Hank's post in the Jokes and Games section about life before computers sparked a train of thought that I wanted to share. I remember life before computers well, in part because the vast majority of my life has been spent without one. My kids, on the other hand, haven't had that experience. They have no recollection of what it was like to operate without one, to not be able to google anything they wanted to know, to not have an instant map at their disposal (and on their phone no less!!) of anywhere in the world they wanted to go. They don't know what it's like to write actual pen and ink letters to folks they want to stay in touch with, to keep photos in a real photo album instead of in iPhoto or on an external hosting site. So many ways their life as young people is RADICALLY different than mine at the same age. And yes, every generation experiences different things than the generation before, but because technology is growing and changing at a faster and faster rate, I think that my generation and that of my kids' has experienced the most radical differences of all, because between those is the demarkation line of computers vs no computers, which has probably been the biggest change in society since electricity!!
Actually, I too am a bit like you in this... Because I also remember a time without computers. Although I was always aware of what computers were, and what their potential was - Thanks only to sci-fi movies and TV shows. But when I was an infant (in the mid 70s), people were still using black & white film for photography, and my father being an enthusiast also could develop his own film and photographs. However in the late 70s everyone switch to color film, and film labs start to spring up like mushrooms everywhere, including the 1 hour express service, (which at the time I thought was something amazing)! However soon this also changed with the popularizing of the color Polaroid film and camera. Does anyone over here remember what a Polaroid camera was? Which did not have a negative that needed to be developed in a lab! Anyway, the closest thing that I had to the internet in those days was the shortwave radio. And so with a small inflatable globe, my world so to speak, (which was actually my most favorite thing) - I could tune into many different radio stations of the world (and from the globe I could tell from which country the signal was coming from). I actually caught lots of news, in many different languages, plus music, as well as sounds from deep space that I found really fascinating! This I would do for many hours! Which is why I today know all the western music from the 60s and 70s (that I actually shouldn't have a clue about). Must of all, I also remember the radio transmission from the communist block in eastern Europe! However it was really fun when I would catch a station from South America - I didn't understand Spanish at first, but slowly this is how I got familiar with most foreign languages... But then came 1984, and my school became the first one in all of Pakistan that introduced computers to kids. So at the age of 7, I get exposed to real computers! By 1987, I got a home computer too. And in 1992, I got my first PC, a 386 DX 33MHz, with 4 MB RAM and an 88 MB hard disk drive! It may be considered junk today, but back then it had cost a lot - But well worth it at the time... So on that counter I learned how to program a little as well as compile my code into an executable file! I even made a virus also, (which did bite a few friends)! However this was the first time where I got to use Windows 3, which I soon upgraded to 3.1. That today is also considered a junk OS by many... Anyway, that's how I got to know computers. So as technology progressed further and further, and PCs also became more powerful - Is how I eventually got into 3D CAD! In 1996 however, I got connected to the internet, and in 2004 I got broadband! However the thing that I found most strange on the internet, was the attitude of other people - As many just didn't believe that I was an average Pakistani. Many thought that I was lying, as they just couldn't believe that someone from my country could be this familiar with technology (or that I had access to it). And even now I often get asked online about how am I able to write and speak English like a native? It seems that the shortwave radio made me into a global citizen in my early childhood - However majority of the people (specially from the countries were the signals originated from), never bothered to explore radio bands... Which is why I became totally familiar with their culture, while many still don't know a thing about mine.
I remember polaroid cameras!! I had one for a while, and loved not having to schlep film to the store to get it developed! I also recall when I turned 13, I got a radio for Christmas. But not just ANY radio, it was a portable, transistor radio! No wires or plug ins...ran on batteries, and I was the coolest kid on the block because I had one!! Also....and I'm really showing my age here!!.....when I was 5 or 6, we were the first family on our street to get a TV! This was in Australia, which always lagged a few years behind the US technologically. Yup! First folks on the block, and it was this tiny little screen in a huge wood console. The neighborhood kids all came over after school and we huddled around that ridiculously small screen watching whatever was on. At that time there was only one TV channel, so there was no choice of shows to be had. It didn't even matter! It was a miracle that stuff was happening on that tiny little screen and we didn't have to go to a movie theater and pay money to watch!!
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Yes I too know how it was like to have just one mind numbing state own and operated government mouthpiece! We too (up till 1990) only had 1 TV channel. However since I live right at the coast, I (encouraged by my father) put up an extremely powerful antenna. And so was able to catch TV transmission from neighboring countries. Which included Oman, (with 1 TV channel) UAE (with 4 to 5 TV channels), Saudi Arabia (with 1 TV channel), and India (with 2 TV channels)... So this ability also made me very popular in the neighborhood! However in 1992 we put up a satellite dish antenna, and so for the first time got 24 hour channels! And that too with crisp pictures that were not dependent on the weather conditions! It actually totally spoiled our Dog, as she got addicted to watching MTV all the time - And so that is how we too became a Godless society with a fragmented culture!!!
(I hope I didn't go too far from the subject with my rambling)... I still have one of those Polaroid cameras...the last I used it was about 15 years ago. My Grandson had some type of figure and it had to travel around a different town than what he lived in. At that time we were living in New London, Wi. and took out the camera and took pictures of this figure in a shopping basket at Walmart, by the New Dublin street sign around St. Patty's Day, etc. it was a fun project to do. I think we chuckled everywhere we took it... We always had a television because my parents had money back then....I remember having a clear sheet we could put up on the screen and use a certain type of pencil to draw on it...I think the show was called Winky Dink. Do you remember Howdy Doody? I had a couple of those colored transistor radios . We even had a juke box (now I am really dating myself) downstairs in our rec. room and I would have birthday parties and we could dance. When we cleaned out my parents home when Mom went into a nursing home I wish I would of kept some of the phones she had kept. Remember those Princess phones? Ours was even pink and were they heavy. ....everyone says progress is good and I do enjoy being on the computer when I should be cleaning or running errands but you know I think I would go back to those good old days where you could let your children out doors without having to worry as much about them. Playing outdoors in the fresh air and getting exercise...not hearing phones going off everywhere you go would be nice even though they are a life saver in emergencies. I hate talking with someone and having their phone go off or they get a text message and are reading it. Just think about how many children are eating fast foods and not knowing the luxury of a home cooked meal... What is going to happen to this world if we have a permanent power problem? IF WE HAD TO CHOOSE, HOW MANY OF YOU WOULD GO BACK IN TIME? and what era...
In some respects, I'd love to go back to the 60's in a small town. Such a simpler life than now. I'm glad I was able to raise my children then, before drugs were so rampant, before kids were judged on their clothing, when people knew their neighbors and was willing to help each other, and you could actually call a Doctor and get in to see him in a day or two! I'm glad we are able to live in such a small town now as this is about as close as we can get to back then.
I am a child of the 50's, born in '53. Yes, I'm old! I was a hippie too, for anyone who's interested! Just briefly, but still...... It was a much simpler time that's for sure, without the constant threats and dangers that are rampant today. I've told my daughter, told all my kids who have kids, that I think I'd lose my mind raising a child in today's society!! 2ofus mentioned doctors. Mine when I was a child....and I'll be! I still remember his name! Dr. Haimson! Wow. Anyway, Dr. Haimson was a very sweet man, he was a GP, AND he made house calls! No one does THAT anymore!! I remember him coming to visit me when I was little, and sick. I recall my Mum offering him a cup of tea, and I snuck out of bed a time or two and saw them sitting at the kitchen table with the teapot between them. We also didn't have an inside toilet way back then. The same house that got the first TV on the street also had a toilet that was outside, down the garden path! It was its own little building, a little brick structure. It wasn't an outhouse as in it had a functioning toilet. But it was a pull chain mechanism, with the water tank suspended high up so that gravity flushed the toilet. Anyone remember that kind of toilet? It's funny the things you remember.....these days if you want to make sure your kids use the toilet correctly, you'll ask them "Did you flush?" Back then, I'd coming inside from using the toilet, and my Mum would ask me "Did you pull the chain?"
Reading this thread again, I just realized that I (being born in the mid 70s) have totally missed out on many great historic events that all you fine people must have witnessed! Like launch of the first man made satellite by the USSR, Sputnik 1 - Beep beep beep been... Laika, the first Dog in space, also launched by the USSR. Then came Ham the chimp, launched by USA and also safely returned back to Earth alive! After which Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space - Next I think it was Jhon Glenn, then Alan Shepard too. After this focus shifted to the Moon shot, and in so doing astronaut Gus Grissom (along with 2 others) lost his life in an accident. Yuri Gagarin too later died in a helicopter crash. But the Moon landing still took place, with Neil Armstrong stepping foot on a ground that humans had never reached before! So all of this, I have totally missed out on. But I do very clearly remember the first space shuttle launch! And I also very fondly remember all the artistic images of the predicted bases on Mars, and how future space stations would look like. My father being an engineer always had the latest Discover magazine, along with Popular Mechanics, Popular Science - Basically, (before the internet) that is how every type of cutting edge news related to science and technology came to my home in the early 80s. Anyway, I grew up with a notion that all this that I am seeing - Is only temporary! As by the time I'd become an adult, humanity would be a well and truly space traveling and colonizing species. Even today, those images made by artists of how we would be living in space, on the moon, and on Mars - With rows of greenhouses in which every type of plant would be grown by hydroponics. And in the background they would show space ships landing and taking off - All of that, is still stuck with me I guess! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNblDy86phU It of course didn't turn out like that, but that is how I thought things would be like by 2014. Perhaps this is why I became so good at 3D computer designing, as I didn't want to be left out... But now however I use all my skills and knowledge (with considerable firepower) to protect and defend whatever is mine. But still, I'm not dwelling over how things didn't turn out the way I had imagined - My question is, how many of you guys thought the same? How did you see yourselves in the future? What did you all imagine, about how science and technology would be aiding us in everyday life? Just curious.
Ronni, I'm 4 years older than you and I did use the real (non-flushing) outhouse and how cold it was in the winter. S-H, We did read about and watch all of the events you mentioned though the one that stands out in my mind was when President Kennedy was killed. I remember my Mother and I crying.
Yes, that too is something I have only read up on, (as well as seen videos on YouTube). I guess in those times people really did believe that their leaders were good. And the elected leaders themselves too felt that they also had to live up to the expectations of the people. Nowadays people throw shoes at them, and they too shamelessly continue to chuckle at the camera - Not saying that it is right or wrong, just observing how the trend has changed... But I too remember many people crying when our President/General Zia-ul-Haq died in an air crash in 1988 (along with the US ambassador). It was a time of great fear for many, as everyone knew that it was all USSR's revenge, (as because of us they got defeated in Afghanistan). So this was a real decapitation strike, that took out not only the President, but all the other top Generals of the military also (who were traveling with him). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBxUW0hfcP4 President/General Zia-ul-Haq was not a politician, he was a serving military General, who in 1977 was forced to take control of the nation, as the evil and borderline insane Prime Minister (Mr. Bhutto) was abusing his authority beyond limits, which included ordering secret assassinations of his political opponents (a crime for which he later got hanged by the military) - So President/General Zia was seen by many as the savior of my country, (which probably is true). Therefore when he too died in an air accident, is when I too saw many people cry. There was also great fear that war with India (our traditional enemy) will now start at any moment - As all our top military brass too had perished in that same air crash... And although (again thanks to Zia-ul-Haq) we had acquired full nuclear weapon's technology by then - And to avoid international attention and sanctions we had also secretly tested 1 atomic bomb in China in 1984, (as China has always been a very friendly nation to us) - But it was still not clear to anyone how far we had actually gone to deploying our nukes. And no one also knew exactly how many did we have to defend ourselves with? So that was the time (in 1988) when I had witnessed what anxiety at a truly national level can be like... The likes of which I have never ever observed since. Not when we and India officially tested our own nuclear weapons on our own soils in 1998. Not when in 1999 another military takeover happened in my country (which actually was more of a real life comedy then a serious happening). Not when 9/11 took place, not even in 2004 we and India again came very close to a full scale nuclear war, and not at any other time in history afterwards.
I am 4 years older too but never had to use an outhouse thank _ _ _. When they have them out on the streets for big events in the towns or carnivals, NO THANK YOU...I won't drink a thing while I am there. I do think the younger generation has missed out ...how nice it was for neighbors to come and help out and care. You could trust people's handshakes. Just more crooked people in the world and more killings to get things that they don't work for. You didn't have to lock your doors or check out businesses on the Better Business Bureau so you would know they stand behind their work.
While it is true that many things will now never again be like they once used to be - However, there is a bright side to this also... For example, yes I too have not had a decent neighbor since 1979 (believe it or not). But if I count how many good people I still know today - Then it turns out that I now have come into contact with far more amazing people, then I ever had in the past. And it's computers and the internet that's made all this possible. Like this wonderful community of ours for example, GardenStew, at which I have not known anyone who was/is a bad person. Yes this thread was about life before computers, but because of all this information technology - I seriously doubt if I had ever come across any single one of you guys (had the world still been the old way)! I wouldn't have exchanged seeds. Wouldn't have been able to see amazing pictures of what is growing in your gardens. Wouldn't have been able to get any valuable advise from people who know more then me. But most of all, I wouldn't have made new friends! Therefore, if I now look at it in hindsight. I quickly realize that I am far better off now, then I ever was before, (before computers became common)! As now I get to chose what online community I join, as all this information technology has made it very easy for me to seek out like minded folk! With whom sharing knowledge, culture, and other experiences of life in general - Has now become a real pleasure! So let's not be sad over what we have lost over the years (as the world changed it's trends). Rather I think we should all be happy that we have found each other over here! GardenStew wallpaper ( photo / image / picture from S-H's Garden )
SH.....very wonderful reply. I do hope you will always feel that way about Garden Stew and all of the people here. :-D ...have a wonderful day....
Thanks Sherry - Unfortunately, what we all have lost throughout the years can never ever be brought back again. Which is why I like to urge everyone to please make the best of what we have now. Because in many ways, this is somewhat better, (only it sometimes takes a bit of getting used to)...
