At a recent conference they discussed "Generations at Work", giving the advantages and disadvantages of each generation. Generations break down into the following age groups:
Matures - before 1946
Boomers - 1946-1964
Xers - 1965 1983 (also termed YUFers for "young urban failures"
Yers or Nexters - 1977-1994
(I know the overlaps with the Xers and Yers frustrated me, too, and she really didn't have a good explanation for that.)

I won't bore everyone with the positives and negatives for each group since they're fairly obvious. However, she said that the Yers have never lived without computers, microwaves, calculators etc. That brings up a good question. What did we used to see that we almost never see now?
mimeograph machines
typewriters
adding machines with tape

Good manners!

Richard English

When I first started working with computers we programmed them with punched cards and there was a device called a manual card punch which had a set of keys on the right. A card was inserted at the left and the keys to punch the holes in the correct combination were pressed.

(If we made a mistake we had little sticky foil labels to cover up the holes and re-do them.)

I haven't seen one for years now though.

Quid quid latine dictum sit, altum viditur

Read all about my travels around the world here.

Dials on phones.
Ledgers in the form of enormous bound books, rather than computer printouts.
Hundreds of printed forms in the stationery cupboard: now replaced by computer templates.

Bob, I took keypunch in high school! Planned to be a computer programmer. I learned Cobol, and APL, and a bunch of other things that are non-existent.

My mother had this machine she brought home one day from work. I think it predates the stapler. You put papers in that you wished to join together, and pressed like a stapler. But it cut the paper in a sort of double "s" fashion and folded the paper tabs together to hold them in place. Has anyone ever seen this, and did it have a name?

quote:

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
What did we used to see that we almost never see now?

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Slide rules, 78 RPM records, black and white tv, tv antennas, vacuum-tube radios and tvs.

Even manual transmissions are scarce now, and crank-up window have largely been replaced with power windows. Remember when radios and heaters were extras in cars?

Tinman

[This message was edited by tinman on Sun Nov 17th, 2002 at 19:22.]

Carbon paper and pay toilets.

(individually, I mean, not together. God, what a mess that would be!)

CJ, you're always tickling my funny bone!

laced shoes for kids Although they do exist, most have velcro now (at least in the U.S.).

short shorts for basketball players again, probably another U.S. phenomenon.

quote:

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pay toilets

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Alas, they still exist over here at places like railway stations. Usually they are free, though. In the old days each stall had a penny in the slot machine, but under the new order they tend to charge 20p to enter the building.

At a gas station:

Gas at 29.9 cents per gallon (though, at the age of about 10, I didn't drive much then).

Free road maps.

Free sets of glasses with a fill-up which an attendant pumped for you (plus checked the oil & tire inflation etc.) all at no extra charge.

Gas and oil for sale but not breakfast cereal, eye make-up, paperbacks, and a thousand other items that, to this day, I refuse to buy in a GAS STATION!

Green Stamps. (Sure, they were a bit of a con but in my family I was in charge of licking them and filling the books. Pretty heady stuff for a little squirt.)


Can I assume that y'all over there had Green Stamps or some other British equivalent? By charging more for each item, the shopper "earned" Green Stamps which could then be turned in for lotsa FREE merchandise! Woo-Hoo!!

An old folk song said it best:

How do I get me a Cadillac car?
(Green Stamps! Green Stamps!)
How do I get me a Cadillac car?
(Fill up the Green Stamp book!)

"Buy life insurance," my wife said.
(Green Stamps! Green Stamps!)
She gets a million Green Stamps if I drop dead.
(Fill up the Green Stamp book!)

My wife is lookin' at me mighty strange.
(Green Stamps! Green Stamps!)
She's got her eye on an electric range.
(Fill up the Green Stamp book!)

and on...

wringer washing machines
hanging clothes out to dry
mangles
davenport
sideboard

[This message was edited by Kalleh on Thu Nov 21st, 2002 at 8:36.]

There was a cartoon in today's paper that stated that:

Radio has changed to TV
Ovens to Microwaves
Pen Pals to Chat Mates

The fellow then wrote a note to Lucille: "You really stoke my boiler. S.W.A.K., Wally XO"

WOW! Did that every hit the nail on the head with this thread!

Yes, Morgan, that reminds me:
transistor radios

And for me, motorbikes with kick-starts and no fairing. 80 mph on a 1930 Rudge! Bliss!

Richard English

What is "no fairing"?

The fairing is the plastic surround that streamlines modern motorcycles and keeps most of the wind and rain off their riders.

My pre-war machines are "naked" with all their workings exposed and their riders also exposed to whatever the elements can throw at them. And at 80 mph on a 73 year-old naked motorcycle, that's quite a lot!

Richard English

quote:

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The fairing is the plastic surround that streamlines modern motorcycles and keeps most of the wind and rain off their riders.

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I ride an older motorcycle, not as old as yours, though Richard, that did not come equipped with a fairing, but was added later. On mine, it is more of a very large plexiglass windshield that extends to about the top of my helmet, down to my knees and wide enough to protect my hands on the grips.

Might I also add, that any speed on a motorcycle without a fairing is incredible. You have no idea the amount of wind pressure you experience.

One of my favorite stories about cycling occured about 3 years ago. Every summer, my hubby and I go to a motorcycle get together at a large race track. We do most things together while we are there: shop at the swap meet, test ride new bikes, watch the races, check out the auction and the shows, and shop at the new vendors area.

Well, after two or three days of togetherness, we start to split up and each of us does what we like best. One goes shopping while the other test rides new motorcycles on back country roads at speeds of up to 150 miles per hour.

Good thing I have a full face helmet! Bugs hurt at those speeds!

How about eight track tapes! Weren't they they pits?

Interestingly Rolls-Royce fitted 8-track systems until around 1978 since they considered that they gave a better sound. They started fitting normal cassette players in 1979/80 (which is fortunate for me as that's the year of my Rolls-Royce). Those with the earlier systems, and who wish to maintain the originality of their cars, are often to be seen rooting around the stalls in autojumbles...

Richard English

8mm movie cameras, 16mm movie cameras, corsets, sanitary napkin belts, silver money, gold money, western movies, Disney movies that didn't sell cigarettes, soft drinks in glass bottles, white sidewall tires, twelve-year-old girls with hymens, a majority of US workers earning a middle-class income, single-income households, Carter's Little Liver Pills, Geritol, Serutan, real soap, customers (replaced by consumers) Steve Allen, Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Desi and Lucy, Ozzie and Harriet, one phone company, phone company operators, information operators, straight razors, US-made shoes, clothes, and TVs, the Fuller Brush Man, Burma Shave, Studebakers, Ramblers, Edsels - Ooof! Lotsa stuff!

Oh, Asa, you win the prize on this thread! Well done.

Asa, you win the prize on this thread!
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It just goes to prove that I'm a pre-Alzheimer's old fart! On the bright side, we don't mind forgetting about polio, German measles, smallpox, and such, and it looks as if cervical cancer will soon be a thing of the past, so some previous stuff is not to be viewed with nostalgia. Oh, you remember the ads for that analgesic, named Assinine, or some such, that promised relief for headache, neuritis, and nostalgia?

In marketing terms there is a difference.

A customer is a person or organisation that buys something from a supplier. If that purchaser then uses that product or service then he, she or it is also the consumer.

If, however, the purchaser then uses the item or service to construct or otherwise create another product or service that is then sold on, he, she or it is simply a customer, not a consumer.

Thus a brewery is a customer of the hop-grower but not the consumer of the hops. That's the fortunate person who buys and drinks the beer.

Consumers, of course, do not need to be customers; those who use the presents they have been given are consumers but not customers.

Richard English