The Busy Signal....forgotten things from recent past...

a reply to: the_philth

well i can go back even a little further and say they were two that use to be on the floor, the light dimmer and the guess what it was.

I remember those AOL CDs...they were everywhere

I had a couple of those AOL 3.5 floppy disks leveling the leg on a work table years back. Showed up in mail every week it seemed.

Not a new thing but an interesting observation from about 6 months ago. 30 years ago someone would have looked at you funny if you said you left your phone in the car.

originally posted by: hounddoghowlie
a reply to: the_philth

well i can go back even a little further and say they were two that use to be on the floor, the light dimmer and the guess what it was.

lol...

Yeah, I called out for the whippersnappers!

Remember the wonders of exploring Geocities & Angelfire sites via webrings? Not too many sites still do webrings. If you build a page on either after studying a simple HTML book (or web page for it) you were sure to impress your friends. It was HTML coding & you could DO it!

And at one time, the highlight of online gaming was a choice between AOL or Yahoo! Games. Thank god for today's options, eh?

a reply to: the_philth

When I worked for a record distributors, we used to dink and double label for junk boxes.

For the youngsters, that was pop out the middle of the singles and 2 labels for the jukebox.

Anyone remember IBM big iron with disk packs, card punches, mag tape, fan fold paper. Or even PDP mini computers and teletypes.

Now that I think about it, also about websites, remember when businesses first started making them alongside their brick & mortars? And everyone scoffed at the idea, "Who's going to be lazy enough to buy something without ever touching it??" Or the older folks: "A what??"

Yes kids, once upon a time, Amazon did not exist. Even when it first started up, people were wary. How times have changed.

a reply to: Nyiah

I remember when Amazon only sold books..
When you could sell anything on ebay.

Whatever happened to white dog poo??

Don't know if these two were mentioned or not, these seem recent, but forgotten.

Pog/slammers



And..

Poppers

a reply to: Vasa Croe

Sellotaping cassette tape together when it was chewed up



Listening to the Top 40 hits on the radio and keeping your finger on the record button to get the best tracks and avoid the DJ speaking. And being totally bummed out when the DJ snuck in before you were ready!

The music industry panicking which hasn't changed....lol



Loading games off cassettes that sounded like this on the Spectrum 48 and had the graphics of this!

originally posted by: DAVID64
Let's see..... I haven't seen a pay phone in a while.
Simple cameras are gone. Every one has a camera/video in their phone.
I've noticed most younger people don't wear a watch. Once again, cell phone.
Hand a younger person a map and tell them to go some where and you're going to have to send out a search party.

You were speaking of watches. Show a young person a non-digital clock and ask them what time it is.Especially one thet has Roman Numerals...and have a good laugh

An almost forgotten thing depending on the demographics, when asking someone "Do you need directions?" did not result in someone think you are a street robber or something.


Where I live we rely on tourists to bring the coin in, I recognise that "I'm lost" look in their eyes as they scan left and right.
It is only elderly folk I see with that these days, and I've noticed the change in the last 20+ years.
Streetplan/map/geo app 1 - 0 Human interaction with each other.

Traveling around the world actually not knowing really where I am at times without trusting local people and maps has been some of the most exhilarating experiences of my life. No need to ask people anything anymore it seems when you can just buy a prepay throwaway smart phone wherever you are now.

a reply to: DuckforcoveR

Merry go rounds! I remember the grade school I attended had a merry go round and one day some older boys, maybe high school age, grabbed the bars, ran like crazy and spun us around as fast as they could. And being kids, we begged for more..

Pay phones were bittersweet. The transmission went out on my car as I was driving to work past the river. I went to the payphone to call work, tell them I would be late and then called my boyfriend and bawled my eyes out about my busted car. At the time, the city allowed people to feed the ducks and geese living by the river. When I turned to leave the phone booth, there was a semicircle of birds standing outside waiting for me to feed them.

Tweens and teens don't quite get landlines. My stepdaughter's stepson was visiting us, and was intrigued by our repro old timey phone. He just couldn't grasp that with a landline, you can change your phone whenever the mood strikes and you always get to keep your phone number.

a reply to: the_philth

Yes, both of them. Good call. It's hard to angrily flash your brights at someone with the thin little sterring column.

a reply to: ScientificRailgun

I loved jukeboxes. There was a truck stop I'd eat at when I was a kid that had one at every table. They were just loud enough that they didn't bother people at the other tables.

originally posted by: Vasa Croe




Ha....nice word!

And yeah....huge docu fan here as well....I could spend days watching them.

You should see my Netflix Queue! Filled to the brim! I don't care if it's a 45 minute documentary on elephants for cripes sake, it's in there! LOL Documentary on military rape, got it. Documentary on supervolcanos? Got it! Documentary on autism? You betcha! Documentary on superbugs? Sure 'nuf! I think only 25 of my queue is movies and TV shows. LOL

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Somebody I knew got a laserdisc player and I laughed. He asked what was so funny and I told him that:
1. There were very few movies available for it (at the time).
and
2. Something newer and better would be coming out soon. DVD players came out not long after and his player was obsolete.

a reply to: the_philth

Yes to both lol. I had a car with one and used the other quite often.