You Know You Are Living In 2006

**SSgt Baloo** · 23rd August 06, 10:53 PM

When I went to college, the professors were deeply suspicious of (some openly hostile to) electronic calculators. They would not allow them to be used in class. You had to demonstrate that you knew how to do it on your slide rule. "Slide rules have always been used for scientific calculation and electronic 'calculators' will fall out of fashion just as soon as the public realizes just how unreliable complex electronic equipment will be." (I'm still waiting -- good thing I didn't hold my breath, huh?)

The computer on campus was a series of cabinets with enormous tape drives (used for loading programs) and a washing-machine-sized housing for the processor. The processor was not a chip, but consisted of several circuit boards with "solid state" components. They had a new hard drive, donated by a now-forgotten business. It was proudly displayed in the window of the Computer Science building. Someone had installed a transparent panel on the HD cabinet so you could see the disks spinning at a leisurely one or two RPM. ISTR being told that it had 64 kilobytes of memory.

The first computer I ever owned was a Radio Shack PC-1, with an impressive 1 kilobyte of memory. It was programmable in BASIC and had an LCD text-only display.

I suspect that my scientific calculator ($14.00 @ Wally-world) has more processing power than any of the above-mentioned items.

I wish I still had my slide rule, though...

--SSgt Baloo

**David Dalglish** · 24th August 06, 12:22 AM

When a young mechanic has never seen a set of points

**canawler** · 25th August 06, 06:58 AM

Originally Posted by David Dalglish

When a young mechanic has never seen a set of points

At this point, its getting hard to find new cars that even have a distributor (the place where points resided, for those not into cars)

**neo71665** · 25th August 06, 03:59 PM

Originally Posted by canawler

At this point, its getting hard to find new cars that even have a distributor (the place where points resided, for those not into cars)

Aint that the truth. The hemis make me laugh even though I'm only 26 and hate dodges there will never be a hemi like the 426. Now in these days of double overhead cams and such I would love to drive an old flathead into a shop and laugh at what they do know.

**Bill** · 25th August 06, 09:59 PM

How about the youngsters that have grown up never changing the station on the boob tube without a remote or not knowing what it was like to talk on a phone that was attached to the wall (not even cordless

). I had a teen the other day ask me who Sean Connery was!

I have in my possesion a comptometer once owned by my late Aunt 'Nez, anyone know what that is?

Bill

**Southern Breeze** · 26th August 06, 05:12 AM

Originally Posted by Bill

I have in my possesion a comptometer once owned by my late Aunt 'Nez, anyone know what that is?

Bill

I've seen a few of them in different places so I know what they are. I'll hang on to my Curta, it fits easily in a sporran.

**Rex_Tremende** · 26th August 06, 05:34 AM

Originally Posted by Hamish

There must be about 100 78s up in my roof space which I cannot play but would LOVE to! They are virtually all Scottish Country Dance band music - Jimmy Shand, Ian Powrie, McBain's, etc., etc. - but I have some recordings dating back to the 1930s that belonged to my father. It would be wicked, if not sinfull, to destroy them!

You know it's 2006 when you can buy equipment that will copy your LP's, 45's, and 78's to CD while you play them.

Behold, the The Teac Nostalgia GF-350 :

Regards,
Rex in Cincinnati,
who's not sure where he last saw his LPs

**Hamish** · 26th August 06, 06:47 PM

Originally Posted by Rex_Tremende

You know it's 2006 when you can buy equipment that will copy your LP's, 45's, and 78's to CD while you play them.

Behold, the The Teac Nostalgia GF-350 :

Regards,
Rex in Cincinnati,
who's not sure where he last saw his LPs

Just what I need, Rex, but I have never seen anything like that over here. Maybe I should study shop window displays with greater intent and purpose!

Does anyone in the UK know of these?

**Southern Breeze** · 26th August 06, 07:11 PM

Originally Posted by Rex_Tremende

You know it's 2006 when you can buy equipment that will copy your LP's, 45's, and 78's to CD while you play them.

Behold, the The Teac Nostalgia GF-350 :

Regards,
Rex in Cincinnati,
who's not sure where he last saw his LPs

Now that is a great idea. It's nice to see a new gadget that's actually usefull.

**neo71665** · 27th August 06, 07:59 PM

Originally Posted by Bill

How about the youngsters that have grown up never changing the station on the boob tube without a remote or not knowing what it was like to talk on a phone that was attached to the wall (not even cordless

). I had a teen the other day ask me who Sean Connery was!

I have in my possesion a comptometer once owned by my late Aunt 'Nez, anyone know what that is?

Bill

Back when nothing had buttons, it all had knobs and the phone was rototary (did I spell that right). When I was a kid we were the remote.