Clueless Youth Struggle With Old Technology & Stuff We Grew Up With

[raison de arizona]

The saying "Even a stopped clock is right twice a day" (or something to that effect) isn't entirely accurate anymore. There probably aren't too many analog clocks around.

Remember when unset digital clocks used to blink 12:00? Grandma and Papa’s VCR and microwave always needed setting anytime we went over.

[bill_g]

That's what Sharpies are for!

[bill_g]

I just threw out a bunch of WordPerfect floppies Mrs had squirreled away. 5" and 3.5". I know we don't have a computer that could run them anymore, and haven't for years.

Lotsa personal details and financial data and stuff on those documents of course...

Possibly. I can't fret about it now. They're gone. And perhaps very gone. Our garbage goes to the BFI (Browning-Ferris Ind) transfer station. Their specialty is compression and incineration. They have automated separation to sort organics (including plastics) one direction, and heavier solids another. Organics are compressed, chopped into cubes, and used as chub fuel for the furnace that drives the electric generator.

[Luke]

At least they wouldn't be young hackers & thieves because they wouldn't know what they were...

[RTH10260]

One of these days i will need to retrive my old iron from the storage room and see if i still can boot into MS DOS or Win98

With such old floppy drives

[bill_g]

At least they wouldn't be young hackers & thieves because they wouldn't know what they were...

They'd have to get them before they left our premises awaiting pickup at the curb. My neighbors aren't that curious.

The trash trucks have compactor bodies that smallenfies its contents until they reach weight. Then they trek to BFI to dump everything into a concrete trough. An industrial conveyor belt takes it into the separator where the waste streams are sorted by machinery rather violently. If something isn't heading to the furnace, it runs through the hammermill to reduce volume before it's loaded on a waiting truck destined for the landfill. Anyone eyeballing something/anything is risking life and limb to recover it.

BFI and Republic Services efficiently demolishes everything they handle.

[pipistrelle]

At least they wouldn't be young hackers & thieves because they wouldn't know what they were...

They'd have to get them before they left our premises awaiting pickup at the curb. My neighbors aren't that curious.

The trash trucks have compactor bodies that smallenfies its contents until they reach weight. Then they trek to BFI to dump everything into a concrete trough. An industrial conveyor belt takes it into the separator where the waste streams are sorted by machinery rather violently. If something isn't heading to the furnace, it runs through the hammermill to reduce volume before it's loaded on a waiting truck destined for the landfill. Anyone eyeballing something/anything is risking life and limb to recover it.

BFI and Republic Services efficiently demolishes everything they handle.

I suspect anything financial on a floppy disk disposed in 2024 wouldn't be worth the trouble of digging around for it anyway.

[bill_g]

I suspect anything financial on a floppy disk disposed in 2024 wouldn't be worth the trouble of digging around for it anyway.

No doubt. They were from the late 80's early 90's when DOS, telephone, and fax were king. Mrs was working from home for a timber products commodities trader back then. He didn't have an office. He did everything over the phone from his condo. He'd make his notes, fax them to her, and follow up with a confirmation call. She'd type up the orders, fax them off, arrange for the trucks, and notify customs at the border.

That would be some really fascinating reading these days!

[bill_g]

Addendum -

She hated it when he joined some partners in a real office in downtown Portland. She had to be at the office three or four days a week, wear $300 worth of clothes to satisfy the professional senses of the partners, pay for her parking, make coffee, and cuz she was a curvy girl, keep one of the horny partners at bay.

She lasted about a year there before she found a position closer to home (approx two miles) with a wholesale nursery trader. This guy also worked from his home with his wife on a small property with some acerage to store product. He converted the barn into a modern office with two other traders working the phones. His Mrs tended her garden around the house, and helped with the trucks when they came in. She drove the tractor quite well. They were constantly cooking outside. Everybody was invited - clients, family, staff, friends. Long lunchs were pretty normal. He died, and that was that after four years.

[Reality Check]

I missed the party on the discussion on slide rules and the first scientific calculators. I learned to use a slide rule in freshman engineering class. I bought a used K&E log log decitrig duplex mahogany slide rule. I knew how to use every scale. I could lubricate it and keep it in calibration.



I bought an HP-35 calculator when they dropped from $400 to $300 in price after my junior year in EE. $300 was still over half of my monthly take home pay from my co-op engineering job. The HP 35 lacked function to directly do rectangular to polar and polar to rectangular conversions. However, you could use the trig functions and the memory stack to do those in reverse polish keystrokes I had memorized.

I still have both somewhere. Mrs. RC was also an engineer of the chemical variety. She had a Post bamboo slide rule. Those were the Cadillac of slide rules.

[zekeb]

I have three different Pickett models. I wish I could get parts. The only parts I've been able to find are used parts on the internet that are in as bad of shape as mine.

[W. Kevin Vicklund]

I have my father's and grandfather's slide rules on display at my desk at work. Last weekend, I was sorting through some boxes that I had in storage at my parents* after my father passed away. (My parents just bought a condo and are preparing to move). I found another slide rule! I'm one of very few people in my age group to have actually used a slide rule in class - as a high school sophomore in the early 90's, I once had to use one on a chemistry exam when I broke my calculator just as the exam started (that's all the teacher had). Sadly, I haven't used them often enough to know how without looking up the directions each time.

*my parents = my Mom and my (step-)Dad

[Mrich]

When I was in high school - I think a freshman - the math teacher had a giant slide rule hanging over the chalkboard and he did a few lessons on how to use it. Then the next year we got a group discount on multi-function calculators - they ADDED, SUBTRACTED, MULTIPLIED and DIVIDED! They were $60 if I remember right, which was pretty dear in the 70s.

My dad had a round slide rule that he would use for estimating. I wish he had shown me how to use it. I wonder if it's still in the house.

[Reality Check]

I have three different Pickett models. I wish I could get parts. The only parts I've been able to find are used parts on the internet that are in as bad of shape as mine.

The folks who had Picketts were always catching up because they worked differently and they were always behind the K&E and Post people on learning to use them. I cannot recall the differences now.

[MN-Skeptic]

When I was in high school - I think a freshman - the math teacher had a giant slide rule hanging over the chalkboard and he did a few lessons on how to use it.

Yeah, my trig instructor in high school - my senior year - had that same giant slide rule hanging over the chalkboard. (I graduated from high school in 1971). But I also remember that we got a desktop electronic calculator in that class too and I was fascinated with it. I didn't get my own handheld calculator until I graduated from college, but, if I remember right, it was a Texas Instrument calculator which could do square roots. I think I paid $110 for it in 1975.

[John Thomas8]

One of these days i will need to retrive my old iron from the storage room and see if i still can boot into MS DOS or Win98

With such old floppy drives

Floppies? Went to an estate sale Friday and picked up a couple of digital cameras for $25. One was a Sony MVC-F91, records .8MP pics to floppies. Made me laugh for several minutes. The other was a Nikon of some flavour, with an almost equally obscure recording medium.

[northland10]

When it comes to slide rules, I'm a clueless youth. When I was in middle school, all the cool geeks had calculators on their wrists. When I got to trig in high school, scientific calculators were already the norm.

[W. Kevin Vicklund]

When it comes to slide rules, I'm a clueless youth. When I was in middle school, all the cool geeks had calculators on their wrists. When I got to trig in high school, scientific calculators were already the norm.

Yep, that was me in high school. I managed to crack my watch on a cabinet door handle right before the test. I grew up with a scientific calculator (non-graphing) that was solar powered.

[Luke]

I'm WAY TOO YOUNG for slide rules. We were given state-of-the-art TI-30s!

TI 30.JPG (103.04 KiB) Viewed 168 times

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

My dad, oldest brother, and Hubby all used slide rules last century. I even made a slide rule collage for Hubby while we were dating. It actually worked and lined up various memories of our courtship. I also remember Texas Instruments first calculator. Damn! I am OLD!

[Volkonski]

I went to a not so good small town high school in the mid-1960s. They never taught us anything about slide rules in math class. Finally got a couple of cheap slide rules in college.

My grandmother (the one with 2 pre WW I STEM degrees from Boston University) taught me old fashioned ways of doing calculations in my head. When I took an evening accounting course at a local LI college in the late 1970s I was the only student that didn't use a calculator for quizzes and tests. The instructor was impressed.

[MN-Skeptic]

Graphing calculators weren't invented when I was in college. According to Wikipedia, Casio produced the first commercially available graphing calculator in 1985.

[northland10]

I am not enough of a clueless youth to have owned a graphing calculator. My high school calculator was a TI-30 III.

I may still have it in some box somewhere but have not had a need to try things like trig or analytic geometry.

I just don't remember many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.

You're welcome.

[Rolodex]

Generation Slide Rule here. I remember using it mostly for chemistry class. I married someone who won a slide rule competition. I think we still have them packed away somewhere but if someone offered me a million dollars I couldn't think how to use it any more.

[northland10]

Generation Slide Rule here. I remember using it mostly for chemistry class. I married someone who won a slide rule competition. I think we still have them packed away somewhere but if someone offered me a million dollars I couldn't think how to use it any more.

In chemistry class? But you can't blow it up. What fun is that?