Shit that reminds me I'm old.

[Dreamstalker]

The first middle school I went to had a mimeograph machine in the office. I was the only kid in the class either brave enough or stupid enough to want to make copies for the whole class (I did kinda like the smell, but I was and still am a very odd child).

[SongsOfDragons]

I made all my colleagues feel old today

The conversation was going on about the Great Storm of October 1987, how their houses/sheds/gardens/cars/roads/drives/trees/sleep were broken/flooded/disturbed/etc, how awkward work was the next day, and how vividly they remembered it...

Then yours truly came in with "yeah I was eight months old at the time"...

Cue groans!

[NecessaryCatharsis]

When I was explaining the difference between frame and tube and clamp scaffolding to some of my coworkers (many of whom were born after I finished high school) and said of the tube and clamp scaffolding 'It's like tinkertoys'. They had never heard of tinkertoys.

[sms001]

best memory... about 3.30am on 21st July to watch history

Confused the heck outta me until I saw you lived in GMT; so Commander Armstrong, I assume?

[DGoddessChardonnay]

I remember rotary phones that were so well built (and heavy duty ---- in home model) that you could have killed an elephant with the it in one blow.

And the damn thing would STILL work!

I just realized that I can recall back when television stations signed off for the night at around midnight. And we only had 3 channels.

[Kittish]

I just realized that I can recall back when television stations signed off for the night at around midnight. And we only had 3 channels.

Oh my gosh, I remember that. Even the 3 channels part. VHF and UHF channels, with the two separate knobs! The test pattern, with that awful blaring tone. I think it was designed to wake up people who'd fallen asleep in front of the TV.

[dalesys]

Oh my gosh, I remember that. Even the 3 channels part. VHF and UHF channels, with the two separate knobs! The test pattern, with that awful blaring tone. I think it was designed to wake up people who'd fallen asleep in front of the TV.

Dad! You're listening to Conelrad!

It's a good show. Leave it on.
[/Cos]

[Ironclad Alibi]

Just listen to all of you young kids. I am as old as the state of Israel and a year younger than the US Air Force. In college, I watched the original broadcasts of Star Trek (the original series) and helped to put the first man on the moon. As for the rotary phone, we had one and it was a party line, shared with 3 neighbors. And you could have your phone in any color you wanted as long as it was black. I am also old enough to have known a woman who was born during the US Civil War.

I'd tell you some more, but I have to go chase some kids of my lawn.

[dalesys]

... chase some kids of my lawn.

Their daddy's pretty tough... Ol' "Billy Goat" Gruff could bunt you back to the last century.

[Ironclad Alibi]

There daddy's pretty tough... Ol' "Billy Goat" Gruff could bunt you back to the last century.

That might not be such a bad thing these days.

[AccountingDrone]

Just listen to all of you young kids. I am as old as the state of Israel and a year younger than the US Air Force. In college, I watched the original broadcasts of Star Trek (the original series) and helped to put the first man on the moon. As for the rotary phone, we had one and it was a party line, shared with 3 neighbors. And you could have your phone in any color you wanted as long as it was black. I am also old enough to have known a woman who was born during the US Civil War.

I'd tell you some more, but I have to go chase some kids of my lawn.

Born in 1961. I worked for a man who had [as a child] a boarder in their house who had as a young child met George Washington

Really, most Americans have no sense of how young the country actually *is*. When visiting my friend in Germany back in 2003 we would go drinking in a bar that had been in the same building for 800 years. 2.5 times older than my country. Then we went and toured a dig site of a Roman military encampment that was 2000 years old. And I ave walked down a street in Pompeii [back in the late 70s] that had been in use 2000 years ago, and the paving stones were still reasonably smooth and level.

[Shalom]

Oh, sure I remember the mimeograph. (They called it "the ditto machine" in my school.) I'd go into the office for something or other and there's that machine going KACHUNK!KACHUNK!KACHUNK! with the drum going round and round and the pages stacking up at the output end. Always wondered how come the teacher's preprinted original sheet had the answers, but the copies didn't... (I eventually realized they must have taken the carbon paper out before adding the answers.) I think those sheets must have come from, or been supplied with, the textbook, to be torn out and "run off", as they called it.

I also remember my grandmother's typewriter having three settings for the ribbon: black, red (which came out black anyway because they didn't put in two-colored ribbons) and white. On the white setting, it didn't raise the ribbon up at all, just had the type bars strike the paper directly. I asked her why that was useful;who would want to type in blank? She told me that that setting was for cutting stencils for the mimeograph; you didn't need the ribbon, because the carbon from the backing paper would show through.

Once as an experiment I found a piece of used carbon paper, stuck it to the back of an ordinary sheet of loose-leaf paper, drew something (a maze) on the front, then ran it off when nobody was looking. It worked, surprisingly enough.

Anybody remember actual blue blueprints? I've never seen one myself, but my father told me the smell of the chemicals was unmistakeable and unforgettable.

Really, most Americans have no sense of how young the country actually *is*. When visiting my friend in Germany back in 2003 we would go drinking in a bar that had been in the same building for 800 years. 2.5 times older than my country. Then we went and toured a dig site of a Roman military encampment that was 2000 years old. And I ave walked down a street in Pompeii [back in the late 70s] that had been in use 2000 years ago, and the paving stones were still reasonably smooth and level.

My brother went to school for two years in Israel. He showed me a cave in Jerusalem that had been used as a dwelling place for an estimated 4,500 years.

I forgot who said it, but the difference between an American and a European (or Englishman) is that an American thinks 100 years is a long time, but a European thinks 100 miles is a long distance.

[NecessaryCatharsis]

Anybody remember actual blue blueprints? I've never seen one myself, but my father told me the smell of the chemicals was unmistakeable and unforgettable.

Yes, and my god yes! And they were hard to read. The copies they made were reverses, with white pages and red, brown or green writing for some reason (and a little easier to read, but they didn't last-some would fade before the project was finished). I used to know why they were like that, but I've forgotten. As a kid I would visit both my uncles job sites and my grandpas engineering office and just check out blueprints for hours. And I had to be really careful with them, the pages were super expensive and hard to replace.

Then today I got some plans emailed to me on my phone, sent them to the printer at the office, from the phone, from 100k away, while driving 100km/hr and picked them up off the printer an hour later when I got to the shop. For about 5$ worth of paper, ink and data usage. I really do feel old.

[Cazzi]

Confused the heck outta me until I saw you lived in GMT; so Commander Armstrong, I assume?

Oh yes :-)

[Ironclad Alibi]

Anybody remember actual blue blueprints? I've never seen one myself, but my father told me the smell of the chemicals was unmistakeable and unforgettable.

As was the smell of freshly mimeographed copies.

I recall stories of some dishonest students digging through the school trash before a test to find the stencils used to make copies of the test so they could look up the answers beforehand.