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BS: Obsolete in your lifetime?
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Subject: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Mr Happy Date: 01 May 12 - 10:00 AM Just pondering various devices, inventions, trends, customs etc no longer used. But there's some good stuff out there & I'd be interested suggestions for new uses for old things. My shed's got allsorts, like bits of old frame tents, poles etc. Some I've re-used as beanpoles or other garden supports. There's an old 1960's Kodak Brownie camera takes size 127 8 exposure film - where? A box of old LP's, 45's, 78's Anyone else got stuff like this? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Rapparee Date: 01 May 12 - 10:08 AM Of course. If you want to get rid of the LPs, etc., just let me know. By the way, vinyl isn't anywhere near "dead." Have you ever felt that YOU were obsolete in your lifetime? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: John MacKenzie Date: 01 May 12 - 10:21 AM That was my response Rap. ME !!!!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: John P Date: 01 May 12 - 10:22 AM Until recently, I had a waxer, a device for applying a thin film of wax to the back of a piece of art so you can paste it into a page design and still be able to move it around. Computers and desktop publishing software made it obsolete. I still kept it around for more than 20 years without using it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Mr Happy Date: 01 May 12 - 10:26 AM 'Have you ever felt that YOU were obsolete in your lifetime? ' Well not total me - but a number of skills I've acquired during the last 60+ years have been superceded by more modern knowledge of ways of doing stuff. I don't suppose i'll ever find myself having to start a car with a handle again - using the special thumbs clear grip! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: saulgoldie Date: 01 May 12 - 10:48 AM I have a heavy-duty screw type press for installing cotter pins on olde cottered crank arms on a bicycle. I haven't seen a cottered crank in ten years. Also, I don't know anyone other than my brother and I who knows how to use a slide rule for mathematical calculations. Wristwatches? Kids don't use em much. Their phones have the time, if they even care, which many of em don't. In the kitchen: pressure cookers. Fewer people even do their own cooking, much less know how to use one. Bundt pans. Again, how many people bake their own cakes? I don't even think they sell them anymore. Saul |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: bubblyrat Date: 01 May 12 - 11:40 AM Things that have become obsolete in my lifetime ; Bakelite telephones Blue bags Hand-operated mangles Fly papers Bronco toilet paper (thank God !) Tin baths Telegrams Red phone -boxes LSD coinage Comptometers Gas meters Steam powered warships ( Excepting nuclear submarines of course ) Radiograms & 75 rpm records Paraffin (kerosene) 'fridges Hangmen Half the pubs in Henley I'll think of more later...... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Sandra in Sydney Date: 01 May 12 - 12:37 PM typewriters log tables replaced in my high school by calculators a year or so after I finished in 1969 gym tunics also replaced by skirt & blouse the year after I left! sandra |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Bert Date: 01 May 12 - 01:02 PM Mr Happy, Here's one place that sells 127 film And another Saul, I still use a slide rule, much faster than a calculator. And I use the pressure cooker. It is great for chicken, pop it in for ten minutes then take it out and finish it off in the oven, much tastier. We also use the meat grinder too, we will buy a brisket for $2.48 a pound and grind it all up, beats paying $3.99 a pound for ground beef and it made us feel quite smug when we heard about that pink slime. Sandra, Yes log tables, I had a book of Smoley's Table that I haven't used in years. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: GUEST,999 Date: 01 May 12 - 01:34 PM Television has become obsolete in my house. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Musket Date: 01 May 12 - 01:46 PM Government based on thought out policies rather than knee-jerk soundbite populism. Remember that? No, me neither. But I like to think it used to exist. Sorry, long day. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: GUEST,josepp Date: 01 May 12 - 01:49 PM I have an electric typewriter. Probably doesn't work anymore since I haven't turn it on in decades. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: gnu Date: 01 May 12 - 02:12 PM Other than for working on small engine stuff and the odd household or yard thingy, over $3000 worth of tools. Oh, I might be able to do some minor stuff on my truck, but ANYTHING major can only be fixed with a credit card. And the bastards charge $68 just to hook it up to their computer. I remarked to a guy today that, when I wanted to change the plugs and wires on my first truck on a rainy day I could sit on a lawn chair, shut the hood and do it. With my present truck, I couldn't even slide a credit card in there. And I've heard that a basic 100,000km tuneup costs over $2000! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Bert Date: 01 May 12 - 02:15 PM Air raid shelters. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: John MacKenzie Date: 01 May 12 - 03:02 PM Manners |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: GUEST Date: 01 May 12 - 03:14 PM Indeed, John! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: frogprince Date: 01 May 12 - 03:14 PM A few years ago, for some reason I've now forgotten, I tried to find ribbon for my Smith Corona Galaxy typing device. I wasn't on line then to search that way, but I sure couldn't find any in stores. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Don(Wyziwyg)T Date: 01 May 12 - 05:34 PM Discipline and more importantly respect! Don T. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: number 6 Date: 01 May 12 - 05:43 PM floppy computer disks. biLL |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: artbrooks Date: 01 May 12 - 05:49 PM 7" open-reel tape recorders. 8-track tape players (never had one, myself). Cassette players (still use mine, once in a while). Film cameras. Field artillery graphical firing tables. Spare tires for small cars. Dial-up modems. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: CupOfTea Date: 01 May 12 - 06:00 PM I 've had a few ancient office gizmos that are sadly obsolete: -- a pair of beautiful shiny bakelite-knob ended stampers. These devices held a roll of stamps, and had a felt pad that was kept wet though a water reservoir. You put the stamper on the corner of your envelope, pressed down, and it applied a licked stamp to the envelope. --a fluid duplicator (those gloriously cool fragrant purple colored texts). This was my family business. I had all the supplies and parts to make this work for years after xerography was the norm, even red and green inked stencil sheets. -- an Auto-typist unit. Also family business. No fools, they could see the world of Word processing coming. For several years before IBM's memory typewriter, these gizmos were STATE OF THE ART. An electric typewriter's keys were connected to the Auto Typist unit through hanger wires & bellows. It was operated by punched paper rolls that look just like Player Piano rolls. The sophisticated rolls my aunt stamped out had up to 50 different selections, and was used by hospital labs for reports, college admission offices TRW, all the large companies in the midwest for that brief time. At the end of it's time they were used by radio evangelists to do personalized "hand typed" letters and for mall con men (remember indoor shopping malls... those seem to be getting obsolete here'bouts, too!) who gussied it up with lights and fake tape reels as a "computer" to analyze yer hand writing or tell your astrological fortune. -- Saddest to me is the clothing that is obsolete - stuff I loved that even a "vintage" geek wouldn't wear. (I know because my nieces scooped up all the primo 70s embroidered denim clothing in the 90s and left me only the prom dresses and Quiana shirts) -- My electric typewriter. I still wish I'd kept the Selectric with all the font balls - there were a number of years in the transition to all computers allthetime when three part "self carbon: forms for art shows were a nightmare if you let folks hand write them! Also really useful for filing out forms that come to you from OUTSIDE a computer, pre printed (Imagine that!) --First computer in the house, a TRS80. I had to work VERY HARD to give that away. -- If I live a few more years, my sewing machine will be obsolete. I love my Singer, now covered in Mary Englebreit stickers. It was what seems to have been a very early or one model only Touchtronic that has little dimples on the bobbins. Most bobbins won't work on it, even if they fit, if they don't have that penpoint sized dimple. Research found that the only factory that made THOSE bobbins burned down, and they just didn't make them anywhere else afterwards. So, I'm down to two dozen precious fragile plastic bobbins -when they're gone the machine is unusable. --Reference BOOKS.(just cause they call it the same thing online doesen't mean it is - you don't use them, or browse them the same!) Dictionaries. Thesaurus. Bartlett's Quotations. The Elements of Style, etc. and Library Card Catalogs! -- photographic slides. I remember when they got rid of the huge collection of slides in the Cleveland Museum of Art's library when they had them digitized. I have a huge collection of slides I used (DUAL Projectors, even) I used in doing art lectures that I supplemented there - when they were gone, it was like losing old friends. Then I suppose *I* became obsolete as an art teacher. There's some stuff I'm happy is obsolete -- long tongue pull tabs for pop cans that people made into all sorts of atrocious "craft" items. -- ash trays at every table at a restaurant --Having to cash/deposit your paycheck every week instead of auto deposit --asbestos pads for putting hot things on. --Canvas Tents (heavy, soggy, mildewy) This question reminds me of an wickedly interesting party a friend threw called an "inscrutable object party" Everyone was to bring a pot luck food item and one "Inscrutable object" that the rest of us would try to identify/figure out what it was. Most of the objects were tools for obsolete tasks. I had a porcelain rectanglar box that had a porcelain roller set into it - was to be partially filled with water and used to lick stamps or envelope flaps. Joanne in Cleveland (only partially obsolete) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Ed T Date: 01 May 12 - 06:04 PM Key punch machines and operators. Oh, they already are? Musta missed that one. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Ed T Date: 01 May 12 - 06:06 PM key punch |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Ed T Date: 01 May 12 - 06:18 PM There is even a song about a key punch operator, the now obsolete profession:Men at work. obsolete topic song |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: gnu Date: 01 May 12 - 06:26 PM Punch cards... waiting in line to run your program... running to the printer and trying to retrieve your output from a printer running at 600 pages a minute. And, of course, filling a garbage can with water and punchies and leaning it against someone's dorm door. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Jim Dixon Date: 01 May 12 - 06:27 PM Stuff I used to use, that has gone obsolete in my lifetime: Typewriters, typewriter erasers, typewriter ribbons, correction fluid (OK, correction fluid, "Wite-Out, is still sometimes used for hand-drawn diagrams, charts, and signs, but it's seen much less often nowadays), carbon paper. (I once made somebody very happy by giving her a supply of carbon paper. She made her own needlework designs by sketching them on paper, and then when she wanted to transfer the design to cloth, she was in the habit of using carbon paper, but she couldn't find it anymore at the stationery stores, even the "big-box" stores like Staples. Luckily, I had a supply stashed away, although I hadn't used it in years.) Continuous-form paper for computer printers, with sprocket holes Dot-matrix printers and their ribbons Impact printers Punch cards (except in Florida elections, apparently) Keypunch machines Floppy disks Brown wrapping paper String – used for tying packages Brown paper tape with water-soluble adhesive Fountain pens (yes, a few aficionados use them, but they're obsolete for most of us) Inkwells Pens chained to the desk in banks and post offices Phone books (They keep delivering them, but I don't use them. I look up everything online.) Printed zip-code directories (and lots of other reference works – some information can only be found online nowadays) Stamps and stickers that you have to lick (or moisten somehow) Mechanical watches and clocks. They have turned into expensive jewelry. You can see ads for them in The New York Times and The New Yorker, but they are very impractical. Clocks that you had to plug in to an electrical outlet. Paperweights. People still buy some fancy kinds as "collectibles," but they used to be practical. Before air-conditioning, you had to open a window or turn on a fan to get a breeze, and you needed paperweights to keep your papers from getting blown off your desk. (Did you guess that I spent most of my working life in an office?) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Janie Date: 01 May 12 - 06:28 PM I'm ready to go back to film. We have pictures of my son's 1st 9 years, taken with film, and with the negatives stored. The next 6 years are lost on crashed hard-drives and to the now obsolete .mix format of Microsoft Picture It! Lost nearly all of the quite good photographs of my amazing Hillsborough garden because they were digital. The result of our ignorance about matters technological. We came late to computers and to digital technology. Saul - I still use my pressure cooker quite often, though I confess it has been a few years since I had time to use my bundt pans. They are still widely available, however, and in wonderful patterns. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: frogprince Date: 01 May 12 - 06:56 PM Bathing suits. (well, I guess their not obsolete for everybody , though) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: frogprince Date: 01 May 12 - 06:56 PM ...they're... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: gnu Date: 01 May 12 - 07:04 PM I'm thinkin short term memory... I think. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Bee-dubya-ell Date: 01 May 12 - 07:04 PM If you have a LORAN navigational receiver on your boat, it hasn't been receiving a signal for two years. No wonder you couldn't find your way back home from last weekend's fishing trip! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: gnu Date: 01 May 12 - 07:24 PM I thought it was the beer. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Janie Date: 01 May 12 - 07:36 PM Garter belts? (thank goodness!) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: kendall Date: 01 May 12 - 07:40 PM 7 inch reel to reel recorder. An 8 mm movie projector a slide projector a black powder revolver |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: frogprince Date: 01 May 12 - 08:13 PM "a black powder revolver" in your lifetime? When was the last original production black powder revolver made? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Ed T Date: 01 May 12 - 09:00 PM Tape recorders. (I still say I am going to "tape" that program). I have a couple of 3/4 inch Beta video tapes, and a Charlie Pride 8-track tape ("Snakes Crawl at Night, that's what they say") 8 track tape in my garage if anyone is in urgent need of them. Oh, and I forgot (from the past) - memory typewriters, AES and MICOM word processors? Two of my three cars (maybe I have two too many) have casette tape players in the radio sets (kinda hard to find new ones to play)-does that make me am obsolete item hoarder? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: michaelr Date: 01 May 12 - 09:12 PM Walkman! I still use mine at work. What in the world is LSD coinage?? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Bobert Date: 01 May 12 - 09:16 PM The hula-hoop and the bob-a-link... Oh, thats right... They are already history... The Republican Party will be gone in the rsst-of-my-life time... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Leadfingers Date: 01 May 12 - 09:36 PM For nearly a month now , like Giok , ME !! For its three score and ten Years and then I'm into extra time ! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: number 6 Date: 01 May 12 - 09:48 PM FORTRAN IV with WATFIV I have to than gnu for that one .... his post @ 01 May 12 - 06:26 PM popped this out from way way back in my memory bank biLL |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: number 6 Date: 01 May 12 - 09:56 PM ... and I'll add SNOBOL to the list. biLL |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Richard Bridge Date: 01 May 12 - 10:05 PM KDF9 Algol - but OK I haven't got any in my house. I have got 2 paraffin heaters and a paraffin lamp, a Suffolk Super Punch lawnmower and lots of vinyl records (including some 78s), vinyl turntables and 7 inch reel-to-reel tapes and tape decks (including one Ferrograph). I also have a pair of Axiom 301 loudspeakers. Oh, and some tin megaphone-shaped outside PA speakers. What use is a 30 watt PA speaker nowadays? If anyone is giving away vinyl records or 7 inch tapes or tape decks (or one or two inch 8-track tape or equipment) please let me know. I do need to junk several obsolete TVs and computers and CRT monitors though. And quite a lot of car parts. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: GUEST,999 Date: 01 May 12 - 11:09 PM "KDF9 Algol" I gotta say that if that was in yer nuts it would hurt. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Seamus Kennedy Date: 01 May 12 - 11:32 PM MichaelR - LSD coinage is the old "pounds, shillings and pence" currency in Britain. From the Latin: Libri - pounds; Solidi - Shillings; Denarii - pence. I'm glad farthings, groats, crowns and sovereigns were gone before that! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Bert Date: 02 May 12 - 12:18 AM "Inscrutable object" I love it. A few years back I picked up a saw set at a flea market. It was on the $1 table 'cos the guy didn't know what it was. More recently I picked up a saw sharpening vise at a yard sale. So if anyone wants to have a saw sharpened... I can't remember that last time that I saw a Mundy Hammer (That is a 28 pound sledge hammer) One devil of a job to swing. Then there were those mechanical Munroe calculators, who remembers how to do square roots on them? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: GUEST,Stim Date: 02 May 12 - 12:30 AM How about the merchants and shops that have disappeared? I haven't seen a butcher shop in years, or a Five and Dime, there are shoe stores, but not the sort that have real shoe salesmen. My father and grandfather had all their suits made by a tailor (he was actually an in-law) but he was the last in our town, and retired while I was still in school, and I bought my first suit ready made, from a Men's Store, which are now vanishing as well. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Fossil Date: 02 May 12 - 01:06 AM Janie... Garter belts obsolete? Say it ain't so! Damn! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: JohnInKansas Date: 02 May 12 - 06:24 AM I haven't seen a cottered crank in ten years. Not on a bicycle, but as of less than 1- years ago, and I assume still now, at least one British Airplane Manufacturer still specified that every nut must be cross-drilled at the time of installation and a cotter pin installed. Like Bert, I also have an antique saw vise, and eagerly await sufficient use for one of my hand saws to justify trying it out. (I've had it for about 12(?) years. Not too long ago I scrapped out the Power Supply for one of the first "Wang Word Processors" (an early '50s era desk sized machine that performed almost all the functions of a decent typewriter, but a little slower). I contacted most of the nearby museums without finding any interest. The transformer alone was about 22 pounds, but had surprisingly little copper wire in it - it mostly ran as a saturable core transformer for constant voltage output - (anybody remember those?) and had a lot of iron in it for a 300W xfmr. I'm beginning to wonder about my "young trophy bride" - (only my second, but she did replace a slightly older model) - but I guess she's still "usable" even if not very "useful" so I think I'll hang onto her for a while. <probably a very long while!> John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: banjoman Date: 02 May 12 - 06:24 AM Polaroid Land Camera, Device for getting stones out of horses hooves (relic of scouting days) Ancient Lava lamp (still working)Loads of 78rpm records (we collect them) Wind up gramaphone , Cars that I can do more than just check the oil on, freshbaked bread (in our area at least. I thought that the Sodastream was obsolete until my son turned up last week with a brand new one he had found in an online shop. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: MGM·Lion Date: 02 May 12 - 06:36 AM "Tape recorders. (I still say I am going to "tape" that program)." .,,. Some people still talk of "dialling" a telephone #; but dial telephones need to go on the list. ~M~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: kendall Date: 02 May 12 - 07:52 AM frog, I'm older than I look. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: gnu Date: 02 May 12 - 02:08 PM sIx... FORTRAN IV with WATBOL FIV? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Gurney Date: 02 May 12 - 04:15 PM Like someone up there, I needed some carbon paper to trace something. 'Office' shops didn't even know what I was talking about! While we were looking, we added blotting paper to the list, as Her Indoors does calligraphy. They'd never heard of that either. (Kitchen towels work.) Does anyone need a set of cartridges for a Lexmark printer? 1970/80/90 I think. New and refilled. Where did Lexmark go? Somewhere in the shed I have a piston-ring compressor and a glazebuster. Glad I don't need them any longer. Motorbikes as your main transport, thankfully. Shortly after my 60th birthday , I was lying under a rear-drive car, doing a clutch, gearbox on my chest. Like others have said, ME! Oh, unlittered streets that are safe to walk along. Cigarettes, nearly. All smokers. Asbestos products. Sometimes unfortunately. Minidisk recorders. S |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Bill D Date: 02 May 12 - 04:29 PM In about 1963-64 I worked in a business school which still taught Comptometer. Even then I never saw one used in an actual business. How about Syquest drives for computer storage? I have a working set of two...set up for Windows 3.1. I 'think' I still have the drivers for Win 95. (It is a skuzzy (SCSI) setup...lots of cables and 'stops' for ends of cables. Yes, I still have a working 3.1 machine... but with a non-working mouse) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Greg F. Date: 02 May 12 - 05:59 PM Any software or computer older than three weeks - produced to be obsolete as a matter odf course. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Bert Date: 02 May 12 - 06:52 PM Tuning forks. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Ed T Date: 02 May 12 - 07:42 PM Window putty is getting hard to find. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Date: 02 May 12 - 08:24 PM Integrity, honesty and representation of the electorate, by our branches of government! GFS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Ed T Date: 02 May 12 - 09:10 PM The KODAK Instamatic camera |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Ed T Date: 02 May 12 - 09:11 PM ""My tiny blue transistor radio"" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Date: 03 May 12 - 12:57 AM Pull up window shades, flapping against the wood sash windows, while you're napping. GfS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: GUEST,PeterC Date: 03 May 12 - 07:53 AM I agree with Janie about film, I have lost quite a few pictures through computer crashes now. I no longer wipe and reuse the cards in my camera, when one is full I file it and buy another. TVs and DVD players with accessible buttons giving access to all functions. (With my DVD player you can only use menu options with the remote) Second hand bookshops - charity shops have pretty well wiped out the trade in most UK towns. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: GUEST,Eliza Date: 03 May 12 - 08:07 AM I used to wear a liberty bodice, long, thick fleecy knickers and a woollen 'Chilpruf' vest as a small girl. Then a suspender belt and stockings as a teenager. I don't miss any of these obsolete garments! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 03 May 12 - 11:37 AM In our kitchen we used to have an electric meat-and-salad grinder. Also good for grinding up ice cubes. No more. My Beautiful Wife, a classical pianist, had a little mishap, and out it went. We refer to that long-gone equipment as "the finger-grinder." Happy ending: The tip of her right index finger was ALMOST severed, hanging on by a little flap mainly of skin. She plunged the finger and flap into a bowl of ice water. The fingertip was successfully reattached--no scar, no sensory impairment. The ambulance technician told her the ice bath was the smartest thing she could have done. I understand the absence of the appliance thereafter, but I really regret the loss of the function. Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: GUEST,Eliza (guest) Date: 03 May 12 - 12:37 PM My old dad had a hand-turned mincer clamped to his kitchen table. He was a very good cook, and often minced bacon to make ham-and-egg pies. After he died, I got rid of it, but I regret that now. A mincer is so good at using up uneaten food. You just grind it up and stick it in pastry. Maybe I'll get one! (But I'll mind my fingers, Uncle Dave! Hope your wife could continue to play her piano by the way) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: gnu Date: 03 May 12 - 02:12 PM Dave... thank goodness! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Bert Date: 03 May 12 - 02:14 PM We use the meat grinder on Mum-in-law's Kitchen Aid. It has a long wooden plunger to push down the meat. It has the added advantage of her getting some free ground beef. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 03 May 12 - 04:32 PM As I say, the finger has no scar, and no sensory loss, so (much to Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: JohnInKansas Date: 03 May 12 - 06:39 PM Several have mentioned Fortran IV. When I first went to work for EAC, they had a young lady who made regular visits to pick up punch cards and deliver printouts for the Watkins Glen Fortran Four (WATIV) computer. The particular young lady was universally called the "WATFOR" girl, and was a definite "work stopper" whose visits were eagerly anticipated by the DOM in the office. When that computer was taken down, the company DID NOT ANNOUNCE its demise, for fear of "work disruptions." We held a brief "Grief Ceremony" anyway, when we realized she was gone. (The things may be gone, but the memories linger - even when you never knew her name.) John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: G-Force Date: 04 May 12 - 09:09 AM Grammar. Spelling. Punctuation. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: GUEST,Eliza Date: 04 May 12 - 10:33 AM LOL G-Force, you mean grammer speling punctation (innit?) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: DMcG Date: 04 May 12 - 02:44 PM FORTRAN IV with WATFIV? That's pretty new-fangled. I started with FORTRAN II D. The 'D' meant it had special extra instructions to be able to work with disks. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: DMcG Date: 04 May 12 - 02:50 PM Actually, I should say that the FORTRAN IID was for an IBM 1620, which didn't even work in binary arithmetic, and has part of the memory dedicated to look up the answers for adding and multiplication. But it was the supercomputer in The Forbin Project as it had a lot of buttons and flashing lights and a hunky dial on the control panel. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Ebbie Date: 04 May 12 - 03:09 PM I suspect that scarcity of something often depends upon where one lives. For instance, pull up window shades, Lexmark printers and second hand bookshops are alive and well in Alaska. How about girdles? Anyone remember the rubber one made by - hmmmmm, I don't remember. I know it started with P. Not Panasonic or Playgirl - anyone remember? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Bettynh Date: 04 May 12 - 03:23 PM Playtex |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Bert Date: 04 May 12 - 03:31 PM Early computers seem to feature a lot here. Does anyone remember the Olivetti Programma? A machine the size of a large typewriter that could just about handle a third order determinant. Then there was the Microdata computer that the bean counters bought for an engineering company I once worked for. The trig functions were only accurate to four decimal places so I had to write functions doubling that accuracy using Newton's method of approximation. That was back in the days when programming was fun. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Dave MacKenzie Date: 04 May 12 - 04:44 PM Punched cards and hand operated card punches - we had ICL readers and UNIVAC interpreters, and a load of programmers who insisted on the interpretation being the same as what they's written on their coding sheets (remember them?). Most of us got to know card-punch code by heart in those days - 0,3,8 was a comma if I remember rightly. PLAN, GEORGE 3. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: MGM·Lion Date: 04 May 12 - 04:55 PM Big computers. Even a genius like Asimov conceived of his great Multivac, controlling computer of the future, as the size of NYC. The idea that, 50 years later, we would all be walking round with a computer more powerful than that one to the power of whatever in our top pocket or handbag, fell quite outside his conceptual framework ~~ & then came the microchip... ~M~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: DMcG Date: 04 May 12 - 05:23 PM The mention of GEORGE reminded of some of the jokes built into the software of the time. The ICL 1900 system had a BASIC-like language called 'JOSS Extended and Adapted for Nineteen hundred' or JEAN. A built in joke that was iffy at the time but is much more dubious now is that it started with a half-dozen lines of status messages one of which announced that it was Jean under George. A much better one was during the installation of the RSX11 operating system on PDP11 machines. Many RSX commands were of the form SET /option=value When the build got to a point where a long step took place the machine issued the fictitious command SET /COFFEEBREAK=ON (And in the UK it SET /TEABREAK=ON instead) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Ebbie Date: 04 May 12 - 06:36 PM Rubber girdle- Playtex it was. I have no idea why I wore girdles- I was skinny at the time - other than in the Virginia of the day, all 'ladies' did. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Les from Hull Date: 04 May 12 - 07:03 PM Not much use for my SLRs and lenses these days. There may be some Letraset hanging about as well. But my 35mm slides are now jpegs and most of my vinyl and cassette tapes are now mp3s. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Gurney Date: 05 May 12 - 01:51 AM Les, I bought a Pentax digital SLR so that I could use my 'old' Pentax lenses. Even the pre-autofocus ones fit. The local charity shop has a large bucket of lovely old SLRs lying jumbled together, and spare lenses, including a 60-300mm. Not Pentax, unfortunately, but I'll keep watching. Only about 1/6 of my records and tapes are digitised, and none of my film pictures, but I do have the gear. Just wondering if I'll live long enough to do it. Lots of them! CRT televisions are due for the chop here in the next few months. I remember roll-on girdles. About as sexy as bloomers. Suspender belts, however..... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: MGM·Lion Date: 05 May 12 - 02:29 AM Ah, now ~~ a pretty bare bottom framed by suspender-belt, suspenders, stocking-tops ~~~~~ ɷɷɷɷɷɷɷ Oops! Sorry! Forgot I wasn't on that sort of forum at the moment!.... 〠☺〠~M~〠☺〠 |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: MGM·Lion Date: 05 May 12 - 03:11 AM The old REAL Wembley Stadium. What did they mean by pulling down my beloved Twin Towers, established under George V for the 1920s British Empire Exhibition! What happy hours I spend there watching football in my early teens; sometimes even almost empty - they must have been hiring it out for a song on late spring evenings during WWii. I remember a great wartime match once in front of only a few hundred, between the Services and the Police & Civilian Services. Arsenal's great left wing Clifford Bastin, by then a stone-deaf 39-year-old, played one of the most blinding games I've ever seen. Ah, nostalgia. Whatever did they have to replace it with the present hideous monstrosity for? ~M~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Mr Happy Date: 05 May 12 - 06:56 AM ........even some foods have disappeared or renamed. Roast mutton was one've our favourites for childhood Sunday dinners, only 'lamb' available now. Also, being able to buy loose stuff, that is unpackaged. At the greengrocers, you took your own bags & got loose spuds, carrots, cabbage etc by whatever weight or quantity you chose. You could get 2 ounces, a quarter etc of sweets & at the ironmongers loose nails or screws either singly or by the 1/2 pound, 1/4 lb etc. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Mr Happy Date: 05 May 12 - 07:12 AM & at an off licence, you could take your own jug or bottle for beer or cider. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: MGM·Lion Date: 05 May 12 - 07:13 AM Oddly enough, it is at the supermarkets that they still sell vegetables loose as an alternative to wrapped, provide bags to put them in & scales to check, & weigh for price at the checkout. I bought half-a-dozen beautiful big carrots, loose, at Ely Tesco yesterday. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: HuwG Date: 05 May 12 - 07:54 AM In my grumpy old man mode, I miss the demise of the typewriter, and grammar, spelling and punctuation, which seem to have coincided. Of course, this may be a post hoc, ergo procter hoc fallacy. My mother was a secretary for several charities. She would type correspondence after my brother and I had gone to bed. Could we sleep? Could we heck! My mother would put the typewriter on a table which acted as a sounding board, and the resulting "tat-tat-tat-boom, tat-tat-ting-zip-tat-tat-tat" could sound like the sound track to a war film (though I don't know what might go "ting" on a battlefield). There would be not a single mis-spelling, punctuation error or slip of grammar. Very occasionally, the Canon manual typewriter would be unable to keep up, and two keys would get tangled, resulting in the need for a dab of Tippex. Bear it in mind that my mother left school at fifteen. I now have to put up with managers and directors with degrees, who communicate in writing using the sort of shorthand normally used by pre-pubescents to exchange banalities with their closest friends (sorry, did I say "their" friends? I meant "there" friends, of course) and verbally using strings of obscenities and references to "You know, kind of like a sort of thing". In 1983, I started work programming on PDP-11s and the Rair Black Box. The Rair had 64Kb of memory, of which about 16Kb was taken up by the CP/M operating system. (You could cheat by assuming that the command processor could be dispensed with by an executing process and overwritten, but this would make things very slow when chaining the next process.) Programmers could also cheat by e.g. putting initialisation code in data buffers not used until later in execution, but even so, we learned to make very tight code indeed. What happens nowadays? The latest version of Micro$haft Office demands that any machine over six or seven years old be discarded as hopelessly antiquated and inadequate. I mean only 2Gb of memory and 1.73GHz processor speed? You really need better hardware to write letters and send and receive emails, even if you have been doing OK for the last three decades. </grumpyoldman> |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: MGM·Lion Date: 05 May 12 - 08:04 AM "Post hoc ergo propter hoc", Huw. Not 'procter'. No good being grumpy if don't get things right! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: olddude Date: 05 May 12 - 08:14 AM Lots of pocket watches but I still use them but very very obsolete |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Bee-dubya-ell Date: 05 May 12 - 08:42 AM Fifths of whiskey. Yeah, I know 750 ML is roughly the same size, but it just doesn't lend itself to country song lyrics quite as easily. "She left me on the Fourth, so I went and bought a 750 ML" just doesn't work. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: frogprince Date: 05 May 12 - 09:17 AM MtheGM, all is not lost. Today's fashions allow for the possibility of a nice pair of thigh-high stockings, combined with a nice dressy feminine blouse that extends just a wee bit below the waist. A summery straw hat makes a nice touch, too. Should you be picnicing together, sitting on a blanket, in some well-secluded spot, even a very short skirt doesn't spoil the effect too badly. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: GUEST,Eliza Date: 05 May 12 - 10:01 AM Oh Ebbie, those ghastly Playtex rubber girdles. They had holes all over (to let the sweat out, I assume) And one rolled them down to get out of them at night. I used to put talcum powder in mine to kill the pong and to make it easier to roll on again in the morning. And, in my thirties, I was so thin I was almost skin and bone! Why ever did we accept such things? Thank goodness the lassies nowadays don't have those to contend with! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: mayomick Date: 05 May 12 - 10:10 AM Yes Huw and while we're at it , if you really liked your typewriter ,you would be missing its presence and not its demise, surely. I wouldn't mind finding a new use for my old thing btw - especially after reading that post about the short skirts . |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 05 May 12 - 02:15 PM Hammacher Schlemmer catalogue, current, offers a portable manual typewriter for sale. My old slide rule, in its leather belt case, resides in a desk drawer, as do several sets of drafting tools. On a shelf is my string bell (a glass holder with a small hole on top, for a ball of string). Just had my cassette player reconditioned so that I can continue playing the little tapes. Haven't got the device that converts them to cds yet. I do have facilities for turning lps into cds, and convert vcr to dvd although I keep my turntable and vcr player hooked together with the rest of my sound and dvd set-up. Olddude, still collecting wind-up watches. And a doctor has no bona fides more obvious than his/her Rolex. My son, married to a physician, bought her a new one last year as she retired her old one (her father's). In my kitchen cupboards, I still have a hand-crank meat grinder and a similar type nut grinder. A hand crank coffee bean grinder is in the basement now that I have an electric bean machine. A push lawnmower is in the shed, but I have a yard and lawn man with those gas marvels who takes care of the lawn now. I use my complete (last update 1987) OED frequently. Thesaurus and other aids in use by my crossword-adicted wife. Canada still issues (as do most countries) stamps that have to be moistened as well as the peelable kind. Canada stops coining pennies late this year, but they will still be accepted as money in transactions. Found in an old trunk- stocking holders for attachment to a girdle, the decoration a container with celluloid window for a postage stamp for the Columbian exhibition of 1892. Hot stuff at the time. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: gnu Date: 05 May 12 - 02:27 PM Q... I had to send my draughting board to the dump... could NOT sell it! I paid over $15,000 for my full size HP printer and that went to the dump too. Can't sell my digitizing board that I paid over $1000 for. Cadkey was made "obsolete" by the government adoption of AutoCadd (piece of crap in comparison but, apparently, some engineers and techs don't understand mathematics). |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Bettynh Date: 05 May 12 - 03:42 PM I bought a hand-crank coffee grinder for my son last Christmas. He's a coffee snob, and using a French press. Standard spinning coffee grinders make the coffee grounds too fine, and electric burr grinders cost a fortune. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: MGM·Lion Date: 05 May 12 - 03:50 PM frogprince ~~ yes, nice top & bottom [no pun meant]; but the side-framing suspenders used to add just that little ~M~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: MGM·Lion Date: 05 May 12 - 03:53 PM Sorry about hiartus in middle of last post ~~ it read originally "that little je ne sais quoi". Don't know why that bit should have vanished into the ewigkeit! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Bert Date: 05 May 12 - 05:03 PM Gnu, I'm gonna beat the crap outta you;-) I've been looking everywhere for a drafting table and a wide carriage printer at an affordable price. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: gnu Date: 05 May 12 - 05:23 PM Bert... my HP printer could do E size drawings (the largest used in construction contract plans) but along came a lot of printers that could do 11X17". MUCH cheaper to send out my contract plans that way. Far less time to print and to upload too. And, programming coloured ink pens was a thing of the past, thank goodness. I tossed my draughting board when I could use the 11X17s on my desk and on my PC. I actually do all my stuff on letter size now. More sheets of paper but printers are dirt cheap. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: gnu Date: 05 May 12 - 05:39 PM Jmie Lee... Sexy! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: gnu Date: 05 May 12 - 05:42 PM Noooo. I misposted. And with a typo! Getting old REALLY does suck. Sorry. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Paul Burke Date: 05 May 12 - 06:11 PM filofax. Pagers. Tape splicers. Bus tokens Meat safes Post Office savings books Rediffusion switches |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: GUEST,roderick warner Date: 05 May 12 - 06:33 PM 'folk music' |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Paul Burke Date: 05 May 12 - 06:54 PM blokes called Roderick |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: DMcG Date: 06 May 12 - 04:39 AM OK, I think it might be interesting to concentrate on that question mark and look for things that are not obsolete now but will be in the remaining part of our lifetime. My nominations include: iPods - there will be something like them, but I don't just mean style changes. I mean as big a difference as current iPods from cassette-based walkman. 3D films etc. Goes in and out of fashion all the time. I reckon we will have a fallow period soon for another decade or so. Touch screen phones - the compromise necessary between as small a phone as possible for convenience and the fact peoples fingers are pretty big will lead to a better solution. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: GUEST,Eliza Date: 06 May 12 - 09:26 AM I'm so blinking old that there probably isn't much of my lifetime left! If items aren't obsolete now, a few more years won't change things much. But I reckon youngsters will be permanently plugged in to mobile phone devices inserted into their heads (like heart pacemakers) so they can talk to their hearts' content. They could perhaps 'think' a friend's contact number to speak to them. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: saulgoldie Date: 06 May 12 - 01:35 PM Dot matrix printers? If'n anyone cares, I have "a few" for gives. I have several 8.5" wide, anda few 11" wide. I also have two boxes of 8.5 X 11 paper for same. And some--a LOT--of 4-wide mailing labels with the sticky still good that work on the w-i-d-e printers! If intrested, lemme know. It's the shipping that'll kill ya. BTW, Huw, "I miss the demise of the typewriter?" Methinks you "mourn the demise of the typewriter." Or that you "miss the typerwriter." But "miss the *demise of* the typewriter?" That'sa double-positive, which is not very much unlike a contra-positive. But youknowwhatImsayin... Saul |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: MGM·Lion Date: 06 May 12 - 01:57 PM I still keep my old manual typewriter. Tho nearly all I write is WP'd & printed out these days just like everybody else's, when it comes to putting it in the post the reliable old Imperial is incomparably simplest and most efficient for doing the envelope. Likewise for form-filling. ~M~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: saulgoldie Date: 06 May 12 - 02:15 PM And, G-d willing, my fountain pen will always survive, even if there are only eleventeen of us left on earth who still know how to write with one. Saul |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: gnu Date: 06 May 12 - 02:25 PM Fountain pens! The last time I used one was to spray a buddy with ink! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: MGM·Lion Date: 06 May 12 - 02:31 PM Hope you got the [obsolete] cane, gnu! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 06 May 12 - 02:37 PM Used drafting tables are easy to sell here and hard to find. Artists and hobbiests on the lookout for them, also want those large deep filing cabinets for drafting work (also desired by art collectors who have collections of prints and unmounted art). Gnu, you didn't look in the proper places. Destroying a drafting table is unconscionable. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Dave MacKenzie Date: 06 May 12 - 03:33 PM I just used my fountain pen a few minutes ago! Much easier to write legibly than with a ball-point, and you don't need to support the paper on anything. As a near neighbour of Mr Happy (just over 2 miles), I hve no difficulty in getting proper mutton or loose vegetables. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Gurney Date: 06 May 12 - 04:05 PM Yeah, a certain amount of that in the back-blocks here, Dave. They call it 'rustling.' 'Near' neighbour? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Dave MacKenzie Date: 06 May 12 - 04:31 PM We have a very healthy farmers' market scene around here, not to mention quite a few farm shops. I try not to buy supermarket meat, as you never know where it's come from. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Joe_F Date: 06 May 12 - 06:31 PM Steam locomotives Galvanized-iron garbage cans (good riddance!) Bookstores (sigh -- Amazon is *so* convenient!) Record stores |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: gnu Date: 06 May 12 - 06:50 PM Q... Alberta is a long way to transport a draughting table. >;-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Joe_F Date: 06 May 12 - 08:27 PM And, oh, yes, let us hope: The publishing industry The entertainment industry Fashion Drug laws |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: gnu Date: 06 May 12 - 08:46 PM Joe... good luck with that. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: GUEST,Stim Date: 06 May 12 - 09:32 PM MtheGM made me remember that educated and literate young people were once expected to be able to read Latin (and even Greek) and to read and speak French. Not sure to this day quite why we needed it, but that is true of most of what we were taught. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Mr Happy Date: 07 May 12 - 08:10 AM 'young people were once expected to be able to read Latin (and even Greek...' A bit've thread drift [apols] but another maybe linked topic of what we all were given to learn at school & how relevant or not it's been in our lives. Ohms Law: never used it Algebra, no French, no - German &/or Spanish would've been more useful plus piles of other stuff completely irrelevant or well outmoded |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: MGM·Lion Date: 07 May 12 - 01:12 PM Most regrettably ~~ any sort of seemly respect for traditionally and properly cherished institutions. 30 years ago, when I was only late-middle-aged, I would not have believed that the time would ever come, as occurred early in the second half of the West Ham v Cardiff City play-off match just coming to an end, when a football crowd, in the midst of its usual diet of facetious doggerel set to the tunes of standard pop-songs, casting doubt on the ancestry and legitimacy of the opposition team and its supporters, would have raucously roared and squealed out the whole of our National Anthem, as part of that folklorically interesting but generally somewhat pathetic repertoire. I consider this shameful. Don't you? ~M~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Bert Date: 07 May 12 - 01:19 PM Flavor. Everything nowadays seems to have been yuppified or consumerized to a uniform bland. From molasses and Marmite, which have been wimped down; and fruit and vegetables that have been picked before they are ripe so that they can be shipped halfway 'round the world. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: DMcG Date: 07 May 12 - 02:38 PM MtheGM made me remember that educated and literate young people were once expected to be able to read Latin (and even Greek) and to read and speak French. Not sure to this day quite why we needed it I was in Italy at the end of December last year. I speak no Italian but was able to get the gist of the written explanations of an exhibition based on half remembered Latin from school. Having my Italian daughter-in-law to hand to confirm my guesses helped, of course. And I've done the same - usually without the assurance of a native speaker, to be honest - in many other countries. My son speaks fluent Spanish as well as English, but he found the same explanations at the exhibition impenitratible |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: CupOfTea Date: 07 May 12 - 05:28 PM Green Stamps! (few folks "get" the parody of Greensleeves about Green Stamps anymore) In Cleveland, you got Green Stamps at May Company store and some gas stations. We saved 'em up till we had enough to fill several "stamp books" - and spent a marathon session with an ice cube set on a papertowel in a saucer. You'd slide the stamps over the ice cube to lick them. One book = a $3 coupon for merchandise at May Company. Seriously obsolete is the entire concept of gas station give-aways. Maps, posters, & I fondly remember a set of glasses from Shell that had a football logo on them that were smoky glass that were very comfortable in the hand. I still miss 'em. In this area the mom-and-pop independent pharmacy/drug store has vanished, made obsolete by CVS on every corner that doesn't have a Rite Aid or Walgreen's. Joanne in Cleveland |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: GUEST,PeterC Date: 07 May 12 - 06:14 PM Petrol (gas) station give-aways! I had forgotten them. At one time most of our coffee mugs and tumblers had been acquired that way. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Skivee Date: 08 May 12 - 12:51 AM I have a collection of several vintage cameras going back to around 1903, but the ones that kinda hurt are the ones that I actually used. My Nikon Ftn/F-36 motor drive both backed it in just after the film world started to implode. It would cost more to repair than the system is worth. My whole field of photographic processes, process quality control and copying systems are now historic footnotes. I was at a professional expert level in all these technical areas. I still keep the obsolete manuals next to the 1955 Collier's Encyclopedia. The encyclopedia is an amazing repository of countries that are gone, scientifically incorrect "facts", next to the four page dense article about the mathematics and dynamics of seaplane hull design. Really. I'll probably remove or scan the interesting pages and dispose of the rest. The seaplane hull article will certainly be rescued in some form. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: GUEST Date: 08 May 12 - 03:11 AM "The encyclopedia is an amazing repository of countries that are gone, scientifically incorrect "facts", next to the four page dense article about the mathematics and dynamics of seaplane hull design. Really." A good and useful thought--it makes one wonder about whole concept of "The Information Age" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: GUEST,Eliza Date: 08 May 12 - 06:49 AM HAving studied Latin myself, I'm wondering just how many students at secondary school today tackle it. Not many, I'd guess. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: CupOfTea Date: 08 May 12 - 05:47 PM Another thread brought to mind the loathsome concept of appliances with "planned obsolescence" This irks me highly - paying a couple hundred dollars for a device that breaks and cannot be repaired. Replacement parts are not made for it, or it's structured in such a way that a competent technician can't get at the broken parts - just not made to be fixed. I fear for the future of "appliance repair person" as a job category. Much as I hate it, I can see that the obsolescence of this and similar job categories is coming in my lifetime I fault the Big-Box-Store-Think for this set of dismal prospects. Joanne in Cleveland (who has a half dozen broken devices I can't bear to toss out because they ought to be repairable) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Ross Campbell Date: 08 May 12 - 10:36 PM MtheGM:- dial telephones still work - I plugged one in last week to check if there was a dialling-tone on my failing line - they just don't produce the tones necessary to respond to automatic payment processes. Still using cassettes in my ten-year-old car - and re-discovering lots of music I haven't been able to play since the player in the previous car died five years ago (I still have cassette players and recorders in the house, but mostly inaccessible). And I'm wondering where my cassette splicer is, and will the splicing tape still work so I can fix the Ran-Tan Band cassette I bought from Dave Mallinson at Whitby last year? I was happy to find that my ten-year-old laser printer could be reloaded with toner from a bottle for a couple of pounds, when I used to shell out about £60 for a toner cartridge. I am about to part with a Bang & Olufsen CRT TV which I haven't been able to get to work (no remote, no switches I can find on the set) if anyone wants to take it on. Things aren't necessarily obsolete because other people have no use for them - cf traditional music for a start! Ross |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Big Al Whittle Date: 08 May 12 - 11:19 PM yes teachers in those days were on more solid ground with Latin and Greek - after all there were no ancient Greeks or Romans at hand to tell them they were talking bollocks. When our twin town in France came to visit us, I remember our French teacher had considerable problems making himself intelligible to actual French people - this despite a firm grasp on irregular verbs, pluperfects etc. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: MGM·Lion Date: 08 May 12 - 11:24 PM Oh yes indeed,Ross ~ lots of things are still around somewhere: but do you actually know anybody at all whose landline phones still have dials on them? By same token, I can still play my cassettes on my player, & in my old car; & my vinyls, as they not too long ago produced a new generation of 33/45 decks, one of which I snapped up while available. Anyone still making them? But vain to deny that these things are, to all intents & purposes, obsolete, in the sense that they are not being made any more, & means to use them are becoming harder & harder to find. ~M~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Gurney Date: 09 May 12 - 02:44 AM Michael, yes, they are still available. Here, anyway. Try googling for a Optimus LAB 1100, which has a preamp and connects directly to a computer to burn LPs to CDs. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: MGM·Lion Date: 09 May 12 - 03:37 AM Many thanks, Gurney. Now that I have the player for them, I prefer to keep my LPs as they are: I really have a nostalgic soft spot for so many of them. & at my time of life, for the amount of play I'd get out of them in my few remaining years, it's probably not worth the investment. But I appreciate the helpful suggestion, which I am sure will be of much help to others reading this thread. ~M~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Dave MacKenzie Date: 09 May 12 - 03:54 AM There'a good reason why you don't use dial-up handsets nowadays - after a few weeks all the other phones on your number will be buggered, if not the whole street. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Jim Dixon Date: 09 May 12 - 08:59 AM The semicolon: hardly anyone uses it nowadays. I use semicolons a lot, although I find it hard to explain why. It's a way of showing the connectedness of two clauses that would be lost if you used a period (full stop), where a word like "therefore" or "however" seems superfluous. I think a semicolon captures a certain subtle inflection that we use when speaking. I don't know any hard and fast rules for using semicolons; I just put them in where I hear that inflection in my "mind's ear." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: MGM·Lion Date: 09 May 12 - 10:26 AM You haven't been reading my posts, Jim; have you now?! Someone in one of David Lodge's novels says that nobody ever used a semicolon in a suicide note; I was able to point out to him that my late first wife Valerie did. ~M~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Joe_F Date: 09 May 12 - 09:31 PM Vacuum tubes, including even cathode-ray tubes. Incandescent lamps. Magnetic core storage. If we live long enough: Lead-acid batteries. Reciprocating engines. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Mo the caller Date: 10 May 12 - 06:49 AM Horsehair mattresses, feather beds, turning the mattress. "What care I for your goose feather bed with the sheets turned down so bravely oh I've got a nice new spring interior, along with a 14 tog duvet-o." The childrens action rhyme "make the bed, shake the bed, turn the mattress over" is obsolete, but a revival is planned at the Chester Festival family ceilidh. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: GUEST Date: 10 May 12 - 08:32 PM Carburetors. Movie serials. Movie sing-alongs. Free dinnerware at the movies. Ash cans milk and bleach deliveries. inner tubes. msgnetic memory BASIC programming mimeographs. hectographs. Presstype carbon paper. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: GUEST Date: 11 May 12 - 12:19 AM wire recorders, disc recorders (both wax and magnetic), tape recorders, mono recordings |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 13 May 12 - 11:38 AM Bert commented, From molasses and Marmite, which have been wimped down; and fruit and vegetables that have been picked before they are ripe so that they can be shipped halfway 'round the world. Flavor is gone from And even if you should want to raise tomatoes in your own garden, you'll have almost no chance of getting seeds for the good old-time-flavor tomatoes (what are referred to as "legacy tomatoes"). The great, great, great majority of tomatoes are bred and produced for ketchup, and tomato soup, and pasta sauce and the like. The seed companies produce seeds industrially for varietals intended for those industries, or for mass-raised beautiful-but-tasteless TSOs(*), sort of round objects which can be shipped and merchandised cheaply; flavor is not a desideratum. (*)TSOs = Tomato shaped objects. End of rant. Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: GUEST,Eliza Date: 13 May 12 - 11:52 AM MtheGM I am very sorry to learn that your late first wife wrote a suicide note. I am not asking about the circumstances, but only wish to express my sympathy. Eliza |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: dick greenhaus Date: 13 May 12 - 11:56 PM Dave- Territorial sells a variety of heirloom tomato (seeds and plants) that are very good. They're only a bit pricier than the more-common hybrids. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: MGM·Lion Date: 14 May 12 - 10:57 AM Eliza ~~ Thank you for your kind words. If you would like to know anything about it, google -Grosvenor Myer suicide-. It became a bit of a cause celebre a few years ago when I went public about it as part of assisted suicide campaign: I had major press interviews, was on Newsnight on same report as Debby Purdy [tho we have not met] &c. All this is online. But if you would rather not know, that is OK too. Best ~Michael~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Jim Dixon Date: 14 May 12 - 04:14 PM Bleach delivery? Are you kidding? Why bleach? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Jim Dixon Date: 14 May 12 - 04:19 PM Inner tubes are still used as a way to repair tubeless tires that have developed a leak that can't be repaired any other way. And don't bicycle tires still have inner tubes? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Fossil Date: 15 May 12 - 04:34 AM What Eliza said... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Fossil Date: 15 May 12 - 04:42 AM Oh. MGM: Just read your reply to Eliza and then googled the story. I would've done the same as you did. She must've been a remarkable lady. My sympathies. The Right Stuff will never be obsolete. Back to the thread, now... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: GUEST,Eliza Date: 15 May 12 - 04:44 AM MtheGM, I have just now read about the circumstances. How very very sad. But the article said that you were coming through quite well and felt relief that the suffering was over. No need to refer to this any more, but I hope you now feel you have come to terms with your loss. Eliza |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: frogprince Date: 20 May 12 - 11:03 AM Parquette flooring blocks, 3 inch by 9 inch. We have a semi-circle of them inside the front door. They're "engineered wood", with oak surface layer. The stuff has been fine for the 28 years we've lived here, and may have been there for 12 years before that. But for a few years we've had a big oval rag rug there. Oops; discovered a few weeks ago that we let a wet spot get trapped, and 16 pieces got seriously delaminated. Went to Home Depot to look about some. Then went to Lowe's and Menards to be sure. Hasn't been made for years. Fortunately my table saw is big enough to cut 3" pieces down to 3/8ths thickness, and I have a router to do little edge bevels like the originals. Someone did miss one trick, as they failed to discontinue the wood stain that matches reasonably well. I got 10 blocks out of the first oak board I bought; didn't try to buy for the whole job until I determined that I could make credible replacements. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: gnu Date: 20 May 12 - 02:08 PM froggy... pics would nice. Sounds interesting. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Fossil Date: 21 May 12 - 06:55 AM One thing that popped up in another context: You never see a bicycle propped up on the kerb by one pedal anymore. While there are lots of bikes around, they are either stripped-down very expensive racers or mountain bikes, which don't ever get left out anywhere unless they are chained to a bike rack. And most have derailleur gears, which don't give the pedal much purchase. Whatever happened to the old black Raleighs, with mudguards, chain covers, panniers and proper Sturmey-Archer gears? You still see 'em in Holland, but everywhere else they seem to have disappeared. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: saulgoldie Date: 21 May 12 - 07:22 AM My bike--I call it my "truck" and I use it for all-around riding--has full fenders, a rack, panniers, and lights. My 10-speed racer does not. I do not have any cogs above 6-sp. I find I have plenty of gearing options, anyway. I don't have any indexed-shifting, either. The guys at the bike store refer to me as a "retro-grouch" because I don't buy stuff any newer-by-design than 'bout 30 years ago (except for lights which have really come a long way). And they roll their eyes when I want replacement parts. But I don't find that most of the newer stuff justifies the marginal improvement with the experience given the cost and increased mechanical complexity. Also the quick-changing configurations make replacement parts unfeasible. When I get where I am going, I don't usually prop my bike with the pedals, because there is usually some structure I can lean it against. And I lock it with a U-lock. But I doubt if anyone would want to steal it, anyway, since it is all geeked out. I mean, they would have to take the time to strip off all that "unnecessary" equipment. Saul |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: dick greenhaus Date: 21 May 12 - 08:51 PM Bleach routes. or "Javelle Water" Routes were prevalent in US cities up until WWII. Other obsolete things seem to be grammar and spelling in books and periodicals. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: MGM·Lion Date: 22 May 12 - 12:10 AM Never mind that, Dick. Give it another 5 minutes and those books and periodicals will be obsolete too... ~M~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: gnu Date: 30 Aug 12 - 02:28 PM A guy from "up da nort shore" opened up a barber shop recently a spit and a half from me. I was his first customer. Trimmed my stache fer $2 bucks and he trimmed my neck hair, with the electric clippers... gave him $3. Today, I sat down and he trimmed my stache and then... no shit, man... he got out the lotion and a REAL barber's straight razor and SHAVED my neck! Now, I dare say that NO other barber in this city uses a straight razor. It's not even taught in school anymore. I guess balloons cost too much? I am gonna go for a hot shave some day as a treat. After two parotidectomies I have to use an electric razor and I miss that "clean shave" feeling. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: Bill D Date: 30 Aug 12 - 02:42 PM How old is this barber? It would be unusual for a young fellow to know straight razors. (Me?..haven't been to a barber in 33 years. I 'think' I remember a barber using a straight razor to trim sideburns and such once...maybe 40 years ago) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Obsolete in your lifetime? From: gnu Date: 30 Aug 12 - 05:03 PM I'd say late 30s or so. His old man is 69 and he was a barber all his life. Sent his son to school. First day back he ws asked for a shave and said that he wasn't taught... he was sent for balloons. And... man... the nape of my neck is as smooth as glass. |
