Things that make you feel old

[Dennis1209]

Any one remember gas wars where gasoline sold for 25 to 30 cents per gallon?

Western Auto stores where you could buy guns and ammo, only requirement was money.

So many things that let me know I am not as young as I once was!    :rofl:

 

Remember? I was pumping it at a Clark station at 16 years old and my 1962 Rambler's tank stayed full. Twenty-four cents a gallon is the lowest I remember during the gas wars in my area. Daily my boss would send me a few blocks up the road to check what the Site station was selling gas for and match it. If a customer purchased more than "a dolla's worf" of gas, I had to wash the windshield, back glass and offer to check under the hood.

 

I can't remember if we gave away Eagle or S&H stamps with purchases and frequently gave away mugs / glass's etc. with ten gallons or more.

 

I still have a couple of boxes of (50 round) .22LR I purchased myself at 12-13 years old from Western Auto.  

 

I won't go into changing out a bad horse shoe when a horse and buggy pulled in :ugh:

Edited August 16, 2013 by Dennis1209

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I liked fiddling with electronics off'n'on thru life. In the 1950's, not-very-good transistors were newfangled, cost more than a buck apiece, expensive for the time. There was the eniac computer kit, that was basically just a bunch of discrete flip-flops, lights and switches. Hi-tech. Old dad bought me an 8 transistor radio kit about 1956 and assembled it. Fully superhet, in a big plastic case that ran off about a zillion D cells. Lots of transformers in there for a transistor design. I recall it having excellent sensitivity and selectivity for an AM radio. Or maybe the airwaves were less crowded then.

 

Dad had a 2 meter 5 watt ham tube transceiver that was a sheet metal cube bigger than 1 foot in all dimensions. It took up the entire center of the front seat area of the rambler station wagon. Big whip antenna on the back bumper. The sun was pretty active in the 1950's and he could occasionally get pretty good DX out of that thing.

 

In the late 1950's I talked the parental units into signing me up for a subscription to a "science course" or whatever it was called. I don't think it was real expensive. Every month or two a big cardboard box would come in the mail with a bunch of assorted parts and tools, and a cheap printed softbound manual of what to do with the parts. The first few kits concentrated on electronics, had rolls of wire, soldering iron, tools, and a "generic chassis". The first "experiment" was assembling an isolated power supply in the chassis, and then further "experiments" included galvenometers, radio receivers, transmitters, strobe lights, yadda yadda. All tube-based mostly. It was all point-to-point soldered wiring, so when changing the chassis from one circuit to another, you had to desolder all the old wires and resolder new wires. There were also parts to build electric motors, generators, solenoids, etc. And then some of the kits had chemistry and physics gear. Little radioactive samples, scintillator detector, cloud chamber, radiometer, test tubes and chemicals. An optics module with lenses, prisms and diffraction gratings. There was a weather module with little scraps of junk that could be used to build anerometer, hygrometer, thermometer, etc, and what to do with them. How long would it take to get sued out of the solar system, sending big cardboard boxes of assorted parts to pre-teens nowadays?

 

In my teens in 1960's got more interested in audio and music. Gear was real expensive back then, and the quality wasn't very good for most of the stuff. Of course the same tube amps that geetar players lust after nowadays. Shoulda never sold any of those. But cheezy germanium transistor fuzz tone boxes, and the echoplex, a tube echo unit that used a tape loop. Great gadget that would break all the time and if you used one regularly it was an inoperable pile of junk after a couple of years, and they were very expensive. Then there were several echoplex clones, that were cheaper but still highway robbery, that were built even crappier than echoplexes.

 

Things are lots more affordable for a musician nowadays. Higher quality gear, easily affordable. Into the 1970's, you about had to sell yer firstborn to buy a four-track reel-to-reel tape recorder, which only weighed about 60 pounds, and was useless unless you added on a few thousand bucks of noisy, kinda crappy-built ancillary gear.

 

I got interested in the innards of electronics again in mid-70's, designing and building and modifying analog signal processors and analog music synthesizers. Basically analog computer circuits that make music. Then they started adding microprocessors to control the analog computer circuits, and then finally got around to all-digital gadgets.

 

Got interested in programming in college and it was a sad day when I graduated because they wouldn't let you play with the school computers unless you were a student, and I didn't have a million dollars to buy my own IBM 360 for the house. The IBM 360 was about the same size as the apes' monolith in the movie 2001, in a climate-controlled room with tape drives the size of refrigerators and hard drives the size of washing machines. A line printer about 4 feet wide, and of course the card reader/writer. Never looked inside the 360, but later on I looked around inside a junk 370 which was "much fancier", and it was strange it was so crude. Lots of discrete transistors and early integrated circuits, with WIRE-WRAPPED boards and interconnections! The core memory kinda looked like a stack of chicken wire.

 

So when such as Northstars and Kaypros and Osborne's came out, Commodore 64, Sinclair, Radio Shack puters. Exciting stuff. I never had a 6502 apple because they were just too crazy expensive. Dot-matrix printers, daisy-wheel printers, pen plotters. Monochrome monitors. Had more fun than a barrel of monkeys programming C64 in asm. It had a hardware port on the back, you could build external electronics and control it easy with the computer. PC costed a lot more and it was more hassle building an expansion board for a PC, and it was a lot more tragic if a mistake on your expansion board would burn up the PC motherboard.

 

I made interfaces to control drum machines and synthesizers from the C64, bundles of wire going between the gadgets. So then in 1984 or so, the MIDI standard came about, a simple serial interface to computer-control music gear, and over the next few years started doing less electronics and more programming.

 

Use a computer to drive drum machines and synthesizers and lock it to multi track tape for audio, because computers were not strong enough to do audio. Mix it down to two track analog tape and still do the final editing with a razor blade. Really noisy signal chain.

 

So then Sony came out with PCM adapter boxes that would connect to a beta video tape to record squeaky-clean 16 bit digital audio, and make perfect digital copies with a pair of beta decks. Kinda expensive, but lots less noise. That was about the same time CD's were replacing vinyl and cassette as music distribution media.  Then CD Burners came out, first for about $10,000+, and then gradually cheaper until you could finally buy a CD burner for a mere $1000. But in order to burn a CD, you needed at least a 1 GB hard drive, and it was a day of rejoicing when 1 GB SCSI drives finally dropped to a mere $1000. And of course you needed at least a $2000 2 channel digidesign audio card in your $4000 Mac IIci, with an extra $1000 of ram, to do the trick.

 

So it was finally very simple-- Record everything that could be recorded in MIDI to the computer, and then lock the computer to multi-track reel-to-reel and overdub the acoustic instruments. Do an analog mix to the PCM box onto beta tape. Repeat the process until you have enough songs to master an album. Then transfer the relevant pieces in real-time from the beta tape to the computer on that ginormous 1 GB drive, edit the heads and tails in Sound Designer, edit a text-based burn list, and then finally burn a CD! Yay! Couldn't get any simpler!

Edited August 16, 2013 by Lester Weevils

[Guest nra37922]

Couple more

 

Japanese radios were junk, real cheap but junk.

 

Honda Civic was basically a 4 wheel coffin powered by a motorcycle engine

 

Weed was something to be pulled not smoked.

[tnhawk]

I can't remember why I feel old.

[Guest TankerHC]

I was on Arpanet, using Delphi, before Algore invented the internet.

 

So was I. Using Unix machines. Something I read from a Tech Writer last night that might make you laugh. This guy is a legit tech writer, writes for Yahoo. Soclai Networking has only been around 10 years, online marketing has only been around 10 years also.

 

I sent him a message and asked if he ever heard of Telnet, Usenet,  BBS's, Newsgroups,  Bolt, Classmates, WOW!, The Globe, Geocities, Tripod, Compuserve, Prodigy, and the other million Social Networking and marketing sites that have been around for the last 30 years+.  Waiting on his response. Before Tim Berners Lee and CERN changed the world (Not Algore)

 

enfield, what do you think about this new thing that started about 8 months ago? Bitmaps. :rofl:

 

I bet there are a lot of people here who were on the Newsgroups back when. I would still be on today but Im not paying for access to a Newgroup Server when Forums work just as good (Or better) and are mostly free. (For the users)

Edited August 16, 2013 by TankerHC

[TSprint1]

I can't remember why I feel old.

Would it be because ASA went out around 1976? :usa: :cheers: 

[Guest TankerHC]

Im not this old. But if you can remember when you could listen in on police calls on your AM radio, then your old.

 

Raise your hand.

 

But I do remember this "get the f___ off Channel 19!". Letters coming from the FCC with $100 fines for transmitting too long, $5 licenses and Coffee Breaks. And that wasnt HAM. Transmitting "Illegally" on dual side bands.

Edited August 16, 2013 by TankerHC

[JAB]

How long would it take to get sued out of the solar system, sending big cardboard boxes of assorted parts to pre-teens nowadays?

 

Sued, hell.  These days the company owners and administration would probably end up in Guantanamo Bay!

[Guest TankerHC]

You all ever seen anything like this. This is the neighborhood I grew up in, except two blocks north (You can see my street in the movie "And Justice for All", when Al Pacino is on the steps, thats two doors down from my house. You can see my street also in the movie "Diner", which the Diner set was at the foot of Hudson street pier.

 

Back in the mid 70's all the guys in our neighborhood would build and race cars at Capital Drag Strip and Stock cars at Dorsey Speedway. One of them, this guy on our block, wanted to do something different. This is what he did.

 

Edited August 16, 2013 by TankerHC

[JAB]

You all ever seen anything like this. This is the neighborhood I grew up in, except two blocks north (You can see my street in the movie "And Justice for All", when Al Pacino is on the steps, thats two doors down from my house. You can see my street also in the movie "Diner", which the Diner set was at the foot of Hudson street pier.

 

Back in the mid 70's all the guys in our neighborhood would build and race cars at Capital Drag Strip and Stock cars at Dorsey Speedway. One of them, this guy on our block, wanted to do something different. This is what he did.

 

 

What in the Hades is that thing?

[Guest TankerHC]

What in the Hades is that thing?

 

I dont know, only know the guy who built it. Funny thing is, we have a facebook group of our neighborhood with all the people who lived there, they all know who built it, everyone knows about it but still, no one seems to know what the platform was. Anyone have any idea? If you do tell me, then I can go on FB and solve a mystery.

[Garufa]

What in the Hades is that thing?

 

I don't know but my mom had a station wagon just like the one it the background.  I loved sitting in the "rumble seat" that faced backwards.

[K191145]

They are coming out with a Rockem Sockem Robot Movie

 

Anyone here have an SST, those were shiny cars with a large wheel in the middle of the body, took a zip tie looking thing with a handle, pulled it through the wheel. They would go about a million MPH. If your hand caught the wheel, you'd have a heck of a burn. if the car hit someone, they would be hurting, because almost all of the SST's had pointy front ends. My understanding is thats why they took them off the market, bad burns and pointy front ends.

 

I remember those cars, I don't think they were very stable either as far as going where you pointed them. I may have to see what the Rockem Sockem Robot movie is about.

[Dennis1209]

I can't remember why I feel old.

 

I don't know either but, I just wish they would give me a bowl of that dementia they keep talking about, it sounds delicious. The wife recently, or was it a decade ago? Anyway she turned me on to the latest summer fashions from Tommy Hilfiger, adult pampers.

[Djay3]

I feel old remembering ...
My family's phone was a rotary dial.
My paternal grandmother, who I remember in her 90s, was born in 1868, in Arkansas near the Indian Country border.
Piling into the neighbor's house along with all the neighborhood kids (only TV on the block) to watch "Howdy Doodie".
My first football helmet (age 6) was leather!
My high school ROTC rifle was an M1.
Having the milkman deliver bottled milk to our door step & buying produce off mule drawn wagons going house to house.
Watching in awe at the first color TV; it just focused on a revolving rosebud (at the annual Fair).
Cokes at school were in the squatty short glass bottles and cost 5 cents.
Doing "Duck and Cover" drills in elementary school i.e. hiding under the old wooden & wrought iron school desk to avoid atomic bomb!
... sigh and I'm only 67!

[mav]

The only thing that makes me feel old is getting out of bed every morning.

[kieefer]

We were talking movies at work the other day, this one kid didn't know who John Wayne was.  :stick:

[Guest TankerHC]

I don't know but my mom had a station wagon just like the one it the background.  I loved sitting in the "rumble seat" that faced backwards.

 

My uncles Ford Country Squire. (IIRC), heard a joke not too long ago. In the 70's all newlyweds the day after their wedding were issued a copy of Rumors. After their first child they were issued a Country Squire.

 

 

Evel Knievel was the biggest thing in entertainment. The coolest dude around (Even cooler than the Fonz), and we knew he would never jump the Grand Canyon, waited years for him to do it. In the meantime there was the Ceasers Palace crash, the bus crash in England, and a bunch more. When the movie came out, the end showed him on his 750 HD, going down a dirt road toward a Canyon. When he tried to jump Snake River, it sorta kinda wasnt like that. As I recall he went from Mr. Cool, to a p______y, cause we all KNEW he chickened out and pulled that chute.

[Guest TankerHC]

Roger DeCoster, the baddest man on dirt. Little Fauss and Big Halsey, best movie of the 70's.

 

If you rode on the dirt you knew who DeCoster was and you watched that movie, every time it came on TV.

 

Someone tell me where this line comes from "I think Im ready to unload" or words to that effect.

[56FordGuy]

The only thing that makes me feel old is getting out of bed every morning.

 

It sure beats the alternative!

 

That said, my back, shoulders, neck, knees, and side all take turns hurting on a regular basis.  :-\

[Guest ThePunisher]

 
Someone tell me where this line comes from "I think Im ready to unload" or words to that effect.

I think it came about the last four and half years, but I'm not sure what disgruntled American said it though.

I feel really old when I no longer remember the Jimmy Carter presidency.

[Guest TankerHC]

I remember those cars, I don't think they were very stable either as far as going where you pointed them. I may have to see what the Rockem Sockem Robot movie is about.

 

 

Nope, they were kinda wobbly on that one big wheel, pull that zip string, set them down and they went wherever.

[JAB]

My uncles Ford Country Squire. (IIRC), heard a joke not too long ago. In the 70's all newlyweds the day after their wedding were issued a copy of Rumors. After their first child they were issued a Country Squire.

 

My first car - in the late 1980s - was a 1974 Ford LTD Country Squire wagon.  It was kind of a tan color with (fading and peeling) fake wood side 'panelling'.  It had been in the family before i got it.  IIRC. it came with a 351 but that engine was shot so dad and I went to a local junkyard and got a 400 to put in it.  When the exhaust system went to crap, dad put on a dual straight pipe setup with cherry bombs for me.  He also adjusted the shift linkage for the automatic transmission to get more out of the low gears before it shifted.  That thing was ugly as sin, drank gas like water and would run like a scalded dog.  Guys in much nicer cars would pull up next to me at red lights, laugh at my car and proceed to see nothing but my tail lights when the light turned green.  Of course, part of that was the fact that heavy wagon got good traction off the line.  I remember doing that to a nice looking, classic (thinking a '68) Camaro, once.  The driver had revved his engine and he and his passenger were laughing at my wagon.  Then the light turned green and I left them like they were sitting still because, while his tires were spinning and impressively burning rubber, the wagon was already on the move.  The guys in that Camaro wouldn't even look at me when we got to the next red light.

Edited August 17, 2013 by JAB

[Guest TankerHC]

My first ride on 4 wheels. Father had plenty of money to buy me a car. Instead when I told him I wanted a car (At 15) his reply was, "hey, good for you, go buy you one". At the time I was on a work study program, day started at 2 AM for a ride to Jack in the Box to McLean, Va where I worked the drive thru, back home to Baltimore in the afternoon for school from noon to 4:30, then at 6 my cousin and I went to Auto Body and Fender school until 10 then a bus ride to get us home at 11. Then back up and off to McLean at 2.

 

Never bothered posting my first ride in all of the "My first ride" threads or FB or whatever. Seems like everyone had a new Camaro, or a 64 Mustang or something. But here she is. 68 GMC pickup (IIRC it was a 68), all $400 worth of her. A months worth of Jack in the Box pay. It aint no 77 Trans Am, but I paid for this beech myself, at 15.

 

Edited August 17, 2013 by TankerHC

[TrickyNicky]

Any of you guys remember how back in the day EVERYBODY closed for Christmas? I remember clearly as a little kid we had a tradition to get up, look under the tree(but not touch anything) , go to church and the way home stop by one of the three open businesses in town, a bagel shop.

Then we'd go home and eat bagels while unwrapping presents which took all day with our one person, one gift at a time policy.

Shoot, go into a pizzeria and check out some of the wierd stuff you find on pizza these days. I remember when pineapple was an exotic topping that most people I knew thought was wierd to have on a pie.

I remember playing with toy guns at school and carrying a pocket knife in the 5th grade. Also the solid steel playground equipment of my generation. God, it used to get so hot in the summer but you still couldn't keep us off it.


I feel its really sad that I'm only 28 and can clearly remember when things were different. Things need to stop changing.