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Cityxslicker
| | Posted on Thursday, September 03, 2009 - 01:18 am: | 
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BBS UseNet groups off of Compuserve were a boon before you were a twinkle in your moms eye or an itch in your dads pants.
I had a board name at 12, before that I had a CB handle and H.A.M access, the internet maybe 'new', but prattling along aimlessly about news, sex, tech and ideology is as old as the phone itself.
1984 I bus networked 9 Apple IIec's together to make the road runner move from work desk to work desk.
Remember it was the end of the world and Big Brother was watching everything  |
Greenlantern
| | Posted on Thursday, September 03, 2009 - 07:06 am: |
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Back in the day...............( wispy dreamy sound effect)
If you had more than one tv in the house it was black and white and you had to get off your arse to adjust it..........
Musicians were larger than life not because some media outlet told us so, but because we believed it.........
When the phone broke, someone came to fix it.
When the stove or fridge or television broke, someone came and fixed it. Sort of recycling before the word became vogue.......
Young women left something to the imagination.......
Bowling alleys and stock car tracks were everywhere.....
There were 3 networks and 3 shows worth watching every week, the rest of the time was yours to........
Hang out with the neighborhood kids, explore the woods down the road, conquer those soulless bastards over on Derby street in the ongoing water balloon war........
Fm radio was a luxury and cassettes was the cutting edge in audio technology.( You mean you can rewind and fast forward?!?!)....
Crafstman tools actually meant something.....
You could troubleshoot a cars problem in about 5 minutes, you could repair it yourself , always in 6 hours ( time required for 2 or 3 buddies to arrive, 3 beer runs and 4 deep discussions on why Zeppelin ruled and the Who didn't........
Dick Clark Still looked like he was 14.........
I had a 29" waist.................
ok, this ain't fun no more! |
Vampress
| | Posted on Thursday, September 03, 2009 - 07:30 am: |
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I'm sorta in the middle...way before 1986, but way not old yet!!...
I still remember (although I have tried to block most of it out) most of the time pre-internet. It is hard to remember being without it specifically.
Kids still went to discos, had really bad hair and surfed waves instead of the internet. The flashbacks of hypercolour shirts and stonewash still make me cringe.
My Dad made sure I knew how to change tyres and oil in my first car before I was allowed to drive it anywhere, and gave me the manual for a little light reading. Mostly we hung out on weekends with a lot of other kids that had bikes and cars, and were really into fixing modifying them. It was kind of a live and learn process. We got stranded, broken down and bogged a few times out of town at the local motorcross course. This of course meant that several more cars/bikes/quads had to then come to the rescue with good bourbon, loud music, which gave us time to get the bonfire going
These days the internet is our first 'go to' simply because it is there. Before it was countless phone calls, enquiries, shopping trips etc. It does make life easier, but not always better. Not that the connectivity and knowledge are bad things, but fresh air is lacking in many people's lungs I think.
Now you can do all your banking, pay your bills, get your movies and music, the airconditioner knows when you are coming home, the fridge can dial up and do your shopping for you and somebody will deliver it.
Everything is available by internet order...even a husband! hehe |
Greenlantern
| | Posted on Thursday, September 03, 2009 - 07:44 am: |
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Everything is available by internet order...even a husband! hehe
That's how my wife got me...........used super saver ground shipping.............signs of things that came.......one air hole in the crate and a driver named Torgo. (geek reference of the week, no prize to first nerd who gets it!) |
Ducbsa
| | Posted on Thursday, September 03, 2009 - 07:49 am: |
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The only car engines with overhead cams were Japanese, European, or the Ford SOHC 427
Twin Cam Vega, SOHC Pontiac 6 |
Cowboy
| | Posted on Thursday, September 03, 2009 - 07:52 am: |
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HE HE HE Back when I stated rideing when you bought a bike you did not get a helmet or jackets the dealer gave you a pair of crutch's. (I am a 1936 model) |
Mr_grumpy
| | Posted on Thursday, September 03, 2009 - 03:53 pm: |
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It was still common to remove cylinder heads in the driveway.
Still is round my house.
Just done the maths, when Froggy was born I was older than he is now. Ouch.
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Pkforbes87
| | Posted on Thursday, September 03, 2009 - 06:42 pm: |
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<- 1987
The oldest things I can remember are VHS and Apple "green screens" 
BUT!.. I too have removed cylinder heads in the driveway! |
Nik
| | Posted on Thursday, September 03, 2009 - 07:10 pm: |
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and have been online since the early 90s, even before AOL existed and when people actually used their real names instead of handles.
[gasp!] I can't imagine such a stone age when people used their real names! |
Gentleman_jon
| | Posted on Thursday, September 03, 2009 - 07:35 pm: |
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Really back in the day, things were a whole helluva lot simpler than today.
There were very few models of motorcycles,and they did not change much from year to year, not to mention from decade to decade. If you knew how to fix say, any Norton, you could fix all of them made in the last ten years.
Things like electronic ignition, fuel injection, turn signals, disc brakes, adjustable suspension, and the electric starter simply had not been invented. Made fixing things a lot easier: there was a lot less to go wrong.
Motorcycles were sold with the expectation that the owner would maintain them.
As mentioned above, the magazines had very useful technical articles.
You didn't meet the nicest people on a Honda. You didn't meet any one on a Honda. They did not exist.
You met guys who knew how to work on their motorbike, and they did it all the time.
Now a days things are a whole lot more sophisticated, and the net sure is a valuable resource.
Not as important as the electric starter though. I wouldn't be riding with out one.
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Kyrocket
| | Posted on Thursday, September 03, 2009 - 07:40 pm: |
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My grandfathers basement is a treasure trove of "stuff from back in the day" I actually found a brand new, unopened box of 5 1/2 floppy discs. They had a HECKS price tag on them, don't remember how much though. I can still remember playing pong on the floor model television with my parents. My mom's friend was the only one we knew with the disposable cash to actually buy a VCP (the early ones didn't record) I remember her coming over with Purple Rain and I wasn't allowed to watch. Corded rotary phones, running through the house to answer said phone because you didn't have an answering machine, four channels and the large clicking dial you had to get up off the couch to turn, my king size waterbed with no baffles, leaving after breakfast to go play with the neighborhood kids and not coming home til dark... ahhh those were the days. |
Riding_tall
| | Posted on Thursday, September 03, 2009 - 08:41 pm: |
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Froggy .. your making me feel old .. stop it.
I'm old nuff to know when TV's had knobs, VCR's were top-loading and the remote was hardwired and I was into computers when 300 baud was normal and 1200 was blazing fast.
Still .. some thing's never change. I learned about cars helping my grandfather rebuild the 67 Oldsmobile Tornado big block. Tore it down to the block IN THE CAR and pulled the block out. ( He pulled it out w/o a lift .. stood over the engine bay and lifted it up and out !!! ) parts were all over the place.
Last few months my sons have been rebuiding 3 cars in my garage .. 2 civics and an El Camino .. can't walk outside w/o tripping over some kinda car part. Make's me proud .. and kinda mad cuz he won't sell me the El Camino
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Lemonchili_x1
| | Posted on Friday, September 04, 2009 - 12:24 am: |
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Froggy and PK were born around the time I had my heart set on a Valiant Charger, the fastest accelerating Australian made car at the time. I still had another year or so 'til I could actually drive... Then a friend took me for a ride on the back of his Yamaha FJ1100, and EVERYTHING changed!
Pre-WWW I collected every bit of written material I could get about bikes - magazines, brochures, manuals, posters, flyers, books, accessories and parts catalogs, price lists.
Most treasured magazines were UK copies of "Performance Bikes" for the "Readers Special" which showed what could be done, and U.S. magazines Motorcyclist and later Sport Rider for the tech articles. I went to the local library too.
When things broke and there was no simple fix, I cleared Mum and Dads dining table, got out the phone books and started ringing the bike shops and spoke to the mechanics. Note I had to use the dining table because the phone was in that room and the phone cord was only about 4 feet long. I'd ring the U.S. and U.K. for special parts too.
If I was really stuck I went and saw Damus, a grizzly American guy who was somewhere between 50 and 200 years old. He ran a little two man shop and had seen just about everything.
A great source of info was/is bike wreckers (breakers in the UK? What do they call them in the US?). They knew what broke and what parts from other models would fit and were better or cheaper. Some places would let me hunt through the shelves trying to find a part that would fit. I ended up working in a wreckers shop when I was 19.
Like someone else said the magazines were good not just for the articles, but also the ads at the back, especially the overseas magazines.
Another great source of info, knowledge and wisdom - my Dad. Aeronautical engineer and all round smart cookie.
Quite often though, I'd just pull stuff apart and start looking for the problem. I find I tend to go to the web first these days before I pull stuff apart, which is good and bad. |
99savage
| | Posted on Friday, September 04, 2009 - 10:05 am: |
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When the IBM 360 was new technology.
Writing programs in FORTAN IV (also new technology) on the back of yards of pin fed paper & typing them on to IBM cards and feeding thick stacks of cards into the card reader in the dead of nite.
Vehicles came w/ owner's manuals that had information in them. - Failing that going to the library & checking out "Chilson's"
The other day had to dipose of a timing light & a dwell meter (kept the vacuum gage). - Remember when the dwell meter was new technology, now hazardous waste.
(Message edited by 99Savage on September 04, 2009) |
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