Came across some things that younger people may never know about. Thought it might be fun to think about
Things that won’t get recycled (at least in their present (past?) condition):
Typewriters, slide rules and encyclopedias
Phone tables. With phones on them and the White Pages and the Yellow Pages on that little shelf underneath.
A physical dictionary — either for spelling or definitions.
Flash cubes. (Actually, I even remember when flash cubes were an exciting innovation over flash bulbs.)
And skills youngsters will never develop:
Inserting a VHS tape into a VCR to watch a movie or to record something.
Booting your computer off of a floppy disk.
Using a road atlas to get from A to B. Having to manually unlock a car door.
Using a stick to point at information on a wallchart.
Taking turns picking a radio station for everyone to listen to during a long drive.
Finding books in a card catalog at the library.
What a casette player is and having to rewind the tape over and over just to hear your favorite song. The connection between a pencil and a cassette tape.
And sounds they’ll never hear:
Scanning the radio dial and hearing static between stations.
The scream of a modem connecting.
The sound of a hand crank rolling up the car window.
“I got it… you can hang up now”
And stuff I wish was still around:
Carrying on a correspondence with real letters, especially the handwritten kind.
Drive In movie theaters
The excitement of finding a dime in the pay phone coin return.
Remembering someone’s phone number. (Actually, I miss remembering my own. Plural.)
When you had to know how to spell.
And a few things I’m glad are gone:
The smoking section in the back of the plane.
Trying to peel the perforated edges off tractor-feed printer paper.
8-character filenames.
Long distance (you know, as in you don’t call someone because it’s long distance.)
Lots of these ideas came from here. And some from here. And some from other places. The phone table photo’s from here.
Auntie Kate The Resale Expert 