Jump to content
Gibson Brands Forums

How do you know you are getting old


Rabs

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 107
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Boy, I leave town for two days and suddenly my whole Death Thread was taken down! <_< Not sure what rule I broke, or if the thread got feisty.

 

How do I know I getting old? When I can't figure out what the hell is the meaning of the term, "Call Me Maybe".

 

Really?!?

Really???!!!

You're kidding right?

WTF

I wrote some quality stuff in that thread.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My wife and I were watching the movie, "Apollo 13". In the scene when everything goes wrong, the engineers are using slide rules in mission control. My wife asked, "why aren't they using digital calculators?" The pocket calculators didn't come out for 3-5 years after the Apollo 13 flight, 1970. I was about ready to graduate high school in 1970.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The really funny thing about "then and now" when it comes to slide rules and calculators is that I wasn't allowed to use my slide rule - I knew how - to overcome my horrid arithmetic in algebra, geometry, etc. Nowadays kids are allowed/encouraged to use their calculators to ignore whether they have good arithmetic and concentrate on whether they can figure out how to solve the problem.

 

Argh!

 

I did use the slide rule in doing calculations in some colloid chemistry problems (ink testing) in a real job.

 

m

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The really funny thing about "then and now" when it comes to slide rules and calculators is that I wasn't allowed to use my slide rule - I knew how - to overcome my horrid arithmetic in algebra, geometry, etc. Nowadays kids are allowed/encouraged to use their calculators to ignore whether they have good arithmetic and concentrate on whether they can figure out how to solve the problem.

 

Argh!

 

I did use the slide rule in doing calculations in some colloid chemistry problems (ink testing) in a real job.

 

m

 

I used a slide rule for many years in business. But if you don't know the "rules", a slide rule, or even a calculator won't help.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Rob...

 

Yupper...

 

In printing we had what I always called a circular slide rule that we used for figuring the proportions of a given photo scaled up or down a given percentage. Saved a lot of arithmetic!

 

I wonder also how many folks recall how the early computer spreadsheet programs, both 8-bit and early 16-bit programs, had some rounding problems given they did their math digitally and then messed with putting 'em back into decimal. Sometimes that could be a real problem for businesses.

 

m

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Farnsbarns

Rob...

 

Yupper...

 

In printing we had what I always called a circular slide rule that we used for figuring the proportions of a given photo scaled up or down a given percentage. Saved a lot of arithmetic!

 

I wonder also how many folks recall how the early computer spreadsheet programs, both 8-bit and early 16-bit programs, had some rounding problems given they did their math digitally and then messed with putting 'em back into decimal. Sometimes that could be a real problem for businesses.

 

m

 

Yes, what a nightmare! Intel eventually included a separate core termed "maths coprocessor". Hmm, the first multicore CPU. .. the Intel 80386 it seems.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, what a nightmare! Intel eventually included a separate core termed "maths coprocessor". Hmm, the first multicore CPU. .. the Intel 80386 it seems.

 

I recall my first computer course.....maybe 1972 or 1973..... the college I attended didn't even HAVE a computer....we only had terminals hooked to a computer at UC Berkeley.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I ran an early publications editorial computer mid-late '70s... It was bigger than a lot of restaurant refrigerators and if it went down, hadda be rebooted with paper tape. 14-inch one-meg hard drive was considered more than we'd ever need.

 

Typesetting commands up to 24-pt were embedded. Spellchecker never did work right. But... we also had OCR for special IBM selectric setups and some IBM selectrics could do a direct input into the computer...

 

Then... I hadda figure a sorta word processor for my first 8-bit machine without at first buying a "real" program. Can you believe interpreted basic? <grin> Then a daisywheel printer to get stuff to the typesetter/printer. At the time it was cheaper to figure 3 years of typesetting costs for our startup magazine than buying the equipment that it would have taken to do any sort of direct typesetting input. That was a good decision 'cuz those three years were huge in making changes to what we did in terms of tech...

 

m

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A keypunch operator:

 

+1! Nailed it....OK how many of us remember those IBM punch cards she's holding? I think you'd have to be well over 50.

 

And...how many remember cards for clocking in at work?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm so old I remember programming a dos computer to do a rudimentary caslculation for analytical chemistry in college in 82 and thinking that I must be some sort of genius (it honestly was on the order of simple addition). Waaay before I first owned a computer in 92.

Also remember the commercial on TV announcing the coming internet?

 

This is a hilarious thread btw.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

And...how many remember cards for clocking in at work?

 

I'm raising my hand! The first punch card system was used by the US Government to keep track of immigration and census at around the turn of the 20th century. Not the very first punch card used but the first large scale data system. I don't feel so old now! [biggrin]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

+1! Nailed it....OK how many of us remember those IBM punch cards she's holding? I think you'd have to be well over 50.

 

And...how many remember cards for clocking in at work?

I use to punch in cards at work last year.

 

My father still uses a card puncher system for his workers.

 

 

Its not a dated system, its very simple and ideal for small companies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

+1! Nailed it....OK how many of us remember those IBM punch cards she's holding? I think you'd have to be well over 50.

 

And...how many remember cards for clocking in at work?

I use to punch in cards at work last year.

 

My father still uses a card puncher system for his workers.

 

 

Its not a dated system, its very simple and ideal for small companies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My father still uses a card puncher system for his workers.

Its not a dated system, its very simple and ideal for small companies.

I wish they used it where I work, as the electronic timekeeping system goes down every month!

 

You know you are old when you look at your car's engine and there is no distributor cap with contact points you have to adjust. When I was young cars still had crank handles and a keyhole for them in the front bumper!

And - who remembers kick-starting a bike?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tman... Dos computers are "new" tech! <grin> Seriously, we've had "home-small business" computers since '80. I basically built my own from as "standard" parts as possible until the 486. Gave up on programming anything more complex than a payroll calculator (I still used it until '95) because store-bought program costs and capabilities were far more practical.

 

... Uhhhh... people don't start Broom-Bikes with a kick starter any more? Sheesh. What won't they think of next?

 

As for cranks on cars... even at my age they were considered antiques although in theory the Ford "A" could have been cranked as I understand it. My Dad, in his years as a small town car and motorcycle dealer, sold an "A" to a small town physician who used it regularly in bad weather because it worked almost as well as a Jeep - even better in some ways - on some bottomless mud roads and un-plowed snowy roads. I remember riding with his top mechanic to deliver the thing to a nearby town in the early/mid '50s.

 

Then again, perhaps knowing physicians who did rural house calls (every physician I knew in the '50s), is a fact more likely to point me out as "old." Or... is it having known physicians who actually practice in rural areas?

 

Or.... small town high school kids hanging out at the local pool hall on Saturday? Nowadays there ain't no pool halls of that sort... Everybody in all age groups smoked tobacco, and usually 14 was the minimum in the hall, not by law, but by custom which occasionally trumped laws. Females only knocked on the windows to contact someone inside; they never entered. There was often a barber shop and/or shoeshine stand in the back. Some barkeeps made book or called in to city bookies.

 

Nickel beer for those of age; nickel root beer for those who weren't. The kids were tolerated as long as they acted like adults except that they never could even try to get into the beer... Once a kid was tossed, it was functionally forever regardless how many years later - and everyone knew it.

 

Oh - violence in such establishments? Never, ever saw it in a small town pool hall.

 

BTW, on the "no females," that wasn't "law," but as I said, custom trumped law. The girls, women and ladies may have resented such all-male establishments but it wasn't an issue until the '60s, "women's lib" and the dying out of such small town refuges regardless of changing customs.

 

m

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


×
×
  • Create New...