I grew up with AM radio and b&w TV. I saw this tonight for the first time

[DainBramaged]

What a great trip it's been.



I write these words knowing that (potentially) millions of people could see them. I talk on the phone or on my laptop knowing the person on the other end can see me, a long way from the dial phone I had in my bedroom in 1966. (no tablet yet, I am not totally fixated)


I wonder if the next two generations will see as much innovation and wonder as I have.


As many of you have.


Thanks.

[Ilsa]

1. My hope is that the innovations

are less entertainment-based and more education-based or resolve poverty, hunger, disease, energy, clean water issues, etc.

[lastlib]

2. Where's the profit in that??

[Ilsa]

4. Please tell me you are being sarcastic, Ayn. nt

[lastlib]

8. more pessimistic than sarcastic, unfortunately.

[DainBramaged]

3. It enables innovation like this.....

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zachallia/soma-beautifully-innovative-all-natural-water-filt

[jberryhill]

5. You didn't have one of these?

[DainBramaged]

6. HAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAA

wow

[cloudbase]

7. I can relate.

I was advised that if I was going to study engineering in college, I should buy the best slide rule I could afford, as I'd be using it my entire professional life.

I still have it.

[Demo_Chris]

12. See, good advice. You still have it! nt

[lastlib]

13. I was told pretty much the same thing, and I still have mine!

(still solve triangles on it faster than I can on anything electronic!)

[DainBramaged]

15. I have my Dad's and mine

[Mojorabbit]

40. I have one too! LOL nt

[displacedtexan]

65. My parents bought me a $150 Bomar Brain calculator for college graduation.

So I could easily average grades in my new teaching job. It added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided! And it weighed a freakin' ton!

My only gripe with growing up in the space race age is that we have been the first generation tech guinea pigs for everything cool! How many versions of The White Album have you bought?

[cloudbase]

67. I had it on vinyl back in the day.

Now I've got it as a bunch of zeros and ones.

[displacedtexan]

68. Me, too. Also bought it as

vinyl, 8track, cassette, mini CD, and CD. nOw it's just one of thousands in my ipod nano.

[Kingofalldems]

9. Alien technology is fascinationg

I know I was born too early.

[lastlib]

14. "Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic."--Arthur C. Clarke

[sufrommich]

10. Wait, you had your own phone in your bedroom

when you were a teenager? I would have killed for that. Every time I hear my niece complaining about her cell phone, (she wants a better,more expensive one)I like to tell her that I had to ask permission to use the phone, which was in the kitchen. I'm sure she thinks I grew up among the dinosaurs.

[Link Speed]

17. Ours was in a little alcove in a hallway

I thought that we had totally arrived when we got a phone in the kitchen.

Party line, too.

[sufrommich]

18. Lol, I remember when we got a second phone too.

It was in my parents bedroom,we were movin' on up.

[dixiegrrrrl]

25. the wall phone in the kitchen with a 15 foot cord!

and it came in several colors to match what ever decor.

1968....we were so progressive.
a modern phone and a reel to reel tape player.
no dust under our feet, no sirree!

[Art_from_Ark]

42. In 1968, our phone was still a black countertop model, rented from Ma Bell,

and we shared a party line with the neighbors across the street. We got a reel-to-reel tape player at a flea market, but it didn't work so well. We got a monaural cassette tape player 2 or 3 years later, around the same time we also got a monaural record player that could play 33rpm LP records, as well as 45s by pulling up a special spindle. I wanted one of the new Swinger instamatic cameras, but had to be content with my Brownie that took 12 black-and-white photos per roll of film (which had to be loaded in a dark place to keep the film from being exposed prematurely).

[defacto7]

48. Those phones lasted forever!

If pulse dialing was still around, I'm sure they would still work. And what is there that's made these days that lasts more than the 1 or 2 year warranty? Not much.

[Art_from_Ark]

53. We used that old black phone for about 13 years,

until we broke down and got a "Princess" wall phone (which lasted about 3 years). After I got my own place, I got a push-button phone that lasted about 3 months, so I got a rotary phone that I used for 7 years until I moved to a place where it no longer worked.

[defacto7]

54. We had an old black MA Bell rotary

that lasted must be close to 20 years. Somewhere along the line they offered for people to buy the phone and we did and kept using it. We got it around 1962 and still used it in the early 80s.

[Art_from_Ark]

55. We got the option of buying the rotary phone or getting the Princess phone

and we thought it would be kind of cool to hear the phone go "beep" instead of "click, click, click" when making a call My grandparents used their old 1950s rotary for more than 30 years.

[bunnies]

19. Right?

And my Mom used to sit at the kitchen table and listen to my conversations. 10 minute limit, with permission only and NO phone past 9pm. I did have a little b&w tv in my bedroom but a phone? Yeah, right.

[sufrommich]

20. Lol,yeah the whole family was pretty much

listening in to everybody's phone calls whether we wanted to or not. You had your own TV,how liberating!

[bunnies]

22. It only got about 5 channels.

But those were MY 5 channels.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

29. Me too. We had 5 channels each in 2 different places growing up

There was ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, and a local independent station on the UHF dial, in both cities.

[bunnies]

30. Us too!

Channels 38 and 56. *sigh* I feel old.

[Art_from_Ark]

43. Our cable company gave us 9 channels

Four out of Tulsa, Oklahoma (although reception for 3 of them was terrible); one out of Fort Smith, Arkansas; one (later 2) out of Joplin, Missouri; one out of Pittsburgh, Kansas; and one local weather channel which was little more than alternating views of various analog weather gauges.

[bunnies]

44. Well...

look at you with your fancy cable. harumph.

[Art_from_Ark]

45. Yup, we had fancy cable ($2.50/month)

and a fancy Zenith black-and-white TV to watch it with

[Revanchist]

51. Grew up in RI near the Mass border

So we had double the channels since we were able to receive the signals from both states. CBS was 3 & 6, NBC was 4 & 10, ABC was 5 & 12 forget what the PBS stations were and at least 3 UHF channels including 38 & 56.

[Logical]

35. I had 3 channels, 5,4,9 which explains why I played outside a lot. n-t

[bunnies]

36. Ah yes...

back when, on nice days, we were told to get outside and play. Out of the house! Out! Come back when the street lights come on. Todays kids are seriously missing out.

[Logical]

37. I agree! And we were mad when we had to come in! n-t

[bunnies]

39. Absolutely!

Good times, those were.

[loyalsister]

62. I had one

It was rotary dial. It turns out that rotary was less expensive than the touch tone service. If you plugged in a touch tone phone it would rotary dial. This was in the 80s

[Demo_Chris]

11. "What a great trip it's been"...

Thank you. That was exactly the words I needed to read.

[Link Speed]

16. I grew up without teevee, but I had the X

100,000 watts out of Piedras Negras, Mexico.

Wolfman Jack, Louisiana Hayride, Grand Ol' Opry, evangelists of all stripes, and on and on and on.

I would trade all I have to do it again.

[randome]

21. Just wait until we start injecting nanobots into our bloodstreams.

Then technology will really take off.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font][hr]

[mike_c]

23. what would be the hardest thing to explain to someone from the 1950s?

?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1357421294323

[sufrommich]

24. lol.nt

[DainBramaged]

28. The internet is made of cats.......

[Hekate]

61. Nooooooooooo!

[bunnies]

31. lmao!

Its funny cuz its true.

[Logical]

34. LOL, perfect! n-t

[frazzled]

49. Um, people from the 1950s don't "suddenly appear": millions of them are here

and dealing quite nicely, thank you, with technological change.

I'm from the 1950s. Heck, my dad was born in 1916 and will soon turn 97. He was well into his 30s in the 1950s. He's fairly fine with both the technology and the culture.

We actually had electricity in the 1950s (though I naughtily used to tell my kids that we didn't when I was a child, and it really confirmed all their beliefs).

[jberryhill]

52. Not by a long shot - they had sci fi

Dick Tracy had a wrist radio.

The most difficult thing? A negro is president.

[branford]

63. Heh. :) Also, don't forget about porn, it build the internet as we know it!

[madokie]

26. No electricity in our neck of the woods

until I was 5. No water in the house until I was 12. No tv until I was 10 and phone wasn't until I was 13

[brewens]

27. I'd hope for the whole George Jetson wakeup/morning routine by now.

I could really use it! I'm holding my own but 4 am comes pretty early at 52.

[GP6971]

32. I think my grandparent's generation saw the most change

circa 1898 - 1986. In no particular order, goingl literally from horse & buggy to automobiles, invention of radio, motion pictures..first silent to talkies, airplanes, electricity, telephone, space craft, transitor radios, TV, computers, the list goes on and on. Inteirstate roads, air conditioning, phonographs leading to stereo / hi fi, grocery chains, processed foods (TV dinners). What else can can anyone remember????

[Logical]

38. From wright brothers to moon landing in a lifetime! Amazing! n-t

[GP6971]

41. Forgot to mention 5 wars and a couple of "conflicts"

Wars

Spanish American
WW I
WW II
Korea
Vietnam

"Conflicts"

Honduras
Dominican Republic
Belgian Congo

And who from that era can ever forget the Bay of Pigs and the ensuring Cuban Missile Crisis? Let alone the Berlin Wall

[markiv]

33. many people love technology more than life itself

certainly anyone glued to an iphone (rather than watching for cars) while crossing a street feels that way - and that seems to be most pedestrians these days

my degree is computer science, so I'm not a born technophobe, but frankly I'm not so sure that life has really improved since the 1960s (for minorities etc, of course yes, but I'm talking about a middle class person then vs now, for working class people, it's clearly WORSE)- familes sure as heck arent any more secure

technology may not be to blame for what's made life worse, but it hasnt been an elixer for solving all problems either - the productivity gains go to the top one percent, the technology helps move the jobs offshore

social media can help people stay in touch and reconnect with people they might have never heard from again. but it also makes many people treat those in their immediate presence as though they didnt exist. which can be a big mistake of one of them is driving right at them, also glued to their iphone. which might send them to their funeral, with those attending secretly checking their iphones....

[defacto7]

47. I hear you...

I have liked technology for the exercise of the mechanics and understanding the principals. Most people like the surface instrument and what the Internet and its managers can supply them without the faintest knowledge of what it's about, what it can do for them, or what it can do to them. I have little interest in being a slave to the din of stupidity and the rush of being drawn into a crowd of sheep. I'd rather make stew than be stew.

Don't get me wrong. I think the Internet has been a great influence for education and human connectivity across the world. It has the potential to give the world a view of itself like never before. But it has also added to the evolution of greed and devolution of social behavior. I'm not sure we were ready for it when it came along because of our primitive social and economic structures. With more human stability its potential would have been exponential.

I miss many things about the 60s and 70s, the simple mechanics, the ability to understand any structure and to be able to mold it at will and actually own it. Now we own nothing, understand nothing and most people don't seem to care because they love their technology with an empty mind.

[dembotoz]

46. in mutimedia a few day back was an intro for kids on how to use the internet

seemed so quaint and foreign

we have come a long way and some ways for the better

yesterday i was talking to a neighbor--she is maybe early 40's--i am not good with ages
anyway she was talking about how her kid has to straighten out her computer and stuff for her

i smiled and nodded-inside i was screaming Girl you damn well better learn to do that yourself, cause times are a changing and to catch up is a bitch

[defacto7]

50. Hello, Sarah?

-click click click.... Sarah? -click click.... you there Sarah? ~~~~ Will you give me 549 please?

[dixiegrrrrl]

56. " Hello..is this the party to whom I am speaking?"

"Snort...snort"

( We'll see how many get this...)

[defacto7]

57. Ha... that's a laugh!

[HooptieWagon]

58. Yep AM radio and B&W TV with 5 stations.

Used to always get in trouble for taking my transistor radio to bed...after 10PM I could tune in to KAAY Little Rock from down in Fl,it was one of the Clear Channels allowed to boost their signal after dark, the other stations had to reduce their wattage. Its where I first heard Dylan, Hendrix, Baez, Airplane, etc. Blew my mind as a 10 year old...."why the hell aren't all stations playing this great music?" I would wonder.

[DainBramaged]

64. Jean Shepard at 9PM on WOR Am in NYC under my pillow so my Dad wouldn't hear it

WABC AM playing the hits of the day (with Cousin Brucey)

Then in 1967 WNEW FM went to modern music and life changed forever


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWFS

[Hekate]

59. I am totally impressed. My cell phone is really dumb, lol

I don't know if I'll ever get one of these, but I am totally impressed.

[Lugnut]

60. Hear, hear!

I will never forget the day we got our first TV - in 1950. I was 5 years old.

[NoPasaran]

66. Look at you, with your fancy molecules!

All we had were protons and electrons. And by crikey, that was good enough for us!