Tech the kids don't understand

[M Paquette]

I had an odd experience. The local Comcast salesperson came by, and instead of simply ignoring him I thought I'd find out exactly what he was selling.

He's polite, says "Hello", and looks at the address listed on his clipboard. There's some other information there, too. "I see you've never had Comcast service at this address."

"Nope."

"So, do you get TV service from AT&T then?"

"Nope."

"Ah, then you must use DirectTV."

"Nope."

"You get TV here, right?"

"Yup."

"Well, how do you get it, then?"

I point up at the roof, where our ancient Yagi antenna is visible.

"Um," says Mr. Comcast. "Would you like to get high definition TV?"

"Got it."

"Um. Really? Because we supply our customers with high def TV through our cable system."

"Really. It just falls out of the sky. High definition and all."

"Uh... Could I interest you in our package of high definition TV, Internet access, and phone service?"

"Nope."

He thanked me for my time, and left. Probably mumbling under his breath.

Any other examples out there of tech the kids think can't possibly work? (I'm tempted to resurrect a vacuum tube radio just to freak out DD.)

 

[GregLee]

Over the air TV doesn't work very well at all for lots of people, including non-kids like me. It's been over 30 years since I've had, or even seen, over the air TV.

 

[Nords]

Any other examples out there of tech the kids think can't possibly work?

My daughter with a manual transmission. She could probably drive one of us to the emergency room if she had to, but it wouldn't be pretty.

She was 15 years old before I realized she had no idea how to read a street map. My bad. I didn't see how much hand-held GPSs and smartphones were ruling the next generation.

During a family visit she was freaked out by her grandparent's phone, which was set to pulse dialing. (Grandpa doesn't like to pay the bahstids the extra $1.40/month for touch-tone dialing.)

She's pretty sure my computer science degree is worthless, too, especially when I wax all enthusiastic about this TCP/IP stuff and try to explain the concept of "dialing in" to a "mainframe" and communicating using a "terminal". She thinks it's much easier to just use broadband to download from the cloud.

The good news is that since she's started college, I've become much smarter.

 

[bssc]

Don't worry, it is cultural too. The kids starting in my office don't know who John Wayne is or have seen the original Star Wars.

 

[Gumby]

Some of the many things kids don't know

The Mindset List: 2011 List

 

[Ronstar]

I had to explain DOS commands to my nephew, the computer programmer. He said "DOS - what's that?"

 

[pb4uski]

About 10 years ago my Dad asked DS to go into the garage and call someone. The garage had an old rotary phone. DS couldn't figure it out. Once Dad showed him how to dial a number on the rotary phone, DS was fascinated with it.

 

[travelover]

I had a Comcast cable knocked down in my (large) back yard. A young guy from Comcast came out around noon to verify that it was indeed their cable. He needed to write a description of the cable's location and asked me which way was North. I pointed to the sky and said , "See that bright thing up there?" "That's South".

 

[rescueme]

I wonder what the next three (or more) generations will be responding to such a question, in 100 years, at our current age.

There will always be "the past" to contend with and folks of our age/generation to just shake our heads with the comments of those a generation (or two) younger than we are, today.

DOS (Disk Operating System)? Old hat.

Heck, I was in the field for a few years before I worked on a mainframe running TOS (yes, Tape Operating System).

Before that time I worked "programming" unit record accounting machines using control panels (patchboards). Anybody remember a jackplug, timing cycle instruction manuals, X/skip punches (on an 80-column Hollerith - AKA "IBM card"), or an IBM001 manual punch?

 

[donheff]

Some stuff gets passed on even though we never used it. I call a refrigerator the ice box. At least I understand the origin.

 

[Walt34]

The good news is that since she's started college, I've become much smarter.

I've heard that happens often. When I was 15 my Dad was the dumbest idiot east of the Mississippi. By the time I was 20 he sure learned a lot.

 

[MichaelB]

A view from Japan where my son lives. He grew up in Venezuela where electrical and water outages are common. Since the loss of the reactor there have been power problems (which also disrupt water distribution) and he chuckles when he describes the reactions there. People are so used to high service levels that they don't know what to do. No water for hygiene, no power to prepare food, traffic comes to a halt.

He has a bicycle, bought some sterno and a little grill, and keeps the little washing machine full of water. He says with all the problems it is still an order of magnitude better that what he grew up with, yet people act like it was the end of the world.

 

[GregLee]

Anybody remember a jackplug, timing cycle instruction manuals, X/skip punches (on an 80-column Hollerith - AKA "IBM card"), or an IBM001 manual punch?

No, but the first computer program I wrote, in 1960, had to be punched onto a paper tape for entry into the computer (a Bendix, with a magnetic drum in the bottom). I did have to punch a few programs onto IBM cards for a programming course I took sometime in the 70s, but that was just to give students a sense of tradition.

 

[Rustward]

"The Mindset List was created at Beloit College in 1998 to reflect the world view of entering first year students. It started with the members of the class of 2002, born in 1980.

What started as a witty way of saying to faculty colleagues "watch your references," has turned into a globally reported and utilized guide to the intelligent if unprepared adolescent consciousness. . . ."



The Mindset List

 

[ERD50]

Some stuff gets passed on even though we never used it. I call a refrigerator the ice box. At least I understand the origin.

The Italian families I knew had a joke about this:

Kid: "Gramma, how do you say 'refrigerator' in Italian?"
Gramma: " Da Ice-a-box!"


Here's one I printed out for the kids:

-ERD50

 

[Sarah in SC]

When I was a kid, my dad's office had a Telex machine in the corner that I thought was the most amazing thing ever.

 

[RHLnFLA]

Car headlight dimmer switch.....ON THE FLOOR!?!

 

[calmloki]

When I was a kid the wood stove in the office had little closed openings though which you could see the light of the fire. The coverings didn't melt! They were somewhat delicate but replaceable sheets of mica. I remember it as much thicker and more opaque than these sheets, but I'll be darned - it's still used for the old purpose:
We supply stove mica sheets or " isinglass " panels world-wide from the U.S and the U.K.

 

[ERD50]

Having to run a metal ice cube tray under water, and then pulling on a handle to try to wrangle the ice cubes out of it. Bending the handle because they were stuck.

-ERD50

 

[rescueme]

Car headlight dimmer switch.....ON THE FLOOR!?!

Parents had a '55 Buick Roadmaster with another floor button to change the radio station ...

They also had a '50's something Caddy that had the "electric eye" to automatically go from high to low beam when an oncoming car would be on the road.

 

[unclemick]

Buddy Holly sounded the best scratches and all in the corner soda shop booths where you put the dime in.

Fountain had three flavors Green River, Orange, and Cherry Coke. For more money they would make a thing called a Malt.

heh heh heh -

 

[Nuiloa]

One of our dancers was asked to go into the studio and "turn the record over". She had no clue what we were talking about.

After we showed her, she was absolutely fascinated that you could "play the big CD on BOTH sides!"

 

[scrabbler1]

Two things on cars from my younger days:

(1) We had a 1979 Corolla which had a manual choke knob you had pull out to help start a cold engine. The original knob fell off but my dad put on another one so the driver could grab it and pull it out.

(2) Remember the separate shoulder belts on old cars? One on a 1972 Olds Delta 88 (the first car I drove) was folded up in a slot above the window and could be attached optionally to a hole in the metal clasp of the lap belt. There was, of course, no automatic tightening feature on the shoulder belt, just a manual adjustment to fit to the driver or passenger.

And I never saw a car back then which had an inside release for the trunk or gas tank. The "new" thing back then in the 1970s was a lock on the gas tank cap because crooks liked to siphon gas from parked cars during the gas crisis days.

 

[M Paquette]

Wow. Old metal ice trays... Odd car controls...

I think the clutch is going to become one with the manual choke for the next generation of kids. I do remember my daughter asking why I had that extra pedal in my car.

Now I've gotta find some place that can serve me a malt... Youse guys are trouble!

 

[FUEGO]

Those round pieces of plastic that you put in a machine and they make music. My daughter finds them fascinating. They called them CD's when I was growing up. Some CDs were called "DVDs" and you could put them in a different kind of machine and they would make movies on TV. Not sure if they still sell either of them any more. If I recall correctly, you could put CDs and DVDs into computers and get data from them. I think you had to have a "floppy disk drive" to read these CDs and DVDs in a computer though - my knowledge of antique technology is a little hazy there.