December 29, 2010 at 13:48What young people need to know about the last century
- Transfer
Two days before the second decade of the 21st century, age-old Reddit users made a list of memories they want to share with the younger generation. Although young people are unlikely to believe that their fathers could live in such conditions when there was no Internet.
• I wrote a letter on a physical piece of paper and sent it to Microsoft asking how to enter mathematical formulas in Word (on my Macintosh II computer in the late 80's). I received an answer, also by paper mail, from a real Microsoft programmer who answered my question in great detail.
• There were no remote controls from the TV. It was necessary to tear your back from the sofa, get up and go to the TV to press a button.
• To make a copy of the document, it was necessary to insert a special ink sheet between two blank sheets, put it all in a typewriter and type the text.
• A computer cost as much as a car.
• If you liked a song, but you didn’t have one, you had to wait for the song to be put on the radio. You could call a DJ and ask to stage it, but if the song is rare, then he would hardly agree.
• If you wanted to watch a movie, you had to go to the cinema. If the movie was not shown there, then everything was very complicated. Star Wars came out in 1977. Only in 1982, five years later, the film began to be shown on paid channels (if you had one, because none of my friends had it). The film was released on VHS that same year if you had a VHS VCR. It was not broadcast on television until 1984. But even five years after I first watched Star Wars, I was not able to watch the movie again.
• VHS VCRs — those drawers in which the cassette was loaded from above, with analog tuning heads, cost about $ 700 in 1980. Adjusted for inflation, this is $ 1,858 for modern money.
• I did not see MTV until 1987, when cable television was finally extended into my city.
• I never saw anyone having sex until I went to college (there I first saw porn on VHS).
• I personally saw sex, because the local beach was almost all occupied by nudists, and sometimes they just had sex. It was behind a park with a playground in the suburbs, although you had to go through the dam to get to the beach.
• If you went to a bar or club, then you returned from there with a natural ashtray, all clothes had to be washed. I could not fall asleep until I took a shower and washed away smoke and ash from my hair.
• People gathered in line at banks on Fridays to hand over their checks (salaries in the US are given weekly on Fridays) and receive cash. If you ran out of cash on the weekend - it was very bad.
• When credit cards appeared, only a respectable man with a very good reputation could receive it. A single woman, even if she had a successful business, was almost always refused a card. If she was married, she could draw up a card through her husband, indicating the name of her husband on the card. Of course, there were exceptions, but I remember reading an article in Newsweek around 1980 that the situation was starting to change. By the time I went to college, they were already issuing credit cards to anyone with a pulse.
• There were no mobile phones, pagers, text messages, voicemail, or answering machines. If you needed to meet someone, you had to call him until he came home and picked up the phone, and then made an appointment. No "I'm at this address now, drop in" or something like that.
• There was no Facebook or email. Long distance calls were expensive. When I graduated from college, I could not talk with classmates for several months until someone bothered to write a paper letter and send it by mail. You just lost touch with people.
• On Sundays, we called family and friends because the rates were cheaper.
• If you went to study abroad or joined the Peace Corps, you fell into real isolation from family and friends. You could send or receive letters on very thin paper for airmail, but imagine: for two years not talking and not seeing your family and friends, except for random photographs.
• If the camera runs out of film, then no more photos. I had to very selectively choose what to shoot.
• There is not a single film or video clip from my childhood (and most of my friends too). Super-8 died, and VHS was still unavailable. I have no idea how I looked and what my voice was in childhood, and how badly I played football.
• I had to book all the tickets for my holidays through a travel agent (or call the airline and go there for a ticket).
• You could pay in cash near the plane and immediately go on the ramp.
• I know people who were not allowed on the plane because they were not very well dressed . Men often wore a suit on a plane (A friend of mine flew across the country to buy a car and return home, he was in sports pants. He had to return home, change clothes and catch a later flight).
• If you wanted to know something, there was no Google or Wikipedia. Some basic fact could be obtained if you had a collection of encyclopedias. But most of the information, from the most important to the trivial things ("who starred in that movie?") Was not available until you get the necessary directory or go to the library and conduct a real search.
• If you needed a newspaper article, you had to go to the library, look in the file cabinet, then take a microfilm and look at hundreds and hundreds of pages, while you might find something. Then you need to manually rewrite the desired text or, if you're lucky, pay five cents for the copied page.
• Most cities had at least two newspapers, and usually at least one of them was pretty good. They were delivered by boys like me on bicycles.
• Milk was delivered to the door of the house.
• Most fruits and vegetables were sold fresh only at certain times of the year.
• We have never used sunscreen. And they did not wear bicycle helmets.
• Cars broke down all the time.
• In childhood, we played outside (there was nothing to do in the house). Favorite “toys” were twigs and dirty coins.
• Toys were much cheaper, children had bicycles and board games, rather than smartphones, iPods, HDTV in the bedrooms, computers, digital cameras, GPS, game consoles, video games and new cars, like modern teenagers. My first car was a 60s Dodge, for which I paid $ 100.
• I wrote a letter on a physical piece of paper and sent it to Microsoft asking how to enter mathematical formulas in Word (on my Macintosh II computer in the late 80's). I received an answer, also by paper mail, from a real Microsoft programmer who answered my question in great detail.
• There were no remote controls from the TV. It was necessary to tear your back from the sofa, get up and go to the TV to press a button.
• To make a copy of the document, it was necessary to insert a special ink sheet between two blank sheets, put it all in a typewriter and type the text.
• A computer cost as much as a car.
• If you liked a song, but you didn’t have one, you had to wait for the song to be put on the radio. You could call a DJ and ask to stage it, but if the song is rare, then he would hardly agree.
• If you wanted to watch a movie, you had to go to the cinema. If the movie was not shown there, then everything was very complicated. Star Wars came out in 1977. Only in 1982, five years later, the film began to be shown on paid channels (if you had one, because none of my friends had it). The film was released on VHS that same year if you had a VHS VCR. It was not broadcast on television until 1984. But even five years after I first watched Star Wars, I was not able to watch the movie again.
• VHS VCRs — those drawers in which the cassette was loaded from above, with analog tuning heads, cost about $ 700 in 1980. Adjusted for inflation, this is $ 1,858 for modern money.
• I did not see MTV until 1987, when cable television was finally extended into my city.
• I never saw anyone having sex until I went to college (there I first saw porn on VHS).
• I personally saw sex, because the local beach was almost all occupied by nudists, and sometimes they just had sex. It was behind a park with a playground in the suburbs, although you had to go through the dam to get to the beach.
• If you went to a bar or club, then you returned from there with a natural ashtray, all clothes had to be washed. I could not fall asleep until I took a shower and washed away smoke and ash from my hair.
• People gathered in line at banks on Fridays to hand over their checks (salaries in the US are given weekly on Fridays) and receive cash. If you ran out of cash on the weekend - it was very bad.
• When credit cards appeared, only a respectable man with a very good reputation could receive it. A single woman, even if she had a successful business, was almost always refused a card. If she was married, she could draw up a card through her husband, indicating the name of her husband on the card. Of course, there were exceptions, but I remember reading an article in Newsweek around 1980 that the situation was starting to change. By the time I went to college, they were already issuing credit cards to anyone with a pulse.
• There were no mobile phones, pagers, text messages, voicemail, or answering machines. If you needed to meet someone, you had to call him until he came home and picked up the phone, and then made an appointment. No "I'm at this address now, drop in" or something like that.
• There was no Facebook or email. Long distance calls were expensive. When I graduated from college, I could not talk with classmates for several months until someone bothered to write a paper letter and send it by mail. You just lost touch with people.
• On Sundays, we called family and friends because the rates were cheaper.
• If you went to study abroad or joined the Peace Corps, you fell into real isolation from family and friends. You could send or receive letters on very thin paper for airmail, but imagine: for two years not talking and not seeing your family and friends, except for random photographs.
• If the camera runs out of film, then no more photos. I had to very selectively choose what to shoot.
• There is not a single film or video clip from my childhood (and most of my friends too). Super-8 died, and VHS was still unavailable. I have no idea how I looked and what my voice was in childhood, and how badly I played football.
• I had to book all the tickets for my holidays through a travel agent (or call the airline and go there for a ticket).
• You could pay in cash near the plane and immediately go on the ramp.
• I know people who were not allowed on the plane because they were not very well dressed . Men often wore a suit on a plane (A friend of mine flew across the country to buy a car and return home, he was in sports pants. He had to return home, change clothes and catch a later flight).
• If you wanted to know something, there was no Google or Wikipedia. Some basic fact could be obtained if you had a collection of encyclopedias. But most of the information, from the most important to the trivial things ("who starred in that movie?") Was not available until you get the necessary directory or go to the library and conduct a real search.
• If you needed a newspaper article, you had to go to the library, look in the file cabinet, then take a microfilm and look at hundreds and hundreds of pages, while you might find something. Then you need to manually rewrite the desired text or, if you're lucky, pay five cents for the copied page.
• Most cities had at least two newspapers, and usually at least one of them was pretty good. They were delivered by boys like me on bicycles.
• Milk was delivered to the door of the house.
• Most fruits and vegetables were sold fresh only at certain times of the year.
• We have never used sunscreen. And they did not wear bicycle helmets.
• Cars broke down all the time.
• In childhood, we played outside (there was nothing to do in the house). Favorite “toys” were twigs and dirty coins.
• Toys were much cheaper, children had bicycles and board games, rather than smartphones, iPods, HDTV in the bedrooms, computers, digital cameras, GPS, game consoles, video games and new cars, like modern teenagers. My first car was a 60s Dodge, for which I paid $ 100.