officially old...

[thoreau]

I was training my interns this morning on a new web utility - and said "and hit a carriage return" - and the classroom stopped and they literally asked "what is a carriage return?" - I had to explain when you typed on a typewriter - that you stopped and pulled the carriage return. OMG. The conversation also wandered to the fact that none of them have ever used or owned cassette tapes (8 track or simply "cassette). I'm now old.

fuck.

Comments

[bruinwi.livejournal.com]

Hand them a phone with a rotary dial and watch them freak out.

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

Hell, show them punched cards...

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

what are punch-cards?

(ducking)

[blt4success66.livejournal.com]

Honey, we're all old but truth be told, if you told me to hit "carriage return", I'd probably look at you like you've lost your marbles. I forgot that's what they called it.

*giggles*

N.B. I'm even hotter looking today. :P

[bootedintexas.livejournal.com]

Ask them about David Gates and Bread, and Styx.

[cubdaddy.livejournal.com]

And Pat Benatar, (old) Aerosmith, Heart, Bob Marley, Judas Priest, Talking Heads, the Smiths, the Police, and Elvis Costello.

[tbone1961.livejournal.com]

*dyslexic moment*

"I'm an old fuck now"

LOL

[squalidbear.livejournal.com]

Back in the old teletype days we had to use LF & CR (line feed and carriage return) to start a new line - that is why there were ASCII codes 10 & 13 in the geeky 'first 32 non-printing characters'.

You're not old sweetie, you're merely providing some historical context!

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

You're not old sweetie, you're merely providing some historical context!

ooooh - I love this! thanks, love.

[apparentparadox]

Duh. Sometimes you needed to overstrike characters on the same line to make those nifty ASCII christmas cards.

[robearal.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm pretty sure both of those codes are still needed to cause a new line in most software. The user just doesn't see it.

[omenode.livejournal.com]

The shock of the old, came for me when my nephews came over and asked what "these" are, pulling out my 7" singles.

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

indeed :) I'm so glad we added each other to our friends list - those of providing "historical context" for the world need to stick together. :)

[pulsecub.livejournal.com]

If it's any consolation, I remember those old manual typewriters; hell, I even remember the days of punch cards for computer...

[grizzlyzone.livejournal.com]

My dad had the habit of using them as note cards, so he's generally have one in his shirt pocket as a to-do list.

[sfmini.livejournal.com]

We had a college grad applying for an apartment who had seen clocks with hands, admitted that she didn't know how to read one without having to stop and count the numbers.

Recruited by Google.

I'm afraid

[robearal.livejournal.com]

That's bizarre.
I do the opposite. When I read a digital readout, I translate it into an analog clockface in my head. For instance, when asked the time and I see 10:45, I will respond "A quarter to Eleven". The pause while I'm doing the translation probably makes me look "slow", and the antiquated phrasing of the time probably confuses the younger listeners.

[cubdaddy.livejournal.com]

I had an 8 track in my first car. I used to watch Howdy Doody in the mornings before walking to school. And I took a typing class in high school.

*my body aches--I need to lay down.*

[tenderandtough.livejournal.com]

I could have really shocked them. Back when I was a little boy, I would help my grandparents at their hotel. The switchboard was literally one of the old timey kind that had the red and black connect cords that you had to plug in to transfer calls to the rooms.

LOL, what a hoot. I hadn't thought about that old thing in years and years. Nice memories today.

[grizzlyzone.livejournal.com]

My mother ran one of those when she worked the nightshift over at Lutheran Deaconess (Hospital). She went from there to Accounting where she ran a posting machine.

Now, there was an interesting device! A large-format, mechanical adding machine for doing simultaneous multi-column addition and subtraction.

[eireangus.livejournal.com]

Wow, I didn't even know what it was myself :)

[wearbear.livejournal.com]

or when i call my iPod a walkman:)

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

oh yeah - I remember being the first kid at school to have a SONY WALKMAN - it was like a badge of honor. LOL - and how my bookbag was full of tapes.

[dendren.livejournal.com]

hahahahahaha I do stuff like this all the time. Sometimes on purpose to fuck with *their* heads but sometimes I just forget the yungins have no clue what the hell I'm talking about.

[mikeybill.livejournal.com]

Old? Nah... just very experienced.

*put on Edison cylinder*

[osodecanela.livejournal.com]

Geez - if it took this long to realize you're old, then you ain't THAT old! 25 years ago, I was babysitting my youngest cousin, who looked at me with innocent amazement after listening to "Eleanor Rigby" on the radio, and said to me "I didn't know Paul McCartney had been in a band before Wings!"

[roybear.livejournal.com]

Whenever someone young gives me a blank look because of something I've said, I love to quote Armistead Maupin's Mother Mucca: "Mother Mucca is an old motherfucker!"

[truthfeather.livejournal.com]

No honey, like all beauty you are ageless.

[designerotter.livejournal.com]

Move over, darling ... I remember when felt tip pens were a novelty... and when the peacock opened its fan, the announcer's voice intoned "and now, ladies and gentlemen, brought to you in living compatible color". Now that's old.
BTW, have you seen the Beloit Mindset List? - depressing, but interesting.

[grizzlyzone.livejournal.com]

How about when televisions didn't have UHF tuners and there was a "U" or a "UHF" between the 13 and the 2?

[bearfuz.livejournal.com]

otterpop wrote a while back about saying "I probably sound like a broken record" to a college-age audience and realizing they probably didn't know the reference.

[grizzlyzone.livejournal.com]

Let's see. In today's parlance, would that be a "loop" or a "sample"?