BOA and TD Bank, for example. It is ridiculous and, my guess, there will be a huge / gigantic / enormous shakeout soon enough.

One of the three BOA branches within spitting distance of my apartment is big enough to house a furniture store (which is what it did house - an Ethan Allen - before BOA took it over seven or eight years ago) and has big plate-glass windows. I pass it all the time and never see more than two or three customer in there at a time and, sometimes, none. It's on a busy corner and I can't even image what the rent must be. The same for most of the other billion bank branches I pass each day. It is not sustainable.

Other than for a crazy one-off issue, I don't go into banks anymore (away from an ATM machine) and Millennial probably don't even know banks have branches. It will be like DVD rental stores - one day we'll look around and they'll be gone (or most of them, anyway).

 

[tonyb]

Wells-Fargo has a freestanding branch every couple-three miles here in suburban Denver. I'm guessing, based on the architecture, that most were built between 20 and 40 years ago. They're all at least twice the size they need be.

But this is the Mountain West, where driving a personal vehicle is a birthright (it's in the Constitution, I think, or maybe the Bible), and where a business without adequate parking would soon be out of business. So I suspect it's the size of the parking lots more than that of the structures that keeps these branches operating.