A Test for young people

[terry]

Someone wrote "How about a "cassette" recorder that used Cassettes about 6X8 inches with the wide tape like used on the old real to real? Made by RCA "

Reelly?????????????

[terry]

My barber (Short, back and front, while I snooze) has it down to a science.

Give him a 20. or a five and a ten and he'll make sure to give you change that includes ones (one dollar coins in this case) so you can slip him a tip of a few bucks.

BTW: I've put a big old Bell style 2500 phone with a 'real' ringer- bell by the bed; just in case anybody phones at night. So much of the 'modern' stuff has those modern sounders. It's hard to a) Hear them and b) WHICH one is 'beeping'. It rang this morning and really surprised me!

If steam whistles or clicking of telegraphs were the sounds of the

1800s and early 1900s, the ticking of a geiger counter the sound of the 1950s and 1960s, then the piezo electo beeper, in cash registers, computers, et-al, MUST be the sound of this era!

Wonder what next?

[Tony]

The UPC is Morse Code, can't help with the SKU. I wonder if WalMart has an extra set of cash registers independent of their computer system in case of a major computer crash?

[terry]

Nah. Them Edison tubes is better!

PS. After fixing a TV I was once offered an old decrepit one, with some recordings. Perhaps should have accepted it. But sensing it's future worth I didn't take it cos felt it should stay with that family.

[Tony]

Just recently I was wondering if my grandchildren will be taught to read an analog clock FIRST. Analog clocks actually require less thought then digital. You can look at an analog clock and without figuring the exact time, you can almost instantly know about what time it is just be the position of the hands. And many of them don't even have numbers, because our minds don't need numbers to figure out analog time. Sort of like looking at the sun, but a little more complex.

With a digital clock your mind has to calculate each number and come up with an answer.

[Cindy Hamilton]

Here in Michigan, nearly everything is required to have a human- readable price tag. Most of our consumer protection was gutted in the last

15 or 20 years, but by gum we're protected from not knowing what the price is once we've left the aisle where we picked the thing up.

Cindy Hamilton

[Tony]

Yes it is. A few years back a friend had a touch tone pay phone someone gave him. He hung it up and wired it in our "club house" but couldn't get it to make a call. It had a dial tone but would not work, even with quarters. Holding the receiver in my hand, I tapped the hang up flap two times quickly, short pause, 1 tap, short pause, 5 tapps, (215 area code) then did the rest of my phone number. Everyone thought I was to drunk and crazy but as soon as I heard my phone ring I handed him the receiver and he heard my answering machine. The old dial phones are doing the exact same thing when you hear it click, click, click. That payphone on the wall then became a sort of drunk-O-meter. It's not easy to always get the pulses down just right. Ya know, I wonder what it will do on a public pay phone?

[Stormin Mormon]

Good for you. Hope you use it for many more years.

[Stormin Mormon]

Years ago, I read a city people test. And wanted to know what was a deuce and a quarter and what were boxcars. So, depending on the culture, some information is foreign.

[Stormin Mormon]

I can't remember what brand. Free screw driver with 8 gal fill up. I still have a couple of them.

[Stormin Mormon]

I've resolved not to ever buy such a mostrosity.

[Stormin Mormon]

Electro Encepholic encoding. You can hear it in your mind, whether you want to or not.

[Oren]

I have a cypress clock with roman numerals 3,6,9 and 12

Is that wall poster of Sanibel / Captiva Islands?

[clare]

Yup. I owned one. Made before the little cassete tapes, and If I Rember Correctly - before the 8 track. I believe. built from '59 to '64. Progressing from Cassette (RCA) to Mini-cassette (Philips) to Micro-cassette.

see

about half way down the page.

Also

- more accurate I believe - the tape WAS 1/4".

YLB18a I believe was the unit I had. See it and hear it at:

Also see:

[Ed Pawlowski]

Ah, you kids. How about 19.9 at the Merit station in 1962 when I started driving. The Esso station across the street was 21.9 Esso was part of Standard Oil, later Exxon.

Mine was huge with a CRT that showed 4 lines. $400, a year later $300, a couple more years later a TI was $79

[aemeijers]

Probably just needed to reverse L1 and L2 to get it to break dial tone with the TT pad. Some early touchtones were like that. Did he have the key for the coin box?

-- aem sends...

[Lp1331 1p1331]

I bought gas for 18.9 cents during price wars from the time I started driving in 1966 until the first "gas shortage" in the fall of 72. My folks till have a bunch of green glasses that given away with gas during the 60's.

[clare]

Just removed the avacado green dial wall-phone from our kitchen this summer.

[clare]

What? No Nixies????

[David Nebenzahl]

On 1/29/2010 6:05 PM [e-mail] spake thus:

Hmm; I wonder how I missed those. I was in grade school in the 1960s, so presumably those were in use at the time. Maybe I just never noticed them, but I don't ever remembering seeing one of those tape cartridges.

Actually, it looks like a pretty nice package for tape.