Missing Links Remembered

imoldernu said:
another missing link...
... before electronic calculators...
Click to expand...

Looks a bit like the Friden model we had in college. I remember setting one to extract an enormous square root (for statistics class) when leaving late in the afternoon, and coming back in the morning to get the answer. Not sure how long it actually spent calculating, but certainly a matter of hours.
 
Ready said:
We had rotary dial phones in the house, and I wanted to buy a touch tone, but the phone company charged a higher monthly service fee to use a touch tone line, so my parents refused to pay for it. I bought a touch tone phone anyway, and I discovered that by playing with the phone wires, I could get the touch tone phone to work without paying the upgrade fee. ..
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We were just outside the metro zone and had to dial 5 to get a local dial tone for the city. We had pulse phones that you could switch to tones to retrieve voicemail. When they upgraded the exchange to eliminate the dialing 5, we tried switching to tones and they all worked for no extra charge!
 
I remember almost every grocery store had vacuum tube testers for the TV vacuum tubes. I used to take them to the store and test them and buy the replacements for my mom.

AAA used to provide a customized trip maps for you for a fee. It was a booklet with road maps of your route in it. The maps were about 4 inches tall and 8-12 inches high and were formatted for your trip to progress from left to right. There were multiple pages so you could read it and you moved from one page to the next. The road you were supposed to be on was highlighted in orange.

Also the use of FM radio became popular as I was growing up. Huge advantage over AM radio. The AM radio would emit huge amounts of static when we were near power lines.
 
I can remember when we didn't have dial phones and had to go through an operator to make a call. We went by the ring of the phone to know if the call was for our house or someone else on the party line; ours was two long rings and one short. I think I was in Kindergarten (1952) when we got dial phones.
 
Auto engine ignitions with "points" and fuel delivered through a carburetor. And car reliability in general: It was a rare family vacation when our car didn't break down or at least have a flat tire. It's very unusual now.

Manual transmissions: Not very common in the US (just 3-7% of vehicles sold). It's exactly the opposite in Europe and much of the rest of the world. Most young people getting a license in the US have never driven a car with a manual transmission.
 
samclem said:
Auto engine ignitions with "points" and fuel delivered through a carburetor. And car reliability in general: It was a rare family vacation when our car didn't break down or at least have a flat tire. It's very unusual now.

Manual transmissions: Not very common in the US (just 3-7% of vehicles sold). It's exactly the opposite in Europe and much of the rest of the world. Most young people getting a license in the US have never driven a car with a manual transmission.
Click to expand...

Oil bath air cleaners [filters] on cars and trucks were still common on the road in the 50's. Pleated paper was high technology stuff. Power brakes and steering were new and wonderful, too. My first driving lesson was in a '52 chevy, no power steering, strait six and irrc, no oil filter. [?]
 
bld999 said:
......... no oil filter. [?]
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Oil filters were an option, as were side view mirrors, windshield washers, back up lights, even heaters in warmer climates. Ah, the good ole days.
 
Wow, this thread got me to thinking about all the stuff I saw and used growing up (I was born in the late 60's) that aren't used anymore.

Off the top of my head, I can think of:


  • Party lines
  • Rotary phones
  • TVs with dials for changing channels, and it only went from like 2 to 13
  • Early TV remotes that were huge, with big buttons on them
  • "Solid state" electronics
  • Microwaves with dials
  • VCRs
  • 8-track tapes
  • Police scanners that used crystals for the frequencies
  • Pay phones and calling cards (haven't used either of these in 15+ years)
  • Old credit card swipe machines merchants used to use, the ones that used the little paper slips that had to be filled out by hand
  • LaserDisc
  • Cassette tapes
  • Answering machines (especially the ones that used tapes)
  • Polaroid cameras and film
The one that makes me reminisce the most is "solid state". When TVs, etc, first became available with electronics rather than tubes, all the manufacturers made a big deal about "solid state". My Mom (God bless her, she passed away a few years ago) started referring to everything as "solid state" when we went to go buy something.

If she wanted a new TV, it had to be "solid state" (even when plasmas and LCDs came out). A new microwave had to be "solid state", etc. I remember going shopping with her and seeing the look on the salespersons face - they didn't know what she was talking about, and I had to explain what she wanted :)
 
Let's see how many of these many of you remember!
1. head light dimmer switches on the floor
2. candy cigarettes
3. coffee shops with tableside juke boxes.
4. home milk delivery in glass bottles.
5. party lines on the telephone.
6. newsreels before the movie.
7. Desoto cars
8. TV test patterns that came on at night and off in the morning.
9. Peashooters
10. Howdy Doody Time.
11. 45 RPM records.
12. HI FI's
13. blue flashbulbs.
14. cork popguns.
15. meal ice trays with lever.
16. Studebakers.
17. wash tub wringers.
If you remember more then 11-17, you're getting a little older.....if you remember all of them, you're a lot older! I got the list from my father in law.....and knew most of them.
 
Well, poor me, because I remember the entire seventeen [some just barely]. I do wish the dimmer switch on the floor would come back, why take your hand off the wheel?
 
Brett_Cameron said:
AAA used to provide a customized trip maps for you for a fee. It was a booklet with road maps of your route in it. The maps were about 4 inches tall and 8-12 inches high and were formatted for your trip to progress from left to right. There were multiple pages so you could read it and you moved from one page to the next. The road you were supposed to be on was highlighted in orange.
Click to expand...

It was called a TripTik. I don't remember it being an additional fee for members, my parents always had a membership. The TripTik was bound with a plastic hinge thing so that it laid flat when you turned the pages. I remember each page would fold outward to tell you interesting things about the area you were driving through, where the rest stops were and how far between exits.

Found a picture online -
http://yearofadventure.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/img_20031.jpg

Now everyone just uses a GPS.
 
Last edited:
AAA still produces Trip-Tiks. You can build it online to print at home or, with a couple days notice, they will print and mail it to your home. Even though I use GPS I still get Trip-Tiks, they have useful information on active roadwork and hotels along one's route.
 
LoneAspen said:
...
The one that makes me reminisce the most is "solid state". When TVs, etc, first became available with electronics rather than tubes, all the manufacturers made a big deal about "solid state". My Mom (God bless her, she passed away a few years ago) started referring to everything as "solid state" when we went to go buy something.

If she wanted a new TV, it had to be "solid state" (even when plasmas and LCDs came out). A new microwave had to be "solid state", etc. ...
Click to expand...

Funny memory - but technically, a modern microwave oven is still not (completely) "solid-state", the main heating device, the magnetron, is a vacuum tube!

bld999 said:
Well, poor me, because I remember the entire seventeen [some just barely]. I do wish the dimmer switch on the floor would come back, why take your hand off the wheel?
Click to expand...

I was thinking about this just the other day when I was driving someone else's car and had to fiddle to find the light switch. That button on the floor was pretty much the same on most models at the time.

Good list, good thread.


-ERD50
 
bld999 said:
Well, poor me, because I remember the entire seventeen [some just barely]. I do wish the dimmer switch on the floor would come back, why take your hand off the wheel?
Click to expand...

Me too, I am just so tired of my foot getting caught in the steering wheel when I need to dim the headlights.
 
Nodak said:
...We went by the ring of the phone to know if the call was for our house or someone else on the party line; ours was two long rings and one short. ...
Click to expand...
This also applied to dial phones. We had to wait until the telephone company had enough capacity to give us a private line.
 
imoldernu said:
Keeping up with technology today, is impossible, but what about the past?
Click to expand...

Ever use one of these? Loads of fun!

zeimer.jpg
 
What about 6 volt positive ground systems in equipment/vehicles?

The Milkman
The Breadman
The Charles Chip man

Did I miss it in this thread? Antibiotics were not mainstream till the 30s-40s.
MRG
 
Janet H said:
Ever use one of these? Loads of fun!
Click to expand...
A stereoscope? I never used one that was that nice, but had a lot of fun as a youth with the mass-produced 3M Viewmaster
viewmaster.jpg


I guess we were easily entertained. A wind-up balsa airplane would keep 3 of us occupied for hours.
 
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