Things that are archaic

[monster]

Originally Posted by glatt

Our car doesn't have power windows. It's funny when we give rides to other kids. Some of them can't figure out how to roll down the window. They have to ask one of our kids how to do it.

one of ours doesn't. Thor was so excited to manually wind down the Window! (he's too little to sit in the front and it's a 2-door, so he was just passing time and wondering what the windy things were....

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

We still have plenty of pay phones here. Probably not as many as there used to be, but still plenty about.

Ditto the UK - I can see the one we used to use before we had a telephone from this very room.

Archaic are cars without power steering over here. The only one I know of that's still registered for the road is my fathers '76 land cruiser.

I have never owned a car with power steering yet. Then again I sold my last car a good five years ago.

Originally Posted by monster

Do kids still plaster their walls with posters of their idols? Mine don't... but they could just be weird.

Yup. Just on Friday one of the boys was telling me about his new Ben 10 poster. We weren't allowed to put anything on the walls, but Dads made us two huge corkboards from leftover tiles. My sister's mostly had official posters of men she fancied, mine had poems, things I'd traced from '20s and '30s fashion magazines and pictures of models from Just Seventeen. And cats. In a film or a novel I would have become a stylist. Or a lesbian.

[monster]

really? thanks. I did wonder that it wouldn't have disappeared, but here it seems there are discounts on bundles that make high-speed non-dial up "free" or cheaper. I don't know anyone who uses dial-up any more, even my friends who are so anti-technology they still don't have cellphones. But we are in a suburban college town.

[Cloud]

the biggest thing for me in watching movies and such is the pre/post cell phone split. Mobile phones have changed our behavior so much.

Remember the scene in Lethal Weapon when Roger stops the car, and uses the "mobile" phone in the trunk of the car to complain about how crazy his partner is?

[ZenGum]

I was about to mention that very scene! The damn thing is bigger than a shoebox.

[ZenGum]

Speaking of archaic, has Urbane Guerrilla been about lately?

[DanaC]

I had all kinds of random shite on my walls. Posters of stars, poetry, book covers that I thought were interesting. A whale and a bowl of flowers ala Hitchhiker's. The 'Atheist's prayer'. Some bull-fighting pictures.

The end third of the room was raised up on a platform, with steps up to it, like heavy wood decking. The bed was sunk into that and there was a beam overhead that marked the start of that little section, with the ceiling there high, and the rest of the room brought lower. It was like a little cave, with a big window. A bed sunk into the middle and a desk at one end. The entire thing pretty much was covered with stuff.


That sunken bed was awesome, but it was a motherfucker to change the bedding.


My nieces have a few posters up. And calendars.

The first thing I thought of when I read the Op was the difference between the pre-mobile phone world, and the post-mobile world. As has already been mentioned, narratively it has a profound effect on movies. It's one of my pet delights actually, spotting that kind of time-bound plot point.

[Pico and ME]

Unions.

Well not quite, but soon to be.

[Spexxvet]

Pagers

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

Pagers

I was a telesales assistant for a company providing alpha numeric pager systems to corporate and medical sectors in the 90s. I remember at the time that they had much better coverage than any of the mobile phone providers. Intercity Paging. Got took over by motorolla and our branch closed. Funny watching mobile phones become so ubiquitous.

One of the really cool things about working for that company, was that i had my own alpha numeric pager :0 Used to love it when it went off on the bus or train *grins* I liked the idea that people might think I was 'on call' :p Of course, most often when it went off it was cus J was messaging me to tell me to pick up more milk or whatever on my way home lol.

[Shawnee123]

Johnny Fuckerfaster "jokes."

[monster]

Darning socks

[Shawnee123]

The toaster repair store.

[SamIam]

Typewriters, my sig not withstanding. I'm of an age when we still had to use typewriters my first couple of years of college - getting the footnotes right was a nightmare!

[DanaC]

I held off on an electric typewriter for years. I used to do a lot of writing when i was in my teens and early twenties, and generally preferred to write by hand, but did get quite attached to my mum's old Adler typewriter. It was a bastard and it hated me (it musthave done, because it took great delight in skinning the tips of my fingers when they went through the keys). But, for some reason, i liked it.

I did break and get an electric typewriter when I was 21/22 ish. Was very cool, with its corrector ribbon and its little memory store.

That was like, a year or so before PCs began to really take off in the high street.