How Old Do You Feel Now?

[the_std]

http://obsoleteskills.com/

This website has comprised a full A-Z list of skills that are now deemed "obsolete". How many of them were you once proud of, and just how old do you feel after reading it?

[Plaidman]

Alot I do kno. But I think this one was just disrespectful towards alot of us.

http://obsoleteskills.com/Skills/CountingBackChange

I only count back change a bazzion times a day. Hell, normally I just hit next and give back the change. (Next on our computer treats it rounded up, so if they got $4.23, and I hit next, the computer thinks they gave me a five, it will say five. But if they paid with a twenty, I still give them back 15.77, despite the computer telling me to only give them .77 cents.

[justZu]

Yup, there's a lot of stuff on that list I can remember. Fine tuning the TV channel and adjusting the antenna for better reception. If it wasn't tuned in good enough, the picture had ghosts. Of course, it was only three or four channels we had anyway...(OMG I sound like Grandpa Simpson).

I also remember how excited I was when we got a new VCR that had VCR+ on it. That meant instead of going through all the programming steps, you could just put in the 5 or 6 digit code from the TV Guide and it would automatically record your program. Yes, it didn't take much to impress us, back in the day.

There's a bunch more, but now I feel too old to type any more.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Wow. Considering that my main skill before I updated my skill set and went into another field was Media Arts learned in the early 80's, I lost count while I was still in the "E" section. I have edited tape with a razor and an edit-all bar. I had mad darkroom skilz. I have retouched photos with a paintbrush, photographic bleach, and a bottle of spot tone. I've re-directed TV cameras so the studio lights didn't burn out the vacuum tubes on the cameras. I've made animated films by actually moving objects one frame at a time or drawn excruciatingly tedious pages of animation by hand.

I used to watch movies late at night with a pie pan, a wad of tin foil, and one of my feet artfully arranged on top of the set to improve reception.

I used to sit in front of the TV with a cassette recorder taping my favorite shows, thinking about how utterly awesome it would be if I could record the video as well as the audio.

I can remember when a movie on beta tape cost around 80 bucks.

Okay, yeah. I'm freaking old.

And when you also consider that I'm in the SCA and have actually eaten off a trencher, worn a corset, and settled a dispute in a sword duel, among other things, I'd say a lot of these hit pretty close to home.

[lordlundar]

Lets see here:

-Calculating THAC0 (only if you prefer the WotC version of D&D)

-Cheating At Computer Games By Modifying Save Game Files With A Hex Editor (pfft! I still do it)

-Operate a credit card imprinter (click-clack) (The day this goes out of date will be the last day credit cards are used)

-DOS (the original syntax, yes, not the use) (side-note, check the obsolete date)

-OS 2 (It still exists! But who would want it?)

-Playing Arcade Games (ahem! MAME cabinet!)

-Programming Plugboards (still in use, just more used as breadboards as a preliminary setup for PCBs)

-Windows Vista Salesman (HAHAHAHA!)

-ZIPping Archives Across Multiple Floppy Disks (don't I wish. it seems every torrent I download is split compressed into 13.4MB pieces, and for the life of me, I don't know why)

[Ljt09863]

they say the AS 400 is obsolete. my store still uses it, and when im looking in the local job ads, i will still find quite a few that ask for AS 400 training.

[rvdammit]

Lets see here:

-OS 2 (It still exists! But who would want it?)

Last I heard was no one, as it wasn't made Y2K compliant.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

I used to sit in front of the TV with a cassette recorder taping my favorite shows, thinking about how utterly awesome it would be if I could record the video as well as the audio.

I remember doing that as well . . . every Saturday night when "CHiPs" came on.

I know . . . I'm telling on myself again.

And I can recall life before cable television . . . only 3 channels (4 if you count PBS and it was usually fuzzy.) If the President was on, your night was screwed, blewed and tattooed.

And does anyone here recall manual typewriters? I do . . . I learned to type on one before I even took typing in high school (okay, so it was the two-finger cuss and fuss method, but I could do it.)

There's so much I can still recall how to do, yet so much I've forgotten. . .

[justZu]

And does anyone here recall manual typewriters? I do . . .

Yes! My mom had one and it was a big deal to be allowed to type stuff on it. If I hit too many keys at once they would jam together and if mom saw it happen I was busted for being too rough with the delicate machine.

[powerboy]

Oh man, I remember so many things that I know.

[MrSunshineState]

Jurassic Park (film) is 15 years old

[lordlundar]

Last I heard was no one, as it wasn't made Y2K compliant.

But who wanted it pre-Y2K?

[Andara Bledin]

Heh. I remember being in charge of transferring vinyl to cassette back when I was a teen. I was the best in the house at getting a smooth drop with the needle, and adjusting the sound for optimum quality. And I could thread a reel-to-reel, too.

Oh, and I still have, somewhere, a hand-winder for a cassette. But, considering that cassettes are still being sold, I somehow think the idea that winding your cassettes with a pencil eraser isn't quite as obsolete as someone wants to think it is.

Someone put Anti-War Protesting. Last I checked, there are still a lot of people protesting wars. Another is whipping cream with a whisk. I'm willing to bet pretty much every serious cook anywhere (not just "Europe and Scandanavia" [last I heard, Scandanavia was part of Europe] ) whips their own cream. And White Out? It's still used in pretty much every office, ever.

And some of those are just plain stupid. "Assessing the relative merits of BluRay vs HD-DVD"? C'mon. Sure, HD-DVD is the loser, but it's not dead, yet, and there are still plenty of people out there ready and willing to argue the differences, from either side. Plus, that's a stupid thing to list as a 'skill.'

Speaking of other stupid things to list as skills: old-school gaming references. Seriously, when the hell did knowing the name of a spell in Advent become a skill?

Meh. If there appeared to be any degree of quality control, it would be less annoying and worlds more amusing.

^-.-^

[justZu]

I woke up this morning thinking about this thread.
I wanted to check the list to see if flashbulbs were listed on there. Soon people will be saying "Hey, remember buying rolls of film?" But I say - "Hey, remember having to make sure you had enough flashbulbs for all the pictures on your rolls of film?"

Aaaannnd...I am so old.


Yeah, technically it is a list of obsolete skills and flashbulbs are obsolete technology. But I woke up thinking about it so I decided to post it anyway. I could say matching up amount of pictures on a roll with amount of flashes in a pack of flashcubes is a skill. Yes, I believe I'll stick with that line of reasoning.

[Andara Bledin]

Yeah, technically it is a list of obsolete skills and flashbulbs are obsolete technology. But I woke up thinking about it so I decided to post it anyway. I could say matching up amount of pictures on a roll with amount of flashes in a pack of flashcubes is a skill. Yes, I believe I'll stick with that line of reasoning.

Heh. Matching up flashes with exposures is similar to matching up buns with hot dogs. For whatever reason, the numbers never match.

^-.-^