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.
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.
Valiant.
Fluffy dice hanging from the revision mirror.
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!
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.
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".
Bakelite, the new shiny thing will replace EVERYTHING!
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.
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"...
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.
...your first childhood family car was a 10 year old Citroën Traction Avant.
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.
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.
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).
...you put a posting in the "pet peeve" thread and a few weeks or months later you put exactly the same thing in again.
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.
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)
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.
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 .......
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......
Looking for the Photomat booth in the grocery store parking lot to get your digital pictures developed.
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.".
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".