You know you're old when.....

[Brumby]

... you realise that when you were born, Albert Einstein was still alive.   

[Gyro]

... you remember when landing on the Moon was a goal. 

[Miti]

Young-er people at work call you mister X or sir even though Einstein was long gone and landing on the moon was history when you were born. 

[Circlotron]

...when "easy music" radio stations start playing proper music.

[David Hess]

... when supermarkets and car commercials play "classics".

[Tom45]

.. when you realize that you are older than those newfangled transistors.

[ZigmundRat]

… your first computer predated the Internet. And BBS’s…

[alsetalokin4017]

... you actually understand the jokes in this thread.   

[nctnico]

... really need reading glasses and the barber is cutting your hairs on your head one-by-one

[Ed.Kloonk]

..young people give up their seat on the train, are courteous to you and respectful.


















bah hahahahahaha

[Red Squirrel]

Makes me feel old when I realize some of the technologies I grew up with like VHS and CRTs are basically considered vintage now.   

Another thing that makes me feel old is when I bring up an old internet meme "All your base are belong to us" and realize that the meme is like 20 years old.   The word meme was not even a thing back then.

[Circlotron]

When grandkids see your CD collection the same way you saw your own grandparents 78's collection. 

[aargee]

… you respond to a thread like this.

[wilfred]

... when supermarkets and car commercials play "classics".

Coles in Australia have "Throwback Thursday" on the instore radio and I hear Carl Douglas' Kung Fu Fighting and Pussycats' Misssissippi. And I am hoping Rodriguez comes up.

But I really feel old when yet another old favourite is mangled in the name of advertising. I can forgive Microsoft for Start Me Up, but not forgiving Coles for ruining Status Quo's Deeper and Down. I really wanted to cut and paste the pointing finger signs they had. Just to make sure the middle finger was the pointing one. I just console myself with the thought the band probably made a bucket of money for their retirement years.

[vk6zgo]

... you realise that when you were born, Albert Einstein was still alive.   

Bah! Humbug!
When I was born, Benito Mussolini was alive.
I was 21 when Herbert Hoover died.

[GlennSprigg]

Pre- Internet, mobile phones, Computers...
Pre- TV...
Horse-Cart delivered Bread to our Bread-Bin in the driveway...
'Fridge' had a block of ICE in the top, for cooling...
Battery Banks, (if you are lucky), to power lighting-only on Farms etc...
And kids appreciated what they got/had!!   

[themadhippy]

it takes you all night to do what you used to do all night

[NiHaoMike]

I remember the time when 1 TFLOPS was in the realm of the biggest supercomputers, nowadays even some mobile devices do more than that.

Battery Banks, (if you are lucky), to power lighting-only on Farms etc...

Those are way more popular nowadays than they used to be (see Tesla Powerwall for a popular brand), of course nowadays not only do we have far more advanced lighting technology but also plenty of things to power other than lights.

[Brumby]

... when you do this sort of thing for a bit of fun:

I really wanted to cut and paste the pointing finger signs they had. Just to make sure the middle finger was the pointing one.

Here you go....


Edit:  Now that actually looks more like the thing a rock band would do.   

[vk6zgo]

Pre- Internet, mobile phones, Computers...
Pre- TV...
Horse-Cart delivered Bread to our Bread-Bin in the driveway...
'Fridge' had a block of ICE in the top, for cooling...
Battery Banks, (if you are lucky), to power lighting-only on Farms etc...
And kids appreciated what they got/had!!   

We lived "in the bush", 40km from the Perth GPO--------it's an "outer suburb" now!

We had a horse & cart, as Dad had eye troubles, so couldn't drive-----we couldn't afford a car, anyway.

Our first Winter, we lived in a tent before we built the house, initially, just "one big room", which was made with bush timber, as were the later bedrooms, & bathroom,  although Dad later built a new front room with milled timber.

Lighting was kero lamps, heating, initially, & mostly, in the large kitchen, which was the original "one room", we used the "Metters No 2 stove", which also did all the cooking, but we later had a couple of small cast iron "potbelly" stoves in the other rooms.
Firewood was no problem, from our 13.5 acres of mainly bush.

Our radio was a valve (tube) portable, which used a fair bit of current, so we had to " ration" the use of it to conserve the batteries.

We kids didn't think we had it bad------we loved it!

[Cerebus]

Makes me feel old when I realize some of the technologies I grew up with like VHS and CRTs are basically considered vintage now.   

Another thing that makes me feel old is when I bring up an old internet meme "All your base are belong to us" and realize that the meme is like 20 years old.   The word meme was not even a thing back then.

It was actually. I was rather surprised the other day to to discover it was coined in 1976. I knew it was coined by Richard Dawkins' in his book "The Selfish Gene" but I hadn't realised that book was that old. So "You know you're getting old when ..." you think of a book published in 1976 as being "recently published".

[Gregg]

Remember when milk was delivered to your house in glass bottles with waxed cardboard caps and the cream was very visible floating on top; some also delivered eggs.
Remember when some STOP signs were yellow with black lettering
Most television screens were less than 12 inches
Tube testers were prevalent in many stores
Bacon or sausage was considered a key ingredient in a hearty breakfast.

[Caliaxy]

… you start wondering if you’re old.

[Circlotron]

...you see people with a bit of grey hair that were born after you left school.

[vk6zgo]

...you see people with a bit of grey hair that were born after you left school.

When commentators start referring to a football player you remember from "a few years ago" as a "promising newcomer" as a grizzled veteran!

Or you look for a posting in eevblog from "a year or so back", & realise it was the best part of ten years old.

[Brumby]

... you can vaguely remember milk being delivered to your door by a milkman who had a self-driving wagon.  He never had to hop into the drivers seat while running house to house - as the horse knew how to keep up with him.

[TerraHertz]

When the first newfangled colour TV you saw was at a technology show, it was just displaying 'coloured snow', and it seemed amaaaazing.

Also seeing a 'music video' on B&W TV, perhaps one of the very first music videos, and realizing you were watching the birth of a new art form. I was then a young teenager or pre-teen - can't quite recall. Nor have I ever been able to find a copy of that clip anywhere on the net. Wish I could.

When as a small child you'd walk 2/3 of a mile to school and back every school day, alone, and that was perfectly normal and safe. Also that the school playground merged into bushland and you weren't supposed to wander off into it during lunch break but there was nothing stopping you. And I often did.

When as a small child your home had a fireplace in the living room, in which was burned coal and coke to keep warm in winter. With a fun childhood activity being melting scap lead in tin cans on that fireplace and casting lead shapes in sand.

When your first electronics learning kit (Phillips EE)  contained germanium transistors. And that was great because prior to that all the electronics you'd scavenged from the local tip (which nobody minded a kid roaming about in) was valve-based.

When you've hated Rap music since it appeared a looong time ago, but now some of it has come full circle and you discover it's become as curmudgeonly dismissive of current social trends as you feel. So it's actually fun.
Francis Aaron – Boys Will Be Girls
Francis Aaron – Problematic
Tom MacDonald - Snowflakes
Tom MacDonald - Clown World
Tom MacDonald - People So Stupid
Tom MacDonald - Fake Woke

[vk6zgo]

When the first newfangled colour TV you saw was at a technology show, it was just displaying 'coloured snow', and it seemed amaaaazing.

Also seeing a 'music video' on B&W TV, perhaps one of the very first music videos, and realizing you were watching the birth of a new art form. I was then a young teenager or pre-teen - can't quite recall. Nor have I ever been able to find a copy of that clip anywhere on the net. Wish I could.

When as a small child you'd walk 2/3 of a mile to school and back every school day, alone, and that was perfectly normal and safe. Also that the school playground merged into bushland and you weren't supposed to wander off into it during lunch break but there was nothing stopping you. And I often did.

When as a small child your home had a fireplace in the living room, in which was burned coal and coke to keep warm in winter. With a fun childhood activity being melting scap lead in tin cans on that fireplace and casting lead shapes in sand.

When your first electronics learning kit (Phillips EE)  contained germanium transistors. And that was great because prior to that all the electronics you'd scavenged from the local tip (which nobody minded a kid roaming about in) was valve-based.

When you've hated Rap music since it appeared a looong time ago, but now some of it has come full circle and you discover it's become as curmudgeonly dismissive of current social trends as you feel. So it's actually fun.
Francis Aaron – Boys Will Be Girls
Francis Aaron – Problematic
Tom MacDonald - Snowflakes
Tom MacDonald - Clown World
Tom MacDonald - People So Stupid
Tom MacDonald - Fake Woke

The first BW TV I ever saw was on display in Fremantle, around 1957 or so, fed with video & sound from a Telecine chain.
Perth didn't get broadcast TV till 1959, when TVW7 started transmissions.

The first colour TVs I saw were on a visit to the UK in 1971.

Back home, in 1974/75, I was involved in the modification of ABW2's 1959 vintage transmitters for colour.

We didn't have any colour test equipment at first, so were forced to make do.

Among other things, the transmitters needed to be tested for "differential gain".
To do this, you need a sawtooth or stairstep signal with colour carrier frequency impressed upon it.

We did it by using 4.433MHz, "give or take" from a Wayne Kerr signal generator fed into a Fernseh PGM75, which had the facility to add an externally sourced signal to its sawtooth video output.

It worked OK, so the Wayne Kerr was mounted in the rack under the video patchfield for convenience.
All was sweet, till we started getting reports of viewers who had bought a particular brand of colour TV for the big day, seeing random patches & swirls of colour across their BW picture.

It turns out the 4.433MHz from the generator was leaking into the jackfield above, & the low level signal was enough to deactivate the "colour killer" circuit on HMV TVs.

[AlfBaz]

... when you go to finish a project and you have to spend the better part of a week digging up software from deep within archives and firing up VM's to open files

[Halcyon]

When you look back on this thread in the year 2080 and wonder what the hell these guys were talking about.

[AntiProtonBoy]

When that techno track you got absolutely munted over in a filthy warehouse is now being played like commercial music in the supermarket.

[DenzilPenberthy]

When that techno track you got absolutely munted over in a filthy warehouse is now being played like commercial music in the supermarket.

[Wallace Gasiewicz]

When grandkids see your CD collection the same way you saw your own grandparents 78's collection. 

When you know what a 78 collection is

[Messtechniker]

... all women are young.

[SeanB]

When that techno track you got absolutely munted over in a filthy warehouse is now being played like commercial music in the supermarket.

Is the muzak in a lift, or a part of the on hold track from some company you have to call.

[PwrElectronics]

I am pretty "old" at my workplace, but not as old as some here!  Old enough to have heard of a lot of stuff that younger ones have no idea about, even if I never used it myself.  It helps that I like old stuff and tech history, etc.

About 10yrs ago, I brought in about 1/2 dozen different vacuum tubes (valves) to the office and had them setting on my side desk.  Now, when I was in tech and college in the mid 80s, they were not teaching tube stuff for probably 10-15 or more years and you only saw that stuff in old "junk".

Anyway, a junior newish hire only maybe 2yrs out of BSEE was by my desk, sees these tubes there and HAS NO CLUE what they even are, maybe some strange light bulbs.....

Can't fault them really.  In their growing up years, all that old junk tube radios and TVs were probably long gone unlike some were still around when I was that same age.

In another case...  younger coworkers never heard/saw printed databooks for device specs and printed catalogs.  All they have known is doing their parts research online with mfg websites.

[Bud]

...when you think you are old.

[Quarlo Klobrigney]

When 60 something year old's call you sir.

[Gregg]

When you can successfully play the 'hard of hearing card' to ignore your wife's rants.

[AlfBaz]

When you can successfully play the 'hard of hearing card' to ignore your wife's rants.

I'm working on it

[schmitt trigger]

Surprisingly no one has brought this couple:

-The very first circuit I built that worked was all-tubes.
-The second circuit I built that worked was all-germanium transistors.

[andy3055]

For me it is spending countless hours and precious $ trying to repair stuff others give up on because they are "too old." Is it worth it? But if I did not do that I wonder how long I will last!

Firm believer of not to late too learn something. Oh well...

[bsfeechannel]

Surprisingly no one has brought this couple:

-The very first circuit I built that worked was all-tubes.
-The second circuit I built that worked was all-germanium transistors.

Then I'm young. The first circuit I built that worked was all silicon. Tubes and germanium transistors were already a thing of the past.

[vk6zgo]

When you know how to change a tyre.

When you remember cars without airconditioning.

When your car doesn't have cruise control.

When you have driven thousands of miles on dirt roads with a normal car without whining for 4WD.

When you can use a street directory.

When you hate Internet Explorer & Google Chrome nearly as much as you hate Safari.

[Gregg]

You know you are getting old when you realize that most of the things you wanted to do when you retire just aren’t going to happen for many unforeseen reasons.
When most of your stash of good stuff hasn’t withstood the test of time and you would be very happy to just donate it to someone that would appreciate it, possibly have a use for it or even make a YouTube video about how quaint it has become.

[Gregg]

You know you are old when you start reading the obituaries ostensibly to see if anyone you recognize has died; but then you realize that over half of the deceased are younger than you.


edit: But wait, there is hope!  Some are much older than you.

[schmitt trigger]

When highly sophisticated automotive electronics meant an 8-track player and/or a CB radio.

[Gyro]

When highly sophisticated automotive electronics meant an 8-track player...

Hey, now those were sophisticated (while they worked)! Pulling tape from the middle of the spool and winding it back on the outside.. That still does my head in!

[BU508A]

you are listening to Led Zeppelin's "Dazed and confused" and feel the same way. 

I do really like more this approach:

"You are as old as you act."

 

[Gyro]

Sorry, can't resist.

.... you wear a flat cap and go around 'helping' people:






EDIT: I'm pretty sure my kids agree!

[Circlotron]

.... you wear a flat cap and go around 'helping' people:

...when you repeatedly read "you wear a flat cap and go around 'helping' people:"
and you keep thinking it said "you wear a cat flap and go around 'helping' people:

 
 

[VK3DRB]

... when you know what the Information Superhighway is.

... when you know what "echo." does in a DOS batch file.

... when you know the resistor colour code.

... when you know the 12x table without having to use a calculator.

... when you know Morse Code.


 

[Brumby]

... Yep!

... Yep!

... Yep!

... Yep!

... Bugger!!!

[Ed.Kloonk]

..when you remember that your bank used to be known as 'The Wales'

[pardo-bsso]

The music I used to listen as teen is now in a classics/oldies radio station
The only convenience my car has is a fresh air vent
I'm young enough to know the B52s and saw them live.

(here we still have people in trucks or horse carriages selling fresh eggs and produce on the street)

[Quarlo Klobrigney]

You remember watching channel 1 on the TV in the US.

https://www.tech-notes.tv/History&Trivia/Channel%20One/Channel_1.htm

[pardo-bsso]

You remember watching channel 1 on the TV in the US.

I also remember that on midnight tv stations were powered off to save electricity.
And looking at the test card waiting for cartoons at morning

[NivagSwerdna]

When you don't have the attention span to read the whole thread.

[pardo-bsso]

When you don't have the attention span to read the whole thread.

That's for the "You know you're young" thread. (and probably is named different than thread)

[Brumby]

..when you remember that your bank used to be known as 'The Wales'

... when you remember that bank as being originally known as "The Bank of New South Wales"

(It's now called Westpac.)

[bsfeechannel]

When you know how to change a tyre.

Check

When you remember cars without airconditioning.

Check

When your car doesn't have cruise control.

Check

When you have driven thousands of miles on dirt roads with a normal car without whining for 4WD.

Fail

When you can use a street directory.

Check

When you hate Internet Explorer

Check

& Google Chrome

Meh

nearly as much as you hate Safari.

Couldn't care less.

[jonovid]

when the Japanese made cheap electronics and Dick Smith sold it
when a cell phone was a luxury and the size of a brick. 
when the year 2000 was the future and Science fiction was still fiction.
when flare jeans & disco was cool
when Hollywood was wholesome family entertainment.
when there was only male and female.....and they lived happily ever after!
when smoking was a lifestyle choice not a death sentence.

[themadhippy]

you remember when most towns had at least one shop selling electronic components,and i don't mean tandys or maplins.
Everything was closed on sunday apart from the newsagent,but even they were only open till midday
Pubs closed in the afternoon ,and no kids were allowed in them.
The national antham being played at the end of the days tv broadcast,and when you turned of the telly the picture disapeared into a dot in the middle of the screen
If you wanted to listen to something on the radio or watch tv you had to wait for it to warm up

[Gyro]

Everything was closed on sunday apart from the newsagent,but even they were only open till midday]Everything was closed on sunday apart from the newsagent,but even they were only open till midday.

Not forgetting half day closing - Thursdays in Sidcup.  In hindsight, I've no idea what that was about! 

[themadhippy]

I've no idea what that was about!

To ensure staff only worked a maximum of 5 1/2 days, the work time directive of the 1900's.

[Neilm]

When you know how to change a tyre.

When you remember cars without airconditioning.

When your car doesn't have cruise control.

When you have driven thousands of miles on dirt roads with a normal car without whining for 4WD.

When you can use a street directory.

When you hate Internet Explorer & Google Chrome nearly as much as you hate Safari.

When you remember cars with manual chokes.

[Gyro]

Ah the joys of manual chokes!   

On cold frosty mornings...

1. Judge the outside temperature and amount of frost on the car, pull the choke out by a carefully learned amount.
2. Operate the starter and hope that the engine starts.
3. If the engine doesn't start quickly...
4. Smell petrol and realize that you've flooded the engine.
5. Push the choke back in, gently apply full throttle to avoid the accelerator pump pushing in yet more petrol.
6. Operate the starter to blow out the excess petrol whilst still failing to start.
7. Goto 1.
8. Repeat the cycle until either the engine starts or the battery goes flat.

Assuming that the above is successful, and you're not catching the bus...

9.  Adjust the choke to set the engine to fast idle.
10. Pull out onto a busy road, picking your gap, and simultaneously attempt to accelerate while yanking the choke out to it's full extent to prevent the engine from dying and causing a collision.
11. Carefully modify the above procedure whilst the engine warms up in stop-start traffic.
12. Once the engine has warmed up, forget that you've left the choke out! Stop at traffic lights and wonder why the engine has died and there's a strong smell of petrol.
13. Slowly apply full throttle whilst restarting.
14. Look mournfully at the fuel gauge.

That's how it worked on my old wrecks anyway.

Remember when automatic thermostatic chokes came it? They were worse! 

[vk6zgo]

Ah the joys of manual chokes!   

On cold frosty mornings...

1. Judge the outside temperature and amount of frost on the car, pull the choke out by a carefully learned amount.
2. Operate the starter and hope that the engine starts.
3. If the engine doesn't start quickly...
4. Smell petrol and realize that you've flooded the engine.
5. Push the choke back in, gently apply full throttle to avoid the accelerator pump pushing in yet more petrol.
6. Operate the starter to blow out the excess petrol whilst still failing to start.
7. Goto 1.
8. Repeat the cycle until either the engine starts or the battery goes flat.

Assuming that the above is successful, and you're not catching the bus...

9.  Adjust the choke to set the engine to fast idle.
10. Pull out onto a busy road, picking your gap, and simultaneously attempt to accelerate while yanking the choke out to it's full extent to prevent the engine from dying and causing a collision.
11. Carefully modify the above procedure whilst the engine warms up in stop-start traffic.
12. Once the engine has warmed up, forget that you've left the choke out! Stop at traffic lights and wonder why the engine has died and there's a strong smell of petrol.
13. Slowly apply full throttle whilst restarting.
14. Look mournfully at the fuel gauge.

That's how it worked on my old wrecks anyway.
est
Remember when automatic thermostatic chokes came it? They were worse! 

I never worked out why Brit cars were so hard to start in the morning.
I can understand in the UK, because it gets a bit colder than most of Oz , but even in a Perth WA Winter, there was a profound difference.

In mid-winter, I would go out to my EH Holden, scrape the ice off the windscreen, kick the pedal so the accellerator pump squirted some raw juice into the carby, turn the key, & it started!
"Pommy" cars I had in the same period would have to go through the routine you described----admittedly, they were older than the Holden, but even making allowances for that, the difference was stark.

When I went to the UK for a year in 1971/72, we had a 100E Ford Popular, which hated starting, & many cold mornings we walked to work, instead!

At Christmas time '71, I went to Scotland, where, in the other Perth, I rented a car from the local VW dealer.
Unfortunately, he was out of VWs, but had a Ford Cortina Estate, which was a few years old.
Well, it was a pig!
Hated starting---I can't remember if it had a manual or auto choke, but the stink of unburnt fuel surrounded it after each start.

The final straw was when it "died" just as I was entering a dual carriageway with quite a lot of traffic, then did its starting "party trick".

I took it back, & demanded something else----this time they did have a VW, but it looked like somebody had been using it in a rally--- covered with mud, scruffy inside, generally "not up to their normal standards".
They wanted to "detail" it first, but I insisted, drove  the muddy thing down the road to the carwash,so I could actually see with the headlights, then continued on my trip, driving all around the North of Scotland.

The VW started impeccably every morning, the heater worked spectacularly well (another failing of the Ford), & left me with a very good impression.

[CatalinaWOW]

Much of this stuff is specific to your region of origin.   While I remember when most of the neighbors still did not have indoor plumbing and when none of the roads in my area were paved, people living just a few miles away already had those things.  And while our neighbor had a coal furnace and still had coal deliveries well into the 1960s, he was by far the last to switch over to either electric heat or natural gas.  My grand-fathers town in rural Kansas was one of the last two or three to switch over to "modern" telephones in the late 1960s or early 1970s.  Prior to that they had a town operator, party lines and magneto cranks for dialing.  The Bell System (one of those things that makes Americans feel old if they remember) paid for the conversion to reduce their costs of interface for long distance service.

[themadhippy]

1. Judge the outside temperature and amount of frost on the car, pull the choke out by a carefully learned amount.

1A. apply cloths  peg to keep the choke out as  the locking mechanism has broke

[BradC]

The VW started impeccably every morning, the heater worked spectacularly well (another failing of the Ford), & left me with a very good impression.

"Volkswagen?! That's not a car, it's a two storey Victa!".

[vk6zgo]

You know you're old when.....

You find yourself singing songs in a "Gabby Hayes" voice.
Know who Gabby Hayes was.

Sing "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" in a "Maurice Chevalier" voice.
Know who Maurice Chevalier was.
Don't cringe a bit at the lyrics.

Remember Professor Julius Sumner Miller.

Remember "Killer Kowalski".

You are shocked to find you are older than Keith Richards!

[Ed.Kloonk]

..when young blokes refer to manual chokes being a thing of the past.

 

[bsfeechannel]

Aladdin kerosene lamp and charcoal iron.

Beat that.

[Quarlo Klobrigney]

You could buy a new car in any color you wanted, as long as it was black.

[bsfeechannel]

You could buy a new car in any color you wanted, as long as it was black.

Fair enough.

[vk6zgo]

Aladdin kerosene lamp and charcoal iron.

Beat that.

The Aladdin kero lamp with the mantle was a spectacularly good lamp----you can still buy bits for them!

Do you mean a clothes iron with a cavity on top for hot charcoal, or a soldering iron?"

My bro made a great little regenerative HF radio using a small "plumber's iron" stuck in the firebox of a "Metter's No2" stove for all the soldering work.

[VK3DRB]

When the salesman looks at you strangely when you ask where the colour TV's are.

When you know what four-on-the-floor, three-on-the-tree and a T-bar auto (pronounced "T-Bar Ordo") are.

When (for the Aussies), you can remember K-Mart car products stating "Suits Holden, Falcon, Valiant."

When a used car ad would mention "Ideal ladies car". I might try putting that in an ad next time I sell a car to see what happens. I'll make sure my house is insured against fire first.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Valiant.

Fluffy dice hanging from the revision mirror. 

[Gyro]

I never worked out why Brit cars were so hard to start in the morning.
I can understand in the UK, because it gets a bit colder than most of Oz , but even in a Perth WA Winter, there was a profound difference.

I think it was a climate peculiarity, unless there' an extended period of sub zero temperatures, you have enough humidity for frost on the top and very wet engine under the bonnet. Although Austin/Morris British Leyland and Ford were bad, I also has a Peugeot 304 that was really bad. One very icy and snowy morning, the only way I could get it to start was to unscrew the top of the air filter and stuff a hair dryer into the top of the carburettor It started immediately then! The hairdryer and extension lead went on the back seat in case I couldn't get back home again that evening.

...
The final straw was when it "died" just as I was entering a dual carriageway with quite a lot of traffic, then did its starting "party trick".

I narrowly avoided a 'life changing' smash like that. I was pulling out onto the A4, just after it narrowed from dual to single carriageway. There was a car in the distance that was going far faster that I expected, the limit was 40mph but he was doing 60+. I pulled out and of course the engine faded - He thought I was pausing half way across the road for him to pass, while at the same time I yanked out the choke. How he had the reactions to switch from an 'undertake' to an overtake, I'll never know, but there was much squealing of tires and horn. Luckily for me, he didn't stop, but shook me for a while (him too I bet).

The VW started impeccably every morning, the heater worked spectacularly well (another failing of the Ford), & left me with a very good impression.

The joys of an air cooled engine. Having a water heated carburettor also meant a water cooled carburettor on a cold morning.

1A. apply cloths  peg to keep the choke out as  the locking mechanism has broke

Ha yes, I remember seeing that trick in the reader section of Practical Motorist. The more official fix was to disconnect the end of the cable inner from the carburettor, pull it out part way, and apply a new kink with a pair of pliers (the original one having worn down). That was the locking / friction mechanism on most cars!

[TerraHertz]

When you find your old Tanelorn music festival (1981) t-shirt in a drawer, and it's now far too small to fit.

...  the revision mirror. 

The mirror for hindsight and correcting past mistakes?  I wish I had one.

[bsfeechannel]

Do you mean a clothes iron with a cavity on top for hot charcoal, or a soldering iron?"

Clothes iron.

My bro made a great little regenerative HF radio using a small "plumber's iron" stuck in the firebox of a "Metter's No2" stove for all the soldering work.

Impressive. My first soldering iron, which I still have and still works, is rated at 60W. It's a monster compared to this modern day pencil size "rubbish".

[Quarlo Klobrigney]

Bakelite, the new shiny thing will replace EVERYTHING!

[David Hess]

The VW started impeccably every morning, the heater worked spectacularly well (another failing of the Ford), & left me with a very good impression.

I also have fond memories of the air cooled aspects of the VW bug.  They would be considered terribly underpowered and unsafe today though.

[harerod]

Gyro, I love your account on manual chokes.
Well, chokes on car engines are a thing of the past. My more recent experience with chokes are with several carburetor aircraft engines. Your list mostly still applies to those kind of engines, with the added pleasure of cranking the propeller by hand, after the battery went flat.
Air cooled engines, say Australian Jabiru, are still a thing with light aircraft. Nice engines, until you stall one after a long final on low throttle, when apply power too quickly to a cooled down engine. Very vivid memory from an early training flight.

How can you tell that your aircraft is old? A radio key has been taped to the control horn sometime in the 1970s...

How can you tell that you are an old engineer? You get paid for teaching people with masters and doctors in electronics about "Fourier transform"...

[coppice]

I never worked out why Brit cars were so hard to start in the morning.

That's a huge generalisation.

At Christmas time '71, I went to Scotland, where, in the other Perth, I rented a car from the local VW dealer.
Unfortunately, he was out of VWs, but had a Ford Cortina Estate, which was a few years old.
Well, it was a pig!
Hated starting---I can't remember if it had a manual or auto choke, but the stink of unburnt fuel surrounded it after each start.

I owned a 71 Cortina, bought when it was about 5 years old. It had had a hard life before I got it, but it started on the first turn of the key day after day, except one time when it had a carburettor fault. In 1980 I bought a brand new Cortina. I had it 5 years and throughout that time it just started on the first turn of the key.

[bsfeechannel]

...your first childhood family car was a 10 year old Citroën Traction Avant.

[schmitt trigger]

Microcontrollers with a maximum of 64K memory address.
Running at 4 Mhz, of course.

When you remember the 741 and 555 as being state-of-the-art devices.

[mansaxel]

When you realise that the audio guys at work are trying to get rid of what was state of the art back when you drifted out of audio and into computers.

[vk6zgo]

When the salesman looks at you strangely when you ask where the colour TV's are.

When you know what four-on-the-floor, three-on-the-tree and a T-bar auto (pronounced "T-Bar Ordo") are.

When (for the Aussies), you can remember K-Mart car products stating "Suits Holden, Falcon, Valiant."

Rationalisation of components & accessories between brands made things a lot easier.
My "Australianised" Renault R12 used an (Australian made) Bosch distributor, & the same set of contacts that were used in umpteen models of Holden.

The Aussie Bosch car electrical systems were rugged, reliable, not cheap, but big stuff, like starters & alternators were re-buildable multiple times & everybody in the trade did just that.

The funny thing was, a lot of Brit cars used common bits, too, but unless you had an unusual brand, like a Singer, you would have never found out.

When a used car ad would mention "Ideal ladies car". I might try putting that in an ad next time I sell a car to see what happens. I'll make sure my house is insured against fire first.

Gee, I might buy one for my "Ideal lady" (slither, grovel).

[Circlotron]

 ...you put a posting in the "pet peeve" thread and a few weeks or months later you put exactly the same thing in again.

[CatalinaWOW]

Check.

In fact you can judge my age by how many days, weeks or months it is.  And sometimes it makes the calendar look pretty darned good.

[Brumby]

My bro made a great little regenerative HF radio using a small "plumber's iron" stuck in the firebox of a "Metter's No2" stove for all the soldering work.

Impressive. My first soldering iron, which I still have and still works, is rated at 60W. It's a monster compared to this modern day pencil size "rubbish".

Monster?  Let me tell you about a monster....

It was only a little thing - with a big transformer ..... and the ability to barbeque anything in seconds.....

One word: Miniscope   


(and it was thought to be a good thing to buy)

[vk6zgo]

My bro made a great little regenerative HF radio using a small "plumber's iron" stuck in the firebox of a "Metter's No2" stove for all the soldering work.

Impressive. My first soldering iron, which I still have and still works, is rated at 60W. It's a monster compared to this modern day pencil size "rubbish".

Monster?  Let me tell you about a monster....

It was only a little thing - with a big transformer ..... and the ability to barbeque anything in seconds.....

One word: Miniscope   :scared

(and it was thought to be a good thing to buy)

And that was the "mini" ----- the real one was a lot bigger, & a bit more bitey.

Actually, they were very useful, as they can complete many connections which otherwise need a really heavy mains soldering iron.
They were also useable on a car battery (a 6 volt one).

The other extreme was a little device called a Fairey iron, which would make the smallest modern iron look large.
I had one, which I used with a 6.3volt "filament" transformer.
It was pretty capable------------I used it for all my solder work for some years.

[Adrian_Arg.]

I think we are getting old!
The people who entered the universities last year were born in 1988. For them there has been only one Pope who has lasted almost his entire life.
They never sang 'We are the World, we are the children', and when García Márquez won the Nobel they didn't even know how to read.
They were 3 years old when the Soviet Union disintegrated. They do not remember the Cold War and they know only one Germany, although at school they have been told that there were two.
They are too young to remember the explosion of the space shuttle 'Challenger' and will probably never know what the 'Pepsi Challenge' or the 'Pepsi Challenge' was.
For them, AIDS has been around their entire lives. They didn't get to play with the Atari.
The CD entered the market when they were not even one year old.
They never had a record player. They never played Pacman.
StarWars seems pretty fake to them, and the special effects seem pathetic.
Many of them do not know, or do not remember, that televisions only had 13 channels and a 'U', and they were switched with a knob; moreover, some have never even seen a black and white television, they cannot even explain what it is to watch TV without a remote control.
They were born six years after Sony put the Walkman on sale, for them the skates have always had in-line wheels and let's not talk about the normality with which they see a cell phone or a personal computer.
They may never have seen Sesame Street, The Treasure of Knowledge, Lost In Space, Topo Gigio or The Lone Ranger.
They never go swimming thinking 'Jaws'.
Michael Jackson has always been white. And how can they believe that Travolta could dance with that belly.
They never heard the following expressions: 'The plane, boss, the plane', or 'Grandpa, tell me you'. They don't remember who 'Wonder Woman' was.
They never used a metal lunch box.
They do not remember who was 'The Nuclear Man', 'The Bionic Woman', or 'the General of the Dukes of Hazard' (Hazard? ... what is that?).
They never heard or could say 'By the power of Greiscol', or 'Thunder, thunder, thunder cats oooooooohhhhhhhhh'.
They don't know who 'Tom Sawyer', 'Maya the bee', or 'Little Lulu' is.
They believe that 'The Love Cruise' leaves Miami loaded with honeymooners. That 'Charlie's Angels' is a film 'premiere' and that when they are told about 'CHIPs' they will think of potatoes to accompany lunch.
Remember that all these people entered the University last year, they are young people now !!!!!
Symptoms that you are getting old:
1. When you understand the above text and smile.
2. When, as a man, you are finally able to say NO to a woman without remorse.
3. When, as a woman, you are finally able to say YES to a man without remorse.
4. When you do sports and proud, you tell everyone that you do it.
5. When there are remedies on the nightstand.
6. When virginity has long since been a topic of conversation.
7. When the children with whom, until recently, you had a certain complicity, now they call you 'sir', they treat you ... or, worse still, they call you 'uncle'.
8. When you need much more time than one morning to recover from a late night.
9. When you hang up the towel yourself after showering.
10. When it bothers you that someone else leaves the toothpaste uncovered.
11. When your friends get married without being in a rush.
12. When your little cousins ​​ask you for cigarettes.
13. When your nephews know more about computers than you.
14. When you go to the beach and you can go all day without bathing.
15. When you watch games and concerts on TV, instead of going to see them live.
16. When you bring gifts to birthdays again ... just like when you were a kid.
17. When, to play sports, you buy clothes that cover you instead of showing.
18. When you would rather see a friend than talk to him Hooooo on the phone.
19. When you already know what you want.
FRIENDS ..... WE ARE getting old, but we have lived WONDERFUL !!! I hope so .......

[Brumby]

You know you're old when.....


.... you look back on your life and think of all the things you were going to do when you had the time - and now that you have the time, you try to remember what some of those things were......

[Ground_Loop]

Looking for the Photomat booth in the grocery store parking lot to get your digital pictures developed.

[Cerebus]

You know you're old when.....


.... you look back on your life and think of all the things you were going to do when you had the time - and now that you have the time, you try to remember what some of those things were......

So you decide to start a list so that you can note them down over the next few days as you do remember them.
So you realise you need your reading glasses to do that and so you go to the kitchen to get them.
When you get to the kitchen you can't remember what you came into the kitchen to get.
As you're there you decide to fix yourself a nice cup of cocoa.
You go back to the sitting room and think "Ah. cocoa! So, what was I doing? Ah, who cares; I've got a mug of cocoa, all is right with the world! If it was important I'll remember.".

[coppice]

You know you're old when.....


.... you look back on your life and think of all the things you were going to do when you had the time - and now that you have the time, you try to remember what some of those things were......

And you say "Oh, bucket".

[ucanel]

When you could not add video directly visible:

George Carlin Old ?#$& (Man)
https://youtu.be/pSKo-KYACoA

[VK3DRB]

...The Aussie Bosch car electrical systems were rugged, reliable, not cheap, but big stuff, like starters & alternators were re-buildable multiple times & everybody in the trade did just that....

Now that is one thing that we sorely miss. Too many things are "throw out and replace" rather than repair. It sucks. Those  white worm-in-the-ear earphones made by Apple that look like you have two chalks stuck in your ear have a LiIon battery that lasts around last two years and is not replaceable. Companies like Apple don't want you to repair or refurbish anything. Apple was caught making one of their iPhone firmware updates slow phones down so the user goes and buys the latest model. They just want want more of your money for their shareholders.

In my day TV's, radios, stereos were all worth repairing. Cars could be restored. The Holden red engine could be disassembled with two spanners.

You know you are old when you can remember getting something repaired or furbished; and very old when you could do it yourself.

[jonovid]

...The Aussie Bosch car electrical systems were rugged, reliable, not cheap, but big stuff, like starters & alternators were re-buildable multiple times & everybody in the trade did just that....

Now that is one thing that we sorely miss. Too many things are "throw out and replace" rather than repair. It sucks. Those  white worm-in-the-ear earphones made by Apple that look like you have two chalks stuck in your ear have a LiIon battery that lasts around last two years and is not replaceable. Companies like Apple don't want you to repair or refurbish anything. Apple was caught making one of their iPhone firmware updates slow phones down so the user goes and buys the latest model. They just want want more of your money for their shareholders.

In my day TV's, radios, stereos were all worth repairing. Cars could be restored. The Holden red engine could be disassembled with two spanners.

You know you are old when you can remember getting something repaired or furbished; and very old when you could do it yourself.

The Holden red engine could be disassembled with two spanners    maybe five spanners.    whitworth or AF I forget

the cylinder head had some scope for development.  yellow terrier heads
IMO the 186 was the best to work on, also adding a borg warner 4 speed gearbox if you had the cash.
it was all so basic back then, a vehicle was nuts and bolts with a basic electrical system, the only electronics was the in-car AM transistor radio
or CB if you had one.

[Ed.Kloonk]

My car has 16 valves. 4 in the engine and 12 in the radio.

[Kerlin]

You post on the PMG techs thread.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/pmg-telecom-radio-laboratory-books-and-calibration-box-information/

[vk6zgo]

...The Aussie Bosch car electrical systems were rugged, reliable, not cheap, but big stuff, like starters & alternators were re-buildable multiple times & everybody in the trade did just that....

Now that is one thing that we sorely miss. Too many things are "throw out and replace" rather than repair. It sucks. Those  white worm-in-the-ear earphones made by Apple that look like you have two chalks stuck in your ear have a LiIon battery that lasts around last two years and is not replaceable. Companies like Apple don't want you to repair or refurbish anything. Apple was caught making one of their iPhone firmware updates slow phones down so the user goes and buys the latest model. They just want want more of your money for their shareholders.

In my day TV's, radios, stereos were all worth repairing. Cars could be restored. The Holden red engine could be disassembled with two spanners.

You know you are old when you can remember getting something repaired or furbished; and very old when you could do it yourself.

The Holden red engine could be disassembled with two spanners    maybe five spanners.    whitworth or AF I forget

the cylinder head had some scope for development.  yellow terrier heads
IMO the 186 was the best to work on, also adding a borg warner 4 speed gearbox if you had the cash.
it was all so basic back then, a vehicle was nuts and bolts with a basic electrical system, the only electronics was the in-car AM transistor radio
or CB if you had one.

AF--- Pommy cars were another delight altogether, with a mix of UNF, Whitworth, & BSF----all using mutually incompatible spanners.

The "Prince of Darkness" had another sweet thing going for a while, in a "Lucas thread" for the batt lead connection on their starters, complete with different distance across the flats.
At least they eventually realised it was silly, & discontinued its use.

The AF 9/16"  &  1/2" are "near enough that they could kiss without sin" to 14mm & 13mm metric.

Electronic fuel injection & control of ignition & anti-pollution stuff were improvements, but the seriously dumb idea of a bloody great big touchscreen in the middle of the dash that you have to look at to operate is a backward step in my opinion.

By the way, the addition of an "ECU"was from the mid-'80s, the "goto" device for mechanics to blame:-
"It's the computer"------- like "just a tube" for radios in earlier years.

One bloke had a bunch of "computers" from wrecked cars, which he would slot in.
It even worked, sometimes!

[Brumby]

... you understand what this means - without looking it up.

You post on the PMG techs thread.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/pmg-telecom-radio-laboratory-books-and-calibration-box-information/

[GreyWoolfe]

You know that you are old when:
you learned to drive in a car big enough to have its own zip code.
you not only know what a manual choke is but had a car with one.
you were sent home from school when Pres Kennedy was shot.
you were a teenager when your parents got that new fangled color TV.
you just missed being drafted for Vietnam.
you have to learn all about this medicare stuff before the end of the year.
you remember car radios that were AM only.
you worked with punch cards in high school.

You know you look old when you get a senior citizen's discount when you're not a senior citizen.  When I said that I wasn't a senior citizen, the young kid behind the counter said, "that's OK, you look old school."

[Brumby]

... you bought an AM stereo decoder kit, because it was just the coolest thing ever!

[duckduck]

You remember using a pay phone. You remember watching a black & white TV. You remember seeing a tube tester at the TV repair place. You know how to dial a number on a rotary-dial phone. Your parents told you to go play outside, and then didn't worry about you until supper time. You remember when they were called "laptops" the first time around. You remember using a 6V or 12V alkaline battery. You remember using dry-cell batteries. You remember playing with liquid mercury in your bedroom without gloves, face-shield, fume hood, or having to fill out a hazard assessment form. You know what the AT command set is. You remember using a car radio that had buttons that moved the station indicator needle to a different station, and you know how to "program" different stations. You remember when cars had radio antennas sticking out of the front fenders. You remember when handheld electronic games played only one game. You remember when the high-beam switch was foot operated. You remember calling friends when you were a teenager and having to talk to one of their parents first. You remember the (rifle) shooting team at school. You remember taking drafting class and using your dad's nice German drafting tools that he used when he took drafting class. You remember playing lawn darts. You remember when old guys smoked pipes. You remember when mustaches were cool. You remember winding a metronome. You remember winding an alarm clock before going to sleep. You remember ultrasonic TV remotes. You remember turning the big dial and squeezing the lever for each letter when making a label. You remember cranking the ice-cream maker. You remember having to rewind magnetic tapes. You remember having to wait at least 60 minutes to look at a picture after you took it (not counting Polaroids). You remember having to press hard when filling out forms so that the bottom copy would come out. You remember having to add duplicating fluid before cranking on the "ditto" machine to make copies. You remember looking up books in the card catalog in the library. You remember reading old newspapers on microfiche. You remember crank calling.

[HobGoblyn]

When the salesman looks at you strangely when you ask where the colour TV's

I remember as something like a 7 year old, going to a friends house and they had a new colour TV.  They played around with the colour knob turning it to b&w and back to colour.

I then went home and tried to do the same thing on our b&w tv

[Ed.Kloonk]

You remember crank calling.

Ah, yes. The anonymous, random heavy-breather. I miss being able to do that. I miss receiving them too, if I'm really honest about it.

[Ed.Kloonk]

When the salesman looks at you strangely when you ask where the colour TV's

I remember as something like a 7 year old, going to a friends house and they had a new colour TV.  They played around with the colour knob turning it to b&w and back to colour.

I then went home and tried to do the same thing on our b&w tv

When you remember seeing the words 'Colour TV" on the big sign outside the motel you were driving around looking for.

[schmitt trigger]

Indeed!
Colour TV were the free WiFi of the 60s and 70s

[radar_macgyver]

When you remember seeing the words 'Colour TV" on the big sign outside the motel you were driving around looking for.

There's parts of Oklahoma that still have these signs!

[thermistor-guy]

Your kids ask for help with homework, on historical events, and they are shocked to realize you lived through it.

[vk6zgo]

When you remember seeing the words 'Colour TV" on the big sign outside the motel you were driving around looking for.

There's parts of Oklahoma that still have these signs!

Is that "Where the wind comes sweeping down the plains?" (Now I've really shown how old I am!).

Back to the motels;-

Some years back, (early 2000s), I had a temporary job, where they flew a bunch of us to Melbourne to learn how to reprogram dishwashers. (apparently different countries have their own programming).
To this end, we were put up in motels.

The one I stayed at was surprising to say the least.

It looked like it had been transported whole from 1975---still with a '70s colour TV, decor in the room standard for that era, non-watersaving shower head in the bathroom-----------everything took me right back.

I had to look outside to see the newer model cars to make sure I wasn't stranded in the "Twilight Zone!"

No "Colour TV" sign, though!

[vk6zgo]

Your kids ask for help with homework, on historical events, and they are shocked to realize you lived through it.

I have seen so-called "academic" papers on the Internet, which are riddled with gross historical errors.

One referred to the Australian Labor Party having been kept out of power from the 1930s to the '70s.
They had apparently never heard of John Curtin, the ALP Prime Minister during the most dire parts of WW2.

Another one, whilst at least acknowledging the existence of Curtin, criticised his govt for highish Inflation during the period he was PM.

Again, no mention of, or consideration of WW2, rationing, civil mobilisation on a grand scale, or the presence of US forces, all obvious drivers of Inflation.

If academics are so crap, how do we expect schoolkids to understand historical events?

[Cerebus]

Is that "Where the wind comes sweeping down the plains?" (Now I've really shown how old I am!).

Or alternatively just that you're a fan of musical theatre.

[Oilngas]

You remember using a car radio that had buttons that moved the station indicator needle to a different station, and you know how to "program" different stations.

And that AM radio had CONELRAD system triangles on the dial at 640 and 1240.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Your kids ask for help with homework, on historical events, and they are shocked to realize you lived through it.

"..But, the teacher said.."

 

[Circlotron]

Your kids ask for help with homework, on historical events, and they are shocked to realize you lived through it.

"..But, the teacher said.."

 

..."you can be a boy or a girl" 

[TerraHertz]

When you meet a very nice lady, probably in her early 30s, and you are STILL twice her age. Dammit.

So you give one of your newest cats her name.

[Quarlo Klobrigney]

Conelrad had nothing on this setup.
I remember listening to WGU20 from Maryland on Longwave at 179 kHz, quite strong in Massachusetts during the day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WGU-20

As we were all expected to survive a nuclear blast and come out of our shelters, then listen to the government to tell us how long it would be before it was safe (and the final score).

[VK3DRB]

Our local chemist shop (pharmacy to the Americans) provides prescription tablets in a video cassette type case to take to the front country for checkout. About 3 months ago I asked the checkout woman, probably aged around 30, something like, "Do you have beta?" She looked perplexed. I then asked "VHS?". She had no idea what I was on about. I explained by saying, "This looks like a VCR tape case", and she replied "What's a VCR tape?" Yep, I know I am getting old. To the young checkout woman, probably senile as well.

I have about eight Aboriginal plastic $10 notes from 1988, the first plastic notes ever printed in the world (Australian invention). I am tempted to pass one at the local supermarket and watch the kerfuffle to see if they will accept it. They are super rare because they were quickly withdrawn from circulation, and I doubt most of the checkout chicks have ever seen one. Some of these notes are very valuable, but not mine (circulated). These would be quite offensive to Aborigines today, based upon the image on the other side of the note, and what 1788 represents...
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/392769676251

[VK3DRB]

You also know you are getting old when university graduates in electrical/electronic engineering have never heard of a CB or ham radio.

[themadhippy]

when the barmaid your chanting to about the  local area  turns around and says" you must have been at school with my  gran"

[Ed.Kloonk]

when the barmaid your chanting to about the  local area  turns around and says" you must have been at school with my  gran"

"I am your grand father"

[Cerebus]

I have about eight Aboriginal plastic $10 notes from 1988, the first plastic notes ever printed in the world (Australian invention).

I hate to disabuse you of your national pride, but Haiti circulated plastic bank notes in 1982 printed by the American Bank Note Company. So not an Australian invention; you might have developed a better plastic banknote, but you didn't invent it. The Haitian ones were printed on Tyvek and to all accounts were problematic. The idea of printing on smooth plastic 'paper' wasn't even of itself new, Du Pont sold a printable version of Tyvek in the 1970s. I went to an outdoor festival in the summer of 1978 where the programme had been printed on Tyvek to allow it to survive the outdoor conditions of a British Summer.

[VK3DRB]

I have about eight Aboriginal plastic $10 notes from 1988, the first plastic notes ever printed in the world (Australian invention).

I hate to disabuse you of your national pride, but Haiti circulated plastic bank notes in 1982 printed by the American Bank Note Company. So not an Australian invention; you might have developed a better plastic banknote, but you didn't invent it. The Haitian ones were printed on Tyvek and to all accounts were problematic. The idea of printing on smooth plastic 'paper' wasn't even of itself new, Du Pont sold a printable version of Tyvek in the 1970s. I went to an outdoor festival in the summer of 1978 where the programme had been printed on Tyvek to allow it to survive the outdoor conditions of a British Summer.

OK, but Australia "perfected" the notes by developing novel technology for printing them. To be honest, the Aboriginal notes were too big for most wallets and were not overly robust. Our banknotes are very robust now. We are the biggest manufacturer of plastic notes on the planet and we export them to many countries. Bank note printing is a dying trade as the notes are generally much less used in Australia these days. Crooks hiding their income from the authorities still use cash. But most people use EFT. In a few years, wallets will disappear as it all moves to the mobile telephone. In a few years, I suspect some stores won't even bother with cash.

You know you are getting old when you are the only person in the checkout line paying in cash.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_banknote#:~:text=banknote%20is%20returned.-,Adoption,coincide%20with%20Australia's%20bicentennial%20year.

[RJSV]

...old when you:
   Use the initials P.C.F. when telling a kid you came up in a time, Pre - Cell - Phone days, when there were no cell phone markets.
Oh and I spelled 'Fhone' wrong too, we do that...eh

[Neilm]

You also know you are getting old when university graduates in electrical/electronic engineering have never heard of a CB or ham radio.

Ham radio? isn't that what the USS Swinetrek used to communicate

[Gregg]

You know you are old if you remember when a high tech phone had a 20 speed dial.   

[duckduck]

My wife was in the hospital a couple of years ago for an outpatient procedure. I was in my wife's room and we were chatting with the nurse, who in the course of the conversation said "I have recently been re-reading my old facebook posts from when I was 14..."

I have never felt older in my life.

[asmi]

...when you start yet another "electronics as a hobby is dying" thread.

[tpowell1830]

... when all of your friends have died out.

[coppice]

... when all of your friends have died out.

You are getting seriously old at that point. You are starting to age when you are invited to more funerals than weddings. You are ageing when the police start to look young, but you are getting seriously old when the corpses start to look young.

[BradC]

... when all of your friends have died out.

I recall having that conversation with my grandmother at 96. "None of my friends visit anymore. Yeah Nan, you've outlived all of them."

My grandfather turns 100 in August. He has a similar problem. Unfortunately he's also outlived his 5 year old great grandson and completely upset the natural order.

Personally I only go back as far as electro-mechanical totalizers, so I'm not as old as most of you.

[GlennSprigg]

When the salesman looks at you strangely when you ask where the colour TV's

I remember as something like a 7 year old, going to a friends house and they had a new colour TV.  They played around with the colour knob turning it to b&w and back to colour.

I then went home and tried to do the same thing on our b&w tv

Not to mention the 'Sales Gimics' back then, trying to sell you a 'special' Colour TV Aerial!!!   

[NiHaoMike]

Not to mention the 'Sales Gimics' back then, trying to sell you a 'special' Colour TV Aerial!!!   

They're still doing it with "HD" and "4K" antennas.

[GlennSprigg]

And now just REMINDED of my age, when a then best mate from my 1st year apprenticeship just phoned me!!!   
It's been 45 years... and we have a lot more to talk about and catch up on !!   

[GreyWoolfe]

Pushbutton transmissions (don't play with the buttons, they can fall inside the dashboard-don't ask how I know)  Peeling the side label off my black Converse hightops and writing on the white rubber piece at the toe.  Wearing ties in public grammar school.  Going to Gym class, none of this P.E. rubbish.  Tub washing machine with the wringing rollers.  Having a Sting Ray bike when they first came out and putting baseball cards in the spokes with clothespins.  Getting yelled at by Mom for taking her broomstick handle to play stick ball with.  Getting Matchbox cars that came in boxes and being a teenager when Hot Wheels first came out.  I used to play hard with them till all the paint was off.  Now I display my collection in UV resistant Acrylic cases on the walls in my office, wishing I had those cars to add.

[CatalinaWOW]

Cars with hydraulic power door locks.  Can't image who thought this was a good idea.  Fortunately they weren't mass market.

[richnormand]

@ GlennSprigg
"Not to mention the 'Sales Gimics' back then, trying to sell you a 'special' Colour TV Aerial!!!   "

Same people selling "digital" TV antennas today...

[NiHaoMike]

To be fair, there is a bit of truth to it, in that newer standards that cram more information into the same bandwidth would be more picky about signal quality. Especially in the US where they used the oddball 8VSB.

[coppice]

Same people selling "digital" TV antennas today...

It depends where you live, and the broadcast system there, but "digital TV antennae" can be ones optimised for the band used for digital broadcasts in that area.

[Cerebus]

Cars with hydraulic power door locks.  Can't image who thought this was a good idea.  Fortunately they weren't mass market.

Depends what you mean by hydraulics. For many years the central locking on Audis was operated by air pressure and on enough of them to definitely qualify as "mass market". There was a car thieves' trick that allowed you to completely unlock the whole car with a small source of air power applied in the right place. Apparently a tennis ball with a hole cut in it was sufficient if hit smartly to supply said air power.

[TimFox]

I remember a "Carl and Jerry" episode in Popular Electronics (somewhere around 1962, maybe) where a disgruntled high-school kid evacuated a small propane tank in the physics lab and used it to suck on vacuum lines to open car locks for knavery.  His excuse was to whine that his awful mother had taken away his tape recorder when he used it to document that she snored.

[CatalinaWOW]

The ones I was thinking of were fluid hydraulics.  An uncle had one.  I think it was Oldsmobile or perhaps Buick, and the leaks were unfortunate, both from a staining and odor standpoint.

[themadhippy]

Apparently a tennis ball with a hole cut in it was sufficient if hit smartly to supply said air power.

A tennis ball cut in half , placed over the boot lock  and struck worked on certain ford estates,so im told.

[TerraHertz]

... you realise that when you were born, Albert Einstein was still alive.   

Or (in my case) that Einstein died the year you were born.

Also, when you're well familiar with 'decaying antistatic foam' and it's a problem that affects you personally

[Brumby]

... you realise that when you were born, Albert Einstein was still alive.   

Or (in my case) that Einstein died the year you were born.

In my case it was only a matter of a few days - but there was an overlap!

[Ed.Kloonk]

... you realise that when you were born, Albert Einstein was still alive.   

Or (in my case) that Einstein died the year you were born.

In my case it was only a matter of a few days - but there was an overlap!

Was there any profound baton-passing?

[TerraHertz]

Or (in my case) that Einstein died the year you were born.

In my case it was only a matter of a few days - but there was an overlap!

Was there any profound baton-passing?

Several months gap for me so no baton sadly, and for Brumby, overlap=no baton.
I think there might be other reasons too.

[Ed.Kloonk]

and for Brumby, overlap=no baton.

Beatles/Pink Floyd.

[GlennSprigg]

To be fair, there is a bit of truth to it, in that newer standards that cram more information into the same bandwidth would be more picky about signal quality. Especially in the US where they used the oddball 8VSB.

Yes I agree... regarding 'modern' Digital TV, and some modern aerials. Yes, there is more info in the bandwidth now, not
to mention the different frequency bands now, (at least in Australia?)... requiring better physical aerial designs...   

[Gyro]

and for Brumby, overlap=no baton.

Beatles/Pink Floyd.

I'm just listening to Dark side of the Moon as I type.

[Ed.Kloonk]

and for Brumby, overlap=no baton.

Beatles/Pink Floyd.

I'm just listening to Dark side of the Moon as I type.

But were you in the right?

[Brumby]

Several months gap for me so no baton sadly, and for Brumby, overlap=no baton.
I think there might be other reasons too.

I wasn't able to grasp the baton - besides I baulked at the unified field theory stuff.

[tszaboo]

I guess in my case:
You fell down the stairs, and instead of laughing and getting yet another drink with the pals...
You genuinely hurt yourself, have to pick up the laundry that you thaw everywhere and need to stay in bed for days.

[tpowell1830]

When you can remember sticking S&H Green stamps into a stamp book...

[David Hess]

When you know what an E Ticket is through personal experience.

[BU508A]

when you are sad about the death of John Lawton. RIP 

[Gregg]

You know you are old if you were deeply saddened by the news of the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly; Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson

[vk6zgo]

You know you are old if you were deeply saddened by the news of the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly; Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson

You know you are old, when you:-

 Fix electronic stuff for fun!

Can remember when you first heard "American Pie".
(actually, the song is so long, that you visibly age from its start to its finish)

Remember when "The King" was still called "Elvis the pelvis".

Remember 6 volt car batteries.

Remember the first time you saw a "pocket transistor radio" (& how gorgeous the little chick who owned it was!)

Had a car with a crankhandle.

Remember jukeboxes.

[Robbin]

... when you are waiting for the EURO 2020 final match(which is scheduled for 2021) and suddenly you remember that you have already watched 8 EURO finals

[coppice]

... when you are waiting for the EURO 2020 final match(which is scheduled for 2021) and suddenly you remember that you have already watched 8 EURO finals

I've been alive for every Euro final, but I've never seen one. Does that mean I'm still young?

[schmitt trigger]

To me was the death of the three “Js”:
Jimmy Hendrix
Jim Morrison
Janis Joplin.

[tpowell1830]

When you remember cars that had generators instead of alternators. If they were giving you trouble on the road, for a quick fix you could take a screwdriver and press in on the brushes to get better charging (and make sparks).

[TerraHertz]

It's not so much getting old that bothers me, but the fear of losing my f-ing mind. And stupid stuffups like the following just make me worry more about that.

So, quick little milling job. Part of setting up to make a resin cast of a HP button.
The mech workshop had become cluttered lately, so it took some clearing away to get at the milling machine. By which time I was feeling like this had already taken far too much time. So refilling the cutting fluid pump seemed like even more 'too much.'
And it's been a while since I used the mill at all. Forgot the 'touch', and what a sudden increase in required cutting pressure means.

Result: snapped an 8mm milling bit. Aluminium bound to the edges, gumming it up. It only takes a second. Wouldn't have happened with cutting fluid running.

I KNEW this. Used to anyway. That I forgot it this time... makes me feel pretty bad. Old and stupid.

So now instead of finishing that, I'm reworking the drain hose system from the mill. The old hose had become stiff from some effect of the fluid, and also blocked up and caused an overflow of the fluid onto something else.

[vk6zgo]

You know you're old when you realise your Grandfather was right, young people really are as dumb as a box of rocks!

[Ed.Kloonk]

You know you're old when you realise your Grandfather was right, young people really are as dumb as a box of rocks!

..and when you find yourself mumbling very similar strong ******* vernacular in regards to said people.

[bsfeechannel]

...when you realize electronics is not about electrons, but elections, these days.

[TerraHertz]

When you realise you do NOT have enough time left to ever understand the deep stuff.



Otoh election fraud motives, means and methods, are easily comprehensible.

[Gregg]

You know you are old when you neither want nor need a smart phone 

[vk6zgo]

You know you're old when you realise Forrest Gump was wrong.

Life is like a box of dog poo-------you know exactly what you're going to get, the only question is when!

[luiHS]

You had a black and white TV, you remember the day Elvis died and when the movie Grease was released.

[TimFox]

You meet the first younger employee at work who was not alive when JFK was shot.
(I've been old for a long time.)

[NiHaoMike]

When you remember cars that had generators instead of alternators. If they were giving you trouble on the road, for a quick fix you could take a screwdriver and press in on the brushes to get better charging (and make sparks).

Alternators have had brushes as well. The first use of a brushless alternator/starter in a mass produced car dates back a little over 20 years ago with the Honda Insight.

[coppice]

When you remember cars that had generators instead of alternators. If they were giving you trouble on the road, for a quick fix you could take a screwdriver and press in on the brushes to get better charging (and make sparks).

Alternators have had brushes as well. The first use of a brushless alternator/starter in a mass produced car dates back a little over 20 years ago with the Honda Insight.

The alternator ones are pressing on slip rings, so they don't usually spark.

[Gyro]

You can stretch the springs on alternator brushes too to make up for the minimal amount of remaining carbon. 

[Bud]

You meet the first younger employee at work who was not alive when JFK was shot.
(I've been old for a long time.)

You feel even older when you ask them who was JFK and they do not know   

[coppice]

You meet the first younger employee at work who was not alive when JFK was shot.
(I've been old for a long time.)

You feel even older when you ask them who was JFK and they do not know   

There are plenty of people graduating from university these days who barely know anything. Knowing who the current prime minister or president might be would be beyond them.

[TimFox]

I was hospitalized for an injury a few years ago, and following normal practice the staff would occasionally ask me who the President was, etc. to check for stroke.  Once, they asked me what happened on Sept. 11, 2001 and, being a smart-ass, I replied "Well, that's controversial...". 

[coppice]

I was hospitalized for an injury a few years ago, and following normal practice the staff would occasionally ask me who the President was, etc. to check for stroke.  Once, they asked me what happened on Sept. 11, 2001 and, being a smart-ass, I replied "Well, that's controversial...".

"What is 911?". "Its the taxi booking number for the infirmed."

[TimFox]

As a curmudgeon, I continually complain that, in this "Information Age", no one knows anything.

[coppice]

As a curmudgeon, I continually complain that, in this "Information Age", no one knows anything.

"Why do I need to know that? I can look it up when I need to."

[mansaxel]

"Why do I need to know that? I can look it up when I need to."

This is true. And should be put to good use. What tables and listings of hard facts can't tell you, is the "Why". That's where the effort should be. The "Why" in general does not need better than hand-waving accuracy facts, except for focussed short periods of study, during which maximum effort should be put in getting the right data, to better ground the pondering.

There is a need for good data, but it first and foremost needs to be understood, not remembered.

[Cerebus]

"Why do I need to know that? I can look it up when I need to."

This is true. And should be put to good use. What tables and listings of hard facts can't tell you, is the "Why". That's where the effort should be. The "Why" in general does not need better than hand-waving accuracy facts, except for focussed short periods of study, during which maximum effort should be put in getting the right data, to better ground the pondering.

There is a need for good data, but it first and foremost needs to be understood, not remembered.

“Never memorize something that you can look up.”
― Albert Einstein

[GlennSprigg]

"Why do I need to know that? I can look it up when I need to."

This is true. And should be put to good use. What tables and listings of hard facts can't tell you, is the "Why". That's where the effort should be. The "Why" in general does not need better than hand-waving accuracy facts, except for focussed short periods of study, during which maximum effort should be put in getting the right data, to better ground the pondering.

There is a need for good data, but it first and foremost needs to be understood, not remembered.

“Never memorize something that you can look up.”
― Albert Einstein

Except basic Times Tables!!!!  Kids these days know nothing without a computer, smartphone, calculator, shop-till !!   

[CatalinaWOW]

It is a matter of efficiency.  You need not memorize seldom used data.  But it it is far faster to remember something than to look it up.There are many constants I find worthwhile to memorize.

Language learning is a potent example of a place where you can look everything up, but memorizing is the only right answer.  Apologies to Albert.

Multiplication tables in an age of calculators are kind of a grey area.  For the bulk of the population, who never use math unless forced that memorization is wasted effort.  I would rather spend the time used to force them to learn these tables to convince at least some of them the value of arithmetic in daily life.  For those who figure it out the memorization is something they will figure out is useful.

[TimFox]

A very useful feature of my undergraduate education was memorization of a few very useful values, including dimensionless constants.
Two approximate examples, useful in atomic physics and nuclear physics, are h c = 12345 eV Angstroms, and (h-bar) c = 200 MeV fm

[jmelson]

I was hospitalized for an injury a few years ago, and following normal practice the staff would occasionally ask me who the President was, etc. to check for stroke.  Once, they asked me what happened on Sept. 11, 2001 and, being a smart-ass, I replied "Well, that's controversial...".

Well, to answer the original question, "When you  have your first stroke, you know you are old."
I woke up a couple weeks ago, and could not write.  it didn't matter how slow I went, all I got was scribbles.  I went to the hospital and they verified damage from a previous stroke.  Now I'm on cholesterol medicine and anticoagulants.  I can write fairly normally, now, and typing is  getting easier.

Jon

[mansaxel]

Language learning is a potent example of a place where you can look everything up, but memorizing is the only right answer.

<snip>

Multiplication tables in an age of calculators are kind of a grey area. 

I actually agree. There is sort of a threshold above which more memorizing becomes useless. But I'd say that multiplication tables are below the threshold.

Language is more complex -- first it depends on which language, and second which part. For English, memorizing is pretty much the only thing that works. There are so many special constructs.  German, or Latin, OTOH, are much more "learn the rules, or you will not understand a thing".  This is called "analytical" and "synthetic" language. The Wikipedia article explains it much better than I've cared to remember. 

Obviously, there is a memory effort in both situations, but it's focussed differently.

[TimFox]

A good book on the nature of grammar that I read a couple of years ago (but can't locate now to quote it directly) pointed out that grammar textbooks are not of much use to native speakers of the language, but extremely useful (or necessary) for foreigners learning a second language.

[coppice]

Multiplication tables in an age of calculators are kind of a grey area.  For the bulk of the population, who never use math unless forced that memorization is wasted effort.  I would rather spend the time used to force them to learn these tables to convince at least some of them the value of arithmetic in daily life.  For those who figure it out the memorization is something they will figure out is useful.

Having technical discussions with people who can't estimate quickly in their heads is a slow and tedious activity. Estimation, rather than precise calculation, will always be something we should be able to do in our heads.

[TimFox]

Especially on simple estimations, such as if the resonant frequency needs to change by 10%, the capacitor value needs to change by 20%. 
Or if a R-C hp filter needs its corner to shift by 10%, what is a 10% increase in the resistor value.
An exact calculation requires a calculator, but is not always necessary.

[Cerebus]

Preceded by:



and similarly:

[Wolfgang]

... when the first computer you used expected input in the form of punched cards. 

[Gregg]

When your first bicycle had skip tooth chain and replacement chains were readily available in many hardware type stores.  I still don't understand why these chains even existed.

[Brumby]

When your first bicycle had skip tooth chain and replacement chains were readily available in many hardware type stores.  I still don't understand why these chains even existed.

They made perfect sense on a chainsaw.  Don't know about bicycles.


Ah.  After some ferreting around it appears that had something to do with differing "standards" in bike chains as they evolved to what we see today.



So, then.... It seems I'm not that old.   

[Cerebus]

... when the first computer you used expected input in the form of punched cards. 

And you used to write your shopping lists and "back of fag packet" designs on the back of used/spare one. Also, made great bookmarks.

[themadhippy]

back of fag packet" designs on the back of used/spare one

AKA  Fagcad

Also  cigarette papers were an essential to tuning your motor bike,no need for expensive feeler gauges, adjust the points until a paper just dragged across the gap

[tpowell1830]

... when the first computer you used expected input in the form of punched cards. 

And you used to write your shopping lists and "back of fag packet" designs on the back of used/spare one. Also, made great bookmarks.

...and don't forget, the aluminum coated paper on cigarette packages wrapped around a blown fuse in your vehicle would get you home. (or a chewing gum wrapper)

[Neilm]

You realise that the space shuttle last launched 10 years ago (last landing 21st)

[coppice]

You realise that the space shuttle last launched 10 years ago (last landing 21st)

I'm not old. If Soyuz is still the most advanced way for people to get into orbit, surely it can't be long since I was a kid and heard about the launch of the first one.

[SiliconWizard]

You realise that the space shuttle last launched 10 years ago (last landing 21st)

I'm not old. If Soyuz is still the most advanced way for people to get into orbit, surely it can't be long since I was a kid and heard about the launch of the first one.

Probably because under the same name, it has known a number of versions. The first version was designed in the 50's.
The Soyuz-2 that is currently being used is significantly more modern. (First launch of series -2 was in 2011.)

[Gregg]

I remember as a kid being totally fascinated by a store that had a set of miniature aerial cable trams that were used to send a customer’s money from the clerk on the main floor up to the cashiers located on the mezzanine.
To purchase something, a clerk would write up an invoice, place the invoice and the customers hard currency (either bills or coins; none of that plastic rubbish) on the tram which had a clip for the paper and a basket for the coins; pull a cord which would lift the tram up to the constantly running cable somehow engage the cable and send it to the mezzanine.
The cashier on the mezzanine would write out a receipt and return it with the customer’s change to the clerk below who in the meantime would retrieve the purchased item and wrap it in brown paper tied with a string.
The store was what they used to call a dry goods store and was definitely not self-serve.  I’m not sure the reasoning behind such an elaborate system.  Maybe it was that they didn’t want the floor clerks to handle more money than a single transaction or maybe it was because cash registers were very expensive. 
I have tried to find a picture of this system on the internet but so far my google-fu has failed me.  This possibly was a predecessor to the pneumatic tube system of money handling that some other stores used at the time.

[Sal Ammoniac]

The local Monkey Wards (Montgomery Wards) store had a similar system that used pneumatic tubes to send orders and payments to different parts of the store.

[TimFox]

So did an old-line department store downtown when I was a kid:  no cash registers on the sales floor, just pneumatic tube stations.  The sound was fascinating to a child.
Paris had a famous municipal system, which you can find about on Google, that was a stylish route to send love letters between residential addresses.
There was also a system in the New York City subway tunnels (don't know if it is still in use) to send stuff between banks.  When they started sending magnetic media, it was the fastest route (in MBytes/sec) in practical use.
When I was just chatting with co-workers about hobbies, and mentioned that I was doing stuff with vacuum tubes, a lady in accounting said that they used to have them where she worked before, but she really meant pneumatic tubes.

[rfclown]

Conelrad had nothing on this setup.
I remember listening to WGU20 from Maryland on Longwave at 179 kHz, quite strong in Massachusetts during the day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WGU-20

As we were all expected to survive a nuclear blast and come out of our shelters, then listen to the government to tell us how long it would be before it was safe (and the final score).

In elementary school we had fire drills (you go outside), tornado drills (you go out in the hallway away from windows), and disaster drills (you get under your desk and curl up with you head tucked between your knees). I don't know who decided that getting under the desk would help with a nuclear blast. Maybe the curling up was telling you to kiss your butt goodbye.

[rfclown]

You know what a milk chute is. I was the youngest in the family, so if we got locked out of the house they would push me through the milk chute to get in and unlock the door.

You remember when a business could run when the power went out. When in high school working in a burger joint, if the power went out we could still do business because we had gas grills and we could put hand cranks in the cash registers.

[GlennSprigg]

You realise that the space shuttle last launched 10 years ago (last landing 21st)

I'm not old. If Soyuz is still the most advanced way for people to get into orbit, surely it can't be long since I was a kid and heard about the launch of the first one.

Probably because under the same name, it has known a number of versions. The first version was designed in the 50's.
The Soyuz-2 that is currently being used is significantly more modern. (First launch of series -2 was in 2011.)

Or that the latest high-tech Commodore-64 computer you once had was more powerful than the onboard
computers on those first lunar missions!!!   

[Mortymore]

...when instead of being excited with a new gadget, you have no patience no learn about another "in fashion" tech stuff, that you already now it will be forgotten before the warranty expires.

[David Hess]

In elementary school we had fire drills (you go outside), tornado drills (you go out in the hallway away from windows), and disaster drills (you get under your desk and curl up with you head tucked between your knees). I don't know who decided that getting under the desk would help with a nuclear blast. Maybe the curling up was telling you to kiss your butt goodbye.

I had completely forgotten about the duck and cover drills, but those were early grade school for me.

I guess then I can add having the mark from a smallpox vacillation on my shoulder.

[TimFox]

You were supposed to duck down under the desk and cover the back of your neck.  I believe that was to protect you from flying broken glass.  The alternative statement was “duck, cover, and kiss your ass goodbye”.

[TerraHertz]

As a small child you used one of these a lot.


(Mechano spanner)

[AaronLee]

… your first computer predated the Internet. And BBS’s…

And you programmed it with toggle switches and lights, ie. Altair or IMSAI, which you built yourself from kit form.

[harerod]

In my teens I used to have a punctured tire-tube about once a week. Heck, I remember one day I changed the tube, rode the bike across town, wham, next puncture. That isn't the tool which I used then, but this simpler version somehow ended up next to my mill router.

It is crazy how many different types of screws those old sportsbikes had. The older tool even had two different "minus"-screwdriver heads.

[themadhippy]

As a small child you used one of these a lot.

Along with a proper screwdriver,not an allen key the modern incarnation used.

[AaronLee]

You have fond memories of the 65-in-1 Electronics Kit.

[Brumby]

You have fond memories of the 65-in-1 Electronics Kit.

"65-in-1" ... bah!  Luuuuuxury, I tell you!  Try a 20-in-1, then you'll know what it's like to appreciate the finer things!



Channeling the 4 Yorkshiremen

[AaronLee]

"65-in-1" ... bah!  Luuuuuxury, I tell you!  Try a 20-in-1, then you'll know what it's like to appreciate the finer things!

No, not luxury, just middle-of-the-road. I recall there was a 150-in-1 or something like that which the rich kids had.

Other things to date me:

Hardly a week went by where I didn't visit my neighborhood Radio Shack store. I had a love-hate relationship with them. I always felt they had overpriced and low quality stuff, but they were the only local place to buy electronics components. I often wondered why they stopped. Was it that the number of hobbyists that need electronics components diminished so much? Anyways, even if I didn't need to buy anything from them, I had to go for the free Battery of the Month. I sort of cheated though, and had four or more cards, so had to go there more often than once a month to get the free battery for each card. As for non-components, the Realistic brand of radios, cassette tape recorders, etc. were very familiar to me.

Most kids loved the Sears & Roebuck Wishbook, flipping through the pages and dreaming of what they wanted, especially in the months leading up to Christmas. For me, it was ok, but nothing could compare to the Heathkit catalog.

[rogerggbr]

Your boxes of nuts and bolts are labelled BA, BSW, UNC, UNF, BSP and you have spanners to fit them all.

[25 CPS]

You know you're old when you remember when the Toronto Star used to be a respectable newspaper.

[Ed.Kloonk]

You know you're old when you remember when the Toronto Star used to be a respectable newspaper.

I don't know the publication, but I understand the sentiment.

After a day or so I wonder "Was it ever really respectable though?"

[Circlotron]

You know you’re old if you got excited about a magazine article telling you “build your own radio and save!”

[Brumby]

... when you got excited reading about building your own computer - vis-à-vis - the EDUC-8


... when you actually purchased the 2650 mini computer kit   ... (and then sold it at a profit a couple of months later having done nothing more than check that all the parts were there.)

[bsfeechannel]

... you had a beige computer.

[kanuk]

You know you are old when you speed because you don’t want to forget where you’re going.

[harerod]

... when you actually purchased the 2650 mini computer kit   ... (and then sold it at a profit a couple of months later having done nothing more than check that all the parts were there.)

Ah, Signetics 2650.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signetics_2650

How many Signetics 25120 WOMs did that kit come with?
https://github.com/spacerace/write-only-memory/blob/master/datasheet-signetics-wom-25120.pdf

[TimFox]

My entry to the Signetics 25120 WOM contest (mid-1970s) drove the logic inputs through a grounded-grid 12AT7/ECC81, with TTL drive to the triode's cathode, to make sure the WOM did not ignore the signal.  By the nature of the device, I could not verify the result (but they did send me one).

[SeanB]

Chemistry kits were available at many shops, and contained things that could, and would, make explosive results.

Those stains never could be removed from the wall, even after sanding down and repainting, they were visible again after the first humid day.

Shops sold fireworks to children under 10, no questions asked, and the fireworks included the larger types that would go bang, and also rockets that did a similar thing.

[TimFox]

You know you're old when you debate vaccine hesitancy, and the others in the debate did not know any polio victims.

[ozcar]

... when the first computer you used expected input in the form of punched cards. 

And you used to write your shopping lists and "back of fag packet" designs on the back of used/spare one. Also, made great bookmarks.

[glentek]

You know you are old when, as a young teenager you made a rifle powered by a thruppenny bunger. It was only ever fired once, my right ear was ringing for hours afterwards.
And not to mention the petrol powered flame thrower...
And the home made very unstable explosive that badly burnt my brother's hand...

[Cerebus]

... when the first computer you used expected input in the form of punched cards. 

And you used to write your shopping lists and "back of fag packet" designs on the back of used/spare one. Also, made great bookmarks.

(Attachment Link)

Lucky bastard! I still can't find anything that makes quite such a satisfactory, and multi-purpose, bookmark. It's the particular combination of stiffness, thinness, and smoothness that just hits the sweet spot.

Sequitor: You know you're old when bookmarking something means you need something physical to do it with.

[TimFox]

Bookmarks:  Hollerith cards had the right weight, but needed to be torn in half to fit smaller books.  By the way, from before my time, Mr Hollerith chose that size since his census office was convenient to the Bureau of Engraving, who had lots of frames to hold American paper currency, which was physically larger then.  After punching one full census himself with a railroad conductor’s punch, he invented carpal tunnel syndrome.

[DH7DN]

...when you are wearing white tennis socks in the public 

This is so 80's/90's 

[AaronLee]

...when you are wearing white tennis socks in the public 

This is so 80's/90's 

I never noticed. I guess someone forgot to send me the memo. However, I'm too old to care about how in fashion or out of fashion I am. If I need new clothing, I just pick the first thing on the shelf that looks reasonable and is reasonably priced. Spending more than five minutes choosing a clothing item is way too long.

[Boris_yo]

... you become environmentally-conscious McGyver

[harerod]

Mmmh, can't seem to find any punch cards at the moment. However, here is some unpunched "ticker tape". My mother worked as a programmer in the 1970s, therefore as a kid I had more punch cards, tape and drawing paper than I would could ever use.
That roll has been with me since then and somehow keeps ending up in the lab. The background is barely thirty years old, though, printed by some 9-nozzle inkjet (before it was terminally clogged).

[Gregg]

I remember the school as well as the city libraries used a system of cards to keep track of all the books.  Real paper books, no digital rubbish existed.  It was the Dewey decimal system.  There were stacks of narrow wooden drawers with a card for each book.  Also each book had a separate card in a little sleeve fastened to the back cover that was removed when a book was checked out and the name or library card number of the person checking it out was hand written on that card which was filed by date for when the book was due to be returned. 
It was quite efficient and the system seldom had any down time unless somebody really screwed up.  Keeping such a system backed up would have been a monumental task.

You know you are getting old when you read through this thread and remember long forgotten things that no longer have significance but were very relevant at the time.

[AaronLee]

You know you are getting old when you read through this thread and remember long forgotten things that no longer have significance but were very relevant at the time.

Yes, and your library example is a prime example of that. I can't even remember the last time I was in a library, but for sure it was several decades ago. Haven't thought of the Dewey decimal system nor those wooden drawers since that time, until reading your post. Throw a kid or young adult into one of those old libraries and have them try to find a book, and they'd be totally lost. And probably some of us older people would need to dig deep to energize long abandoned brain cells to find what we're looking for.

[ozcar]

You know you are getting old when you read through this thread and remember long forgotten things that no longer have significance but were very relevant at the time.

When I was a university student, I remember reading somewhere (obviously, not “online”), of a prank that I thought was great:

Two young blokes get on a bus (or maybe it was a train), each carrying a well-filled briefcase (just as I used to do every weekday). After a while there is a noise – the very distinctive sound of a phone ringing. The two blokes look at each other, but ignore it for a short while, but then one open his case and takes out a telephone handset and says “hello”. After a short delay, he hands it to his companion, and says “It’s for you”.

You know you are old when you struggle to explain that to somebody.

[TimFox]

That joke was exploited beautifully on stage in Stoppard’s play “The Real Inspector Hound”.

[tpowell1830]

You know you're old when you remember when the Berlin wall went up, and when it was taken down.

[TimFox]

and all those years in between when you thought it was permanent…

[NiHaoMike]

Some comments on a very recent TastyPC video reminded me that at one point, WAP didn't mean a Wifi hotspot. Rather, it was a "lite web" for mobile phones that tried to work better with the technology limitations of the time.

[BradC]

but then one open his case and takes out a telephone handset and says “hello”. After a short delay, he hands it to his companion, and says “It’s for you”.

When I first got my license we built a battery powered supply to ring a standard "bell ringer" phone (STC "princess" from memory) and we used to do that at traffic lights. Phone would ring, wait for odd look from the next car over then "answer" the phone and wind the window down, then hold the handset out with an "it's for you".

I'd forgotten about that.

[themadhippy]

you know were  Yugoslavi,bombay,peking,saigon,ceylon and burma are.

[Brumby]

... and Czechoslovakia                   

[Brumby]

When you used:
 - an IBM 082 card sorter - regularly
 - IBM 3348 Data Modules - which weighed a few kgs each (and reminded me of the starship Enterprise).  We had the higher capacity ones that were 70MB each!
 - the only screen which was the main operator console
 - punched cards for everything
at your first full time job

[vk6zgo]

but then one open his case and takes out a telephone handset and says “hello”. After a short delay, he hands it to his companion, and says “It’s for you”.

When I first got my license we built a battery powered supply to ring a standard "bell ringer" phone (STC "princess" from memory) and we used to do that at traffic lights. Phone would ring, wait for odd look from the next car over then "answer" the phone and wind the window down, then hold the handset out with an "it's for you".

I'd forgotten about that.

One of my mates went one better---he mounted the phone under the bonnet ("hood) of his old Valiant.

He liked to do this with an accomplice.
He would stop at a set of lights with a busy flow of pedestrians, his mate would be crossing when the phone rang, & would pop the bonnet open, pull out the phone, "listen" for a couple of seconds, then hold it out, saying "It's for you!"

[coppice]

you know were  Yugoslavi,bombay,peking,saigon,ceylon and burma are.

If you go to Saigon many of the signs still refer to it as Saigon, although its often using the Chinese characters 西貢.

[themadhippy]

From what i recall  Ho Chi Minh is the entire city whilst Saigon is only the central part.Bit like New York and Manhattan i suppose

[CatalinaWOW]

When you used:
 - an IBM 082 card sorter - regularly
 - IBM 3348 Data Modules - which weighed a few kgs each (and reminded me of the starship Enterprise).  We had the higher capacity ones that were 70MB each!
 - the only screen which was the main operator console
 - punched cards for everything
at your first full time job

There is something fascinating and satisfying about watching an 082 card sorter in action.  They saved my bacon on more than one instance when I dropped a large deck.  I had one program that ran almost two boxes of cards.  Wouldn't mind seeing one in action again, but not willing to put the time and effort in to find and fix along with a card punch and enough cards to make the sort interesting.

[TimFox]

In my long-past youth, real programmers put sequence numbers in the right-most columns of Hollerith cards to allow such resorting.  You always started by sorting on the least-significant digit, re-stack, sort on the next digit, etc. until you reached the most-significant digit.  This type of equipment predated programmed computers.

[Brumby]

In my long-past youth, real programmers put sequence numbers in the right-most columns of Hollerith cards to allow such resorting.  You always started by sorting on the least-significant digit, re-stack, sort on the next digit, etc. until you reached the most-significant digit.  This type of equipment predated programmed computers.

... and if you were doing an alpha sort, you would do two passes - zones and numeric, with special consideration to the '0' pile.   (Crikey - the things you remember.)

Edit:
A couple of years ago, I was helping a friend sort out some of their product storage and there were these booklets that were worth anywhere from $15 - $25 each and they had to be sorted in order on a 3 digit number.  Handling these was a risky business as their condition was most important in commanding the best price so I stepped in to show them how to do it.

They were rather concerned when I started, but by only handling each booklet exactly 3 times by simple placement (no shuffling, sliding, inserting, etc.) it was all sorted ... using the exact same technique as you would on an 082.

They were really happy.

[TerraHertz]

When watching Professor Julius Sumner Miller on B&W TV was one of your childhood pleasures.

[Brumby]

When watching Professor Julius Sumner Miller on B&W TV was one of your childhood pleasures.

Oh, yes!   

In fact, my parents thought I wasn't applying myself at school, so they wrote to the good professor for some words of wisdom - AND HE WROTE BACK!  A quick note in felt tipped pen on the back of a flyer and signed by the good professor.  It's buried somewhere in the archives of my life - safely, I hope.

[AaronLee]

When watching Professor Julius Sumner Miller on B&W TV was one of your childhood pleasures.

And you got up to manually change the TV channel. Those new fangled ultrasonic remote controls were a very expensive option.

[BradC]

One of my mates went one better---he mounted the phone under the bonnet ("hood) of his old Valiant.

He liked to do this with an accomplice.
He would stop at a set of lights with a busy flow of pedestrians, his mate would be crossing when the phone rang, & would pop the bonnet open, pull out the phone, "listen" for a couple of seconds, then hold it out, saying "It's for you!"

I can just picture that at lunchtime at the William St/Hay St lights on a weekday. That'd be excellent.

[TimFox]

My equivalent, growing up in the US, was "Watch Mr Wizard" with Don Herbert.  Lots of hands-on tabletop experiments with participation from one boy or girl guest.
There was a much later TV show "Dinosaurs" in US, with a "Mr Lizard" character.  The catch-phrase was "Time to get another Timmy" after yet another fatal lab accident.  "Gee, Mr Lizard, I've never looked down the muzzle of a cannon before!"
In my childhood, before deregulation and the explosion in the number of media channels, commercial broadcasters in the US had a legal requirement to run educational and cultural programming.  The other big influence on me back then were the "Young Peoples' Concerts" with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic.

[vk6zgo]

When watching Professor Julius Sumner Miller on B&W TV was one of your childhood pleasures.

Oh, yes!   

In fact, my parents thought I wasn't applying myself at school, so they wrote to the good professor for some words of wisdom - AND HE WROTE BACK!  A quick note in felt tipped pen on the back of a flyer and signed by the good professor.  It's buried somewhere in the archives of my life - safely, I hope.

"Is that not strange & wonderful?"

[David Hess]

When watching Professor Julius Sumner Miller on B&W TV was one of your childhood pleasures.

And you got up to manually change the TV channel. Those new fangled ultrasonic remote controls were a very expensive option.

And it was on the external UHF converter.

[TimFox]

And all UHF tuners were detent-free (continuous rotation), just like an AM dial.

[rdl]

I remember watching myself on TV.  There was a morning children's show produced by one of the three channels we had at that time. It was recorded live and then broadcast from tape with a delay. The audience always was made up of local kids. When it was done you could hurry home and see yourself in glorious black and white.

[mansaxel]

I remember watching myself on TV.  There was a morning children's show produced by one of the three channels we had at that time. It was recorded live and then broadcast from tape with a delay. The audience always was made up of local kids. When it was done you could hurry home and see yourself in glorious black and white.

This goes on to this day. I work at a TV station. We have a summer morning show with audience that used to be live but we've found out that it is more popular and has a better audience if we record it a day in advance, so the audience can see themselves tomorrow.

[GlennSprigg]

(Recently)... When you find old bits of 'Code' you wrote years ago, or try to understand it!!!   

I keep my old Laptop Hard-Drives, like some people have BOOKS!   I 'must' go back, and find my old "Snippets"
software, where I used to keep/save all my old 'bits' of interesting & reusable Code, for the categorized use
of 'C', 'C++', 'Basic', 'JavaScript', 'Delphi' etc etc.  Was a great way to have reusable bits/modules on hand!!   

P.S.   Sometimes, I would DELIBERATELY write some confusing 'code', that perfectly did the job, but purposely resulted
in people way off track when trying to 'decipher' it, even if they go their hands on the Source-Code!   

[mansaxel]

(Recently)... When you find old bits of 'Code' you wrote years ago, or try to understand it!!!   

I keep my old Laptop Hard-Drives, like some people have BOOKS!   I 'must' go back, and find my old "Snippets"
software, where I used to keep/save all my old 'bits' of interesting & reusable Code, for the categorized use
of 'C', 'C++', 'Basic', 'JavaScript', 'Delphi' etc etc.  Was a great way to have reusable bits/modules on hand!!   

P.S.   Sometimes, I would DELIBERATELY write some confusing 'code', that perfectly did the job, but purposely resulted
in people way off track when trying to 'decipher' it, even if they go their hands on the Source-Code!   

You know you're old when yes, you have code snippets like above, but instead of putting them on GitHub (the new way) or having a laptop HDD in storage (the medium-old way), you have an actual networked file system that is reachable from your computers and has history since you started with computers, available, on-line, without having to dig out a perhaps-spinning drive. And, there is not a single thing in this that runs over HTTP! Mostly because HTTP was not invented when version 1 of the system you're using was released.

As for me, when I dig out old code, one of two things happen:

• I understand it and am embarrassed.
• I do not understand / remember it, and am embarrassed only after I've reverse-engineered it.

[RJSV]

TOO OLD WHEN:
Remembering (Too) Eager JOB RECRUITERs.
...when you KNOW what the 1980's lable
"HEAD HUNTER" really means... (it ain't a good thing).
No genius technician required: Just have temperature / pulse and maybe keep saying:
"...think there's A BIT, getting set, somewhere..." That's
I.U.T.J.  (Idiot Using Tech Jargon).
...to placate worry-prone middle managers...
...pretty sure...CODE is setting a bit...and I'll maybe find it...after lunch...

1980's had a mix of in-competent folks, along with US genius'es...ahem...

[Ground_Loop]

You involuntarily grunt when lifting yourself out of a chair.

[MT]

When you cant see the difference between 0805 and fly farts while manually assembling a PCB!

[Neper]

When you read that a video is available on DVD and VOD and you wonder what a VOD is...

[tpowell1830]

When you remember the phrase "shave and a haircut, 2 bits..." and you know how much 2 bits are.

EDIT: Nothing to do with computers...

[Larryc001]

I feel old when I remember seeing an Isetta front-opening car for sale in Hudson’s Bay department store. On the third floor.

[Gregg]

Never have I worked so hard for so little until after I retired.
I can’t believe the number of inarticulate younger people who think I’m stupid because I don’t use their bastardized language or play silly video games.  Maybe I am too old to matter to them.

[Ed.Kloonk]

I can’t believe the number of inarticulate younger people who think I’m stupid because I don’t use their bastardized language or play silly video games.  Maybe I am too old to matter to them.

Exercise your seniority by meteoritically patting them on their pretty little heads.

[floobydust]

Watching War Games [1983] completely unfazed by the IMSAI 8080 prop and 300 baud acoustic modem.
The closing credits thank Godbout Electronics... hey I bought 1Kx1 RAM from them in the late 1970's got the PC board right here... Bill Godbout was a Silicon Valley minor legend, S-100 pioneer.

[Quarlo Klobrigney]

When this became this:

[GlennSprigg]

Being an Invalid Pensioner, and having lost most things/abilities that I had, and being 'told' by others how stupid I am now... 

[Neper]

When you know what C= stands for and you have connected an Amiga 3000T and an IBM PC via Arcnet.

[harerod]

... your professor taught you Neper instead of dB as a ratio of dampening on transmission lines. *SCNR*

[Neper]

I've been working with dB from the beginning but the Deutsche Bundespost guys who came to hook up our o/b van to their audio line still used meters calibrated in Neper.

That said, I'm old enough to remember the days when the vehicles of their telecom division were grey instead of magenta. 

[harerod]

Yes, when Deutsche Bundespost consisted of Gelbe Post, responsible for snail mail and Graue Post responsible for telephone. The former has become Deutsche Post, the latter Deutsche Telekom. Rumors that hint of them re-joining as Deutsche Kompost AG are just that...

On topic: I remember the days before ISDN, when one was tempted to use an illegal 9600bps Hayes modem, instead of the officially approved 300..2400bps modems. When I complained about that fact to a fellow computer club member, he looked me sternly in the eye and said: "at least our phone network works". I never understood what he meant, until I suffered some culture shock from exposure to U.S. telecom infrastructure. 

[Sal Ammoniac]

Bill Godbout was a Silicon Valley minor legend, S-100 pioneer.

Who tragically lost his life in the Camp fire in California a few years ago. RIP Bill.

[n5al]

... when supermarkets and car commercials play "classics".

...and while pushing your cart through the supermarket, you are angered that the weekly specials announcements and repeated calls for a clean-up on aisle six, keep interrupting your favorite tunes. 

[eti]

"You know you're old when....."

... the thought would even enter your head to start a thread titled "You know you're old when....."

Hehe

[Cerebus]

... when supermarkets and car commercials play "classics".

...and while pushing your cart through the supermarket, you are angered that the weekly specials announcements and repeated calls for a clean-up on aisle six, keep interrupting your favorite tunes. 

You know you're really old when you are the cause of the "clean-up on aisle six", for embarrassing personal reasons.

[Ed.Kloonk]

... when supermarkets and car commercials play "classics".

...and while pushing your cart through the supermarket, you are angered that the weekly specials announcements and repeated calls for a clean-up on aisle six, keep interrupting your favorite tunes. 

You know you're really old when you are the cause of the "clean-up on aisle six", for embarrassing personal reasons.

The wife was reaching for a can of beans and I had to have her then and there.

[RJSV]

...old when:
   People STOP referring to you as 'that older guy...'

[OldEE]

Old when I remember wearing a pocket protector with multiple pens.

Used red and yellow pencils for marking up blueprints (actually they were white prints with blue lines).

Erased the brown lines on sepia prints with whatever was in the magic little bottle of clear liquid.

Noticed that the Osco drug store in South Bend, Indiana, had 1 pound jars of saltpeter, sulfur and powdered charcoal on the shelf for purchase.

Larry

[andy3055]

Ah! The smell of Ammonia!

[RJSV]

   When 'EYEBROW' trimming becomes 'regular' necessity.

and... When 'regular' gets to be a carefully uttered word...

[jonovid]

you remember when the phone booth was a thing

[TimFox]

I keep noticing phone booths in public place, but the telephone equipment has been removed.

[themadhippy]

you remember when the phone booth was a thing

And the town library was a large building full of books

[Quarlo Klobrigney]

Reflective Christmas trees lit with the 3 or 4 colour rotating wheel, decorated with lead tinsel..

[TerraHertz]

When these things seem like yesterday.  Found while tidying some papers in a room I don't use much.

For those not in Sydney, the Valhalla was a great old cinema that would run classic movies.
http://www.historyofsydney.com.au/the-valhalla-cinema-a-glebe-gem/

Not even all that long ago. Yet now it seems like memories from a different world.

[TimFox]

The late Russell Baker, American journalist and curmudgeon, complained that due to his unsavory professional contacts he could obtain illegal drugs, firearms, even the services of a hit man (should he so desire), but he was unable to purchase genuine lead tinsel.

[YurkshireLad]

You know you're old when..... you remember the first time you saw CEEFAX on your neighbour's TV.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceefax

[nali]

You know you're old when..... you remember the first time you saw CEEFAX on your neighbour's TV.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceefax

I remember the first time I saw CEEFAX - was at a Science Museum exhibit mid/late 1970s. I don't remember us or anyone for that matter having it in a domestic TV set until much later.

[YurkshireLad]

You know you're old when..... you remember the first time you saw CEEFAX on your neighbour's TV.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceefax

I remember the first time I saw CEEFAX - was at a Science Museum exhibit mid/late 1970s. I don't remember us or anyone for that matter having it in a domestic TV set until much later.

I think my neighbour might have had it in the late 70s.

[Alex Eisenhut]

You know you're old when..... you remember the first time you saw CEEFAX on your neighbour's TV.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceefax

In Canada

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telidon

[vk6zgo]

you remember when the phone booth was a thing

Extra points if you remember the red ones!

Interesting thing----- for some reason, WA ones had a different roof to the ones I saw in the ES (At least in Vic, not sure about NSW).
The WA ones had a roof like a miniature version of the old "Colonel Sander's" buildings, whereas the others looked like a "burger bun"--much more similar to UK ones.

Even older, if you remember "push button A, or push button B".
Older again, if you ever used a "maggy phone"!

[Ed.Kloonk]

Is Dr. Who now homeless?

[vk6zgo]

Is Dr. Who now homeless?

The Doc uses a "Police Box", not a phone box.

Those still existed in London in the 1970s, as I was interested in seeing one after watching the old "Dr Who" episodes.
Dunno if the London cops have dismantled them since, or if they are "heritage listed."

What does Clark Kent use now, to change into Superman if phone boxes are gone in Metropolis?

[Ed.Kloonk]

I don't know the kid's name.

[harerod]

... curmudgeon ...

Is "curmudgeon" still being used? Or is it a sign that the user is of an elderly persuasion?
 Just asking as a non-native speaker... 

[Cerebus]

... curmudgeon ...

Is "curmudgeon" still being used? Or is it a sign that the user is of an elderly persuasion?
 Just asking as a non-native speaker... 

Yes, it is. At least, it's still being used by people whose vocabulary can't be written on the back of a matchbox.

[TimFox]

The word isn't all that old, probably late 16th century origin.  In the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, the etymological entry under "curmudgeon" is probably the most interesting one in the work.

[tpowell1830]

I don't know the kid's name.

(Attachment Link)

Yes,I know I am old... so does Mikey.

[David Hess]

What does Clark Kent use now, to change into Superman if phone boxes are gone in Metropolis?

The first Superman movie covered that.

[TimFox]

What does Clark Kent use now, to change into Superman if phone boxes are gone in Metropolis?

The first Superman movie covered that.

In the US TV series, he usually used the janitor's closet at the Daily Planet.

[NiHaoMike]

And the town library was a large building full of books

Even in 2011, the year I graduated, there was certainly no shortage of books in the university library. I'd be surprised if they went fully digital in just 10 years.

[Gregg]

‘Tis the season---
To remember when you received your first electric train for Christmas and proceeded to put strips of old school lead based Christmas tree tinsel across the track to see the magic toxic smoke released. 

The best part is to still be alive to remember many such stupid stunts!

[nali]

Is Dr. Who now homeless?

The Doc uses a "Police Box", not a phone box.

Those still existed in London in the 1970s, as I was interested in seeing one after watching the old "Dr Who" episodes.
Dunno if the London cops have dismantled them since, or if they are "heritage listed."

The Tardis is alove & well and lives in Earl's Court London according to Street View

https://goo.gl/maps/NLdocgu6Jg2Y4URH9

(hint - you're supposed to be able to click on it to look inside. On my browser I have to pass it then click the wooden structure next to it)

[Ed.Kloonk]

I don't know the kid's name.

(Attachment Link)

Yes,I know I am old... so does Mikey.

Ah. Thanks.

[YurkshireLad]

Is Dr. Who now homeless?

The Doc uses a "Police Box", not a phone box.

Those still existed in London in the 1970s, as I was interested in seeing one after watching the old "Dr Who" episodes.
Dunno if the London cops have dismantled them since, or if they are "heritage listed."

The Tardis is alove & well and lives in Earl's Court London according to Street View

https://goo.gl/maps/NLdocgu6Jg2Y4URH9

(hint - you're supposed to be able to click on it to look inside. On my browser I have to pass it then click the wooden structure next to it)

The Doctor must have been hungry and stopped at Greggs.

[RJSV]

   Yes, Ed, and TPowell:
   That's MIKEY, musta been 1976'ish.

   "...let's let Mikey try it !". (new cereal or food), a couple kids say:, followed by an enthused Mikey diving in to consume dish.
   "Hey !!!  ....He likes it: Mikey likes it!"

   I don't remember much snarky fad after-effect, though. (No joke references, about SEX, drugs, etc.

[Ed.Kloonk]

   Yes, Ed, and TPowell:
   That's MIKEY, musta been 1976'ish.

   "...let's let Mikey try it !". (new cereal or food), a couple kids say:, followed by an enthused Mikey diving in to consume dish.
   "Hey !!!  ....He likes it: Mikey likes it!"

   I don't remember much snarky fad after-effect, though. (No joke references, about SEX, drugs, etc.

Yep. Found a wiki..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Mikey

[TerraHertz]

Even in 2011, the year I graduated, there was certainly no shortage of books in the university library. I'd be surprised if they went fully digital in just 10 years.

Go to your library, try to request any physical book from the stacks.
You will likely  be surprised.

[TerraHertz]

The late Russell Baker, American journalist and curmudgeon, complained that due to his unsavory professional contacts he could obtain illegal drugs, firearms, even the services of a hit man (should he so desire), but he was unable to purchase genuine lead tinsel.

Lead tinsel? I had no idea.
It must be coated with something, since lead does tarnish.

He should have waited till ebay turned up. You CAN buy lead tinsel:  https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/334129426936

[harerod]

Tinsel / "Lametta": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinsel
The Wiki on tinsel even has the anecdote that military decorations may be referred to as "Lametta" - tongue-in-cheek or even outright derogatory.

This leads us to "Stanniol"/tin foil, which might contain lead when used in Lametta, to make it drop more easily. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_foil
Interesting language-wise, since we can learn that a "tin foil"-hat would most likely consist of aluminium foil. In Germany I have only ever heard Alufolie, which meant that I had to accept and learn the English term "tin foil", while knowing that the term was wrong. Hard for a young engineer. 

As I kid I was always surprised how heavy Lametta felt. Regarding reusing Lametta: In Wirtschaftswunderdeutschland there was a saying: "He is such a tightwad. After Christmas he would iron the Lametta and use it again next year." (yes, in my family we re-used our Lametta)

[Alex Eisenhut]

Regarding reusing Lametta: In Wirtschaftswunderdeutschland there was a saying: "He is such a tightwad. After Christmas he would iron the Lametta and use it again next year." (yes, in my family we re-used our Lametta)

Which page of "Die Sparsame Hausfrau" is that?