Obsolete technology skills
I was just websurfing, and I found an article so interesting I had to share with you. It features a list of obsolete tech skills, and I found it quite amusing. The full list is on ObsoleteSkills.com. It reminded me of my childhood in fact. Most I agree with, a few I don’t. See how many you relate to.
- Changing the ribbon on a typewriter
- Rewinding audio or video cassettes
- Adjusting the rabbit ears on your TV set
- Checking your beeper
- Formatting a floppy disk
- Having to put www in front of every URL
- Loading film into a camera
- Using a darkroom
- Licking stamps
- Paying with a check
- Using a pay phone
- Looking up a business in the Yellow Pages
- Switching from TV to Game Mode on the box behind the TV
- Blowing into a dusty Nintendo cartridge to make it work
- Using the Dewey Decimal System to find a book
- Winding your watch
- Long division (other than for school)
- Calling the radio station to find out what song that was
- Ripping the trim with the holes off the sides of computer paper
- Calling someone collect
- Replacing tape in your answering machine
- Threading a filmstrip
- Popping popcorn with hot oil
- Heating a “TV Dinner” in the oven
- Getting up to manually change the channel
- Repairing a television set
- Sharpening a razor blade
- Adding water to car batteries
- Riding a single-speed bike
- Setting the time on a VCR
- Downloading music from the original Napster
- Putting tape over the punched-out holes on a VCR tape so you can use it again
- Using correction fluid
- Putting a nickel on the tone arm of a record player to keep it from skipping
- Placing the needle at the beginning of a song on a vinyl record without making a scratching noise
- Popping in a flash cube
- Using a choke
- Cleaning a vinyl record
- Defrosting the refrigerator
- Refilling a fountain pen
- Using carbon paper to make copies
- Changing tracks on an 8-track tape
- Taping songs off the radio onto a cassette tape
- Sniffing freshly mimeographed tests
- Sending a handwritten letter
- Writing in cursive
- Mowing the yard with a non-powered push mower (May be coming back, though …)
- Milk deliveries
- Manually entering prices into an old-fashioned cash register
- Cleaning the head of your VCR
- Crawling under the door of a pay toilet
You are right. I use to do most of those things; some I still do (like handwriting letters).
I remembered the first time I showed my daughter to pop corn without a microwave; she was sooo amazed. I recently showed her a manual camera and how to wind the film (for a school trip), that was an insight for her as well since she is good at using my digital cameras.
Ah, the new generation - losing so many nifty skills.
Jumbie’s last blog post..That’s insulting, isn’t it?
i still have two normal cameras but dont know the last time i’ve used them. I still set the time on the vcr though. and i’ve even got some 5′ 1/4 floppies lying around.
actually was thinking my first computer back in 92 has 8MB of ram and a 60MB hard-drive which I upgraded a year later by installing a new 120MB hard-drive. Back then I was the man cause everyone else’s computer had 40Mb and a gig was something musicans played
Now I can get a tiny flash drive that holds 8G gigs
jdid’s last blog post..Duhh
When my computer crashed the other day and I lost all my pics of my children, I wished I was still using my old camera with that good old 35mm film. We are so modern now that when there is a power cut we feel like fish out of water.
CoolDestiny’s last blog post..Another Big Step
Yep i definitely remember:
Rewinding audio or video cassettes
Formatting a floppy disk, and also loosing my data after saving it on the formatted disk!
Loading film into a camera
Taping songs off the radio onto a cassette tape
Those were the days.
Stunner’s last blog post..Weekend Eye Candy - Soca Princes
Interesting list of outmoded skills!The dynamic changes involving technical skills and technology is so rapid that the very moment you purchase or acquire the new piece of technology in whatever form it is obsolete.As a matter of fact, most new technologies have what can be classsified or referred to as built in obsolescence.Generational changes with respect to the product life of a new piece of technology are now much shorter and compressed vis-a-vis twenty or thirty years ago.Consequently,promoting a high incidence of obsolescence in design,style, and construction.
I dunno there are quite a few things on that list that I still do and can’t see them going away anytime soon either especially the mowing the lawn because I do that every fricken weekend and not just my lawn but my neighbors lawn too because she has MS and can’t do it.
wow. some of these skills seem so ancient but they really aren’t because I recall many of them. Times move very fast.
So true,Who knew piccture taking would be so easy