The "Back in my day" Thread

Malls! The one I grew up with is still going strong but it's one of the rare few. I do remember the age when instead of being filled with kiosks down the middle, there were sitting areas, fountains, etc and the mall was where all the older folks went in the winter to get their walking done.
DaleB said:
My first online forays were with an old Teletype 43; it had a built in 300 Baud modem and used 12” roll paper. I used it to dial into Compuserve. That was … ‘85, ‘86ish. By ‘88 I was operating a 2400 BBS out of my basement (remember Tradewars?), and in ‘94 or so spun up a dialup ISP.

But I’m feeling much better now.

Edit: my high school had a Teletype 33 with a paper tape reader/punch. You’d use the rotary dial to connect to the mainframe at the university at 110 baud, and you could run your BASIC programs. I, not being in any advanced math classes, was not permitted anywhere near it, officially. Unofficially, we’d go in early in the morning or well after school and use it.
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110?!? :eek: While I connected at 1200 most of the time in the early days, there was one BBS I used occasionally that was still maxed out at 300, and even that was painfully slow - Using 8N1, that's only 30 characters per second and I could read faster than the text could load. I don't think I'd have the patience for 110!
Half Fast said:
And this guy, just before sign-off on PBS:

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Heh... Suddenly, Debussy's Arabesque #1 is in my head!
Piperonca said:
The Tri-Pacer ash tray up front was well used. Dad smoked a lot.
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We think flying is expensive, but flying a plane you smoke in can get REALLY expensive. That stuff gets everywhere, and it gums up all kinds of things. I remember when I was a lineman we had a customer who was a lawyer and had a 421. He smoked like crazy in that poor plane, and constantly was spending money fixing things as a result, most of which were found to be full of tar. Outflow valve, all the gyros, complete interior, all multiple times.

When I worked on computers, the worst one I ever saw was owned by a smoker with a cat. Everything got blanketed with tar, smoke dust, and cat hair and got fried due to insufficient cooling.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Malls! The one I grew up with is still going strong but it's one of the rare few. I do remember the age when instead of being filled with kiosks down the middle, there were sitting areas, fountains, etc and the mall was where all the older folks went in the winter to get their walking done.
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Back in the day, the malls always had some activity happening to draw in customers. A local orchestra or a choir doing Christmas music, a weekend car show, an arts & crafts fair, tasting parties by local restaurants, celebrity autographs, book signings, pet shows, etc., etc. None of the local (and dying) malls do that sort of thing anymore.
 
Zeldman said:
Yeah, first time I saw one of these I wasn't sure if I should pee in it or wash my hands.


Heck, I still don't know what it is for...
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Communal handwashing in a large maintenance shop. Activated by a step ring that circled the basin, maybe an inch or two above the floor. My Army Guard Aviation Support Facility had one.
 
Half Fast said:
Back in the day, the malls always had some activity happening to draw in customers. A local orchestra or a choir doing Christmas music, a weekend car show, an arts & crafts fair, tasting parties by local restaurants, celebrity autographs, book signings, pet shows, etc., etc. None of the local (and dying) malls do that sort of thing anymore.
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I dunno about "always" but I do remember once in a while there'd be a stage set up for something, around Easter they'd hatch hundreds of chicks in a clear case, etc...

There is one local mall that still does musical performances and is thriving. The other local mall that is still thriving does nothing, so I'm not sure whether it really has an effect. I think the Internet did more to kill off malls than anything.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
People under ~30 probably won't even know this was a thing.

How many people here picked up the phone only to hear "Do you wish to accept a collect call from: Dad come pick me up? Press 1 to accept"

Young people: we used to have to pay for the phones and if you were broke you could make a collect call which meant the person receiving the call would have to pay for the call.
So we would go out with friends and place a collect call to our parents and when the recording said state your name, we would insert a short message. Mom and dad would refuse the call so nobody had to pay for the call.

Anyone else here make or receive those to avoid paying for phone calls?


What else would young people have no idea was a thing that was perfectly normal when we were their age?



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Y'all are a bunch of geezers
 
flyingcheesehead said:
I think the Internet did more to kill off malls than anything.
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Maybe, but around here they are building strip shopping centers like crazy. Someday, somebody will get the brilliant idea of connecting several strips together and putting a roof over the whole thing.....
 
DaleB said:
My first online forays were with an old Teletype 43; it had a built in 300 Baud modem and used 12” roll paper. I used it to dial into Compuserve. That was … ‘85, ‘86ish.
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In the 1970s I got lots of time at a Telex teletype. Ours was the economy model, with no tape puncher/reader. The only reason for these things was to avoid long-distance charges. Eventually those costs came down and these machines started to disappear. The fax machine finished them off.
sansoneservices said:
Y'all are a bunch of geezers
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Your turn is coming, and it's sooner than you think.
 

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Salty said:
www.mapquest.com

Official MapQuest - Maps, Driving Directions, Live Traffic

Official MapQuest website, find driving directions, maps, live traffic updates and road conditions. Find nearby businesses, restaurants and hotels. Explore!
www.mapquest.com www.mapquest.com
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MapQuest was one of those short-lived solutions between outright using a road map and when GPS/Google Maps became commonplace in the car/cell phone. People driving around with a stack of MapQuest papers for the route, lol.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
110?!? :eek: While I connected at 1200 most of the time in the early days, there was one BBS I used occasionally that was still maxed out at 300, and even that was painfully slow - Using 8N1, that's only 30 characters per second and I could read faster than the text could load. I don't think I'd have the patience for 110!
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Bear in mind, this was around 1976-78. 110 was as fast as the old Teletype could go. That was a step up for the lower baud rates terminals used to run...
 
Changing mechanical "points" and adjusting the valves on my VW every time I changed the oil. Ancient and not very efficient technology, but in a pinch you could jury rig mechanical systems to get where you were going. These days, if the ECU dies, your only choice is a tow to the dealership. Back when I took flying lessons (1975) the C-152 I rented went for $15/hour - wet! Even gardening jobs during the week gave me enough for instruction.
 
On my first training flight, the instructor told me we'd done enough. It was time to fly back to the airport. I had no idea where it was! No VOR anywhere near the field, and this was LOOOOOONG before GPS. I quickly learned the fine art of terrain navigation.
 
Flyhound said:
On my first training flight, the instructor told me we'd done enough. It was time to fly back to the airport. I had no idea where it was! No VOR anywhere near the field, and this was LOOOOOONG before GPS. I quickly learned the fine art of terrain navigation.
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Non-precision IFR approaches using the ADF and a watch.
 
Back in the 1990s, I fell in love with a gal in Hungary that I met while traveling to see a total solar eclipse. The phone bills were so expensive it almost broke the relationship. Now we've been married for over 20 years and she video chats with her dad back in Hungary very day - and it doesn't cost us a cent beyond what we pay for broadband access anyway. There are a lot of thi9ngs like this that were part of the "good old days" that I'm happy to have left behind.
 
SoonerAviator said:
MapQuest was one of those short-lived solutions between outright using a road map and when GPS/Google Maps became commonplace in the car/cell phone. People driving around with a stack of MapQuest papers for the route, lol.
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AAA Triptiks! When I was a kid, we never left on a multi-day road trip without first picking up our custom-printed Triptik, and sitting with the AAA travel advisor as he went through page by page and highlighted our route while describing highlights we'd see along the way.

https://pearlsoftravelwisdom.boardingarea.com/2014/01/remember-triptix/

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Triptiks. Spell check does not recognize that word.

1963, my wife and I went to Missouri, San Francisco, Salt Lake city, Yellow Stone, and home, 3 books of Triptiks from my mother's account. A steno notebook of notes on the trip. We left without a credit card, but $500 in hundred dollar bills. We reached home with two of those bills. 2 weeks on the road.

Camped out 4 nites, stayed with relatives several more, and left those nights with a cooler full of home cooking.

My first new car, 1960 Chevrolet V8, got 15 MPG on that trip, gas mostly between 25 and 30 cents, except Death Valley, 48 cents. Left with 4 new tires, half worn out when we reached home.
 
Does anyone remember Traveler Checks that you could cash at motels and restaurants. You used them before there was Visa and Master Card and you didn’t have to carry a large amount of cash
 
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Zeldman said:
I played safe, I went into one of the stalls.

Ya' know, swirling water rinses the hands off quicker than a small stream of water out of the faucet...
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I dunno. Something about a bunch of guys peeing in a circle is off-putting.
 
Cars with headlights out. Sure, you see it occasionally, today. But not to the degree it was in the '60s. Haven't replaced a headlight in my own cars in about twenty years, and that was when a rock destroyed it. Was visiting a relative a few years back when I noticed *his* was out. He had no idea on how to replace it. It's just so rare, now.

Conversely, I see more *tail lights* out, these days. Curious. They're LED as well.

My house has a wrap-around deck with six BR-30s for lighting. I use a timer to have them on all night, for security. Back in the '90s, I would have to get out the stepladder and replace one about every month. Replaced them with CFLs, and eventually with LEDs. Haven't had to do anything for years.

Speaking of timers, my original one just set the on/off times, which I had to adjust every month or so due to the length of the day changing. My current one just needs me to set the current time, the on-off times, and my house's latitude. Adjusts the on-off time each day accordingly. Needs a watch battery every five years or so, at which point I have to dig out the manual and figure out how to set it, again.

Another relative laid in a big stock of incandescent bulbs, back when they were being obsoleted. All gone, now.

Ron Wanttaja
 
flyingcheesehead said:
When I worked on computers, the worst one I ever saw was owned by a smoker with a cat. Everything got blanketed with tar, smoke dust, and cat hair and got fried due to insufficient cooling.
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Sounds about like what I experienced working on computers in an auto repair shop. The dust was like fine talc and smeared. Worse than the fine dust all over everything in my barn from having chickens.
 
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