When I Was Your Age....

[Bright_Star]

Up until 1975, Cable TV didn't exist.

I remember the years before anyone had ever heard of VCR's & so if you wanted to watch a movie you went to a theatre or you caught it on the late, late show. Miss either one of those & you were screwed...lol.

Test patterns. Back in the day after the late show, tv stations went off the air & all you saw was this pattern on the tv which doesn't exist anymore.

45's, 33 1/3's & 8-Track tapes...lol.

Playing outside all day every Saturday & Sunday & not coming back home till the street lights came on.

Laying around the local park in sleeping bags & watching fireworks on the 4th of July & staying there with everybody else till EVERYBODY fell asleep.

Putting a screw driver in place of the knob on the tv cause you broke it by turning it too fast...lol.

[Jack T. Chance]

I believe I'm guilty of having used that phrase. I remember things like:
1. loooooong phone cords: Mom would stretch it out 5 feet to get out the back door & close the door to get away from us.

2. our black/white TV in the den, with no remote and actual channel DIALS, one of which was UHF

3. not having to wear a seatbelt because Mom's car was manufactured before that law

4. The days of playgrounds without the benefit of rubber mats or other safety ffeatures

5. the days of riding my bike all over the extended neighborhood from 9:00am to 9:00pm, coming home only for snacks

6. the choices for video game systems were: Atari, Atari, or Atari

I remember all of those.... although it was my half-sister that had the Atari 2600... but hers came from Sears, so it was rebranded with the Sears name on it 'cuz they did that back in those days.

When we finally got colour TV our Atari had to go as it only worked on B & W.

Man, I don't know why that was... my half-sister's 2600 clearly worked on her color TV. I remember spending many happy hours playing KABOOM! with her in FULL COLOR!

I never thought Power Rangers were cool.

Same here. I remember the very first time I tuned into Mighty Moron Flower Arrangers... I remember thinking to myself "self, this is just a very cheesy, D-grade, live-action rip-off of Voltron... and then I changed the channel!

When I was your age.....

56k Dial up was the fastest internet connection speed

And it STILL sucked ass, even then!

Doctors and Drug Dealers weren't the only ones that had beepers

If you wanted to make your own mix, you had to press the record/play button to record your favorite songs from the radio on your cassette tapes

The only two portable gaming systems were either the Gameboy (which was the thick one that had the spinach green screen) or the Game Gear (from Sega).

The only way to record your shows and/or skip commercials was by VHS.

Social networking was either chat rooms or IM and yes, that was life before MySpace,Twitter,Facebook and such. (that would shock the 15 and under crowd )

Shoot, I remember when social networking meant meeting people face-to-face and getting their phone number, which meant a LAND LINE that they might not always be near to answer it!

[Bradester]

The Simpsons was a horrifyingly crude television show that would bankrupt our nation's morals.

Playing Oregon Trail on computers with color(!) monitors was the height of technological entertainment in the classroom.

Ashtrays were common sights in restaurants, office buildings, and teachers' lounges.

Geography lessons required you to locate the USSR and East Germany on a map.

The words 'rad' and 'bogus' were used without irony.

Most educational movies were viewed on filmstrips, with the exception of Reading Rainbow or Slim Goodbody on the library TV on Fridays.

The Mickey Mouse Club was still somewhat relevant.

Those California Raisins were a riot.

[Kagato]

I am too...and I'm only 33!

and every once in a while you had to dangle it from way up high to get it to untangle itself.



It's not black and white, but we still have one of those in the basement by the treadmill. I think it's 13 inches and it used to be the kitchen TV when I was a kid.


OK, well, I always had to wear a seatbelt.



Nothing better than hanging upside down above some hard-packed dirt!



and no helmets! When I was 11 I got a ten-speed for Christmas (purple ) and I was really just a little too short to ride it, but that didn't stop me.



we had a Texas Instruments system... every once in a while it would freeze and you'd pull out the cartridge and blow in it. My brother's friend had Colecovision - Smurfs and Qbert!

My dad used to have a Magnavox Odyssey... Can't go back any further than that, it was the VERY first video game system ever released, and it was released in 1972. Did stuff all as well, it relied on pictures you physically stuck on the tv screen itself, all the system did was generate 2 lines and a dot similar to Pong, but you could move the lines anywhere on the screen, thus allowing you to use the "layovers" for various games. EDIT: It didn't make any sound either.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I see your Atari and raise you a Pong. Dip. Dip. Dip. Dip.

I used to tape shows with a portable audio cassette player. I used to dream about cool it would be if there was a device that could capture picture, too. How cool would that be, to be able to record and play back an entire show??

Yeah, I thought the video cassete recorder was AMAZING.

Cable TV consisted of waiting till all the regular stations went black at around midnight to 2am (upon which they'd play either the American anthem or a guy reciting "High Flight". ), then wrapping a wad of tinfoil and a crushed pie pan on the rabbit ears of your black and white TV, propping your foot up on the top, and seeing what you could get on the channels you didn't normally get (you did this late at night when the airwaves were sparser.)

Mr. Rodgers' hair was black.

Candy cost a couple cents and was worth about a dollar, not the other way around.

[hinakiba777]

okay i thought of some

1) If you wanted to listen to music while working out you used a walkman. ANd if you wanted to skip a song you had to press fast forward and stop in rapid succession because you didn't want to miss the beginning of the next song. Since most portable taple players only had Fast Forward, so you had to flip the cassette to rewind. If you wanted more than twenty songs you had to carry a back pack full of cassettes

2) If you were out and you needed to call home. You either called from your friends house or found a payphone.

3) Due to the lack of "cartoon only channels" there were three times kids could see cartoons. Saturday mornings, weekdays directly before and after school.

4) I remember when Vinyl was the only options, not just something retro and alt. I still own Donald duck's smash LP "Disco Duck"

5) The only way to skip commercials was to video shows without them, or turn the dial up or down one and hope the other channel wasn't also on commercials

6) Two words= Skip-it!

7) Alpha bits was sold by a wizard!

8) Computer printed images were black and white and very pixally


Okay that's all i have right now. But as a little side note to 2; There are actually no payphones left in my hometown except two in the highschool and one in the Civic center. There aren't any in the mall, or outside stores, or anything. Which is Bloody annoying when your cell dies, you forgot your cell, or you just don't have one.

[Sonoma]

I used to tape shows with a portable audio cassette player. I used to dream about cool it would be if there was a device that could capture picture, too. How cool would that be, to be able to record and play back an entire show??

Yeah, I thought the video cassete recorder was AMAZING.

So I'm not the only one that did that? It was the only way to save those "Battlestar Galactica" episodes from the time when Starbuck was male.

[SG15Z]

I'm in the same boat. The best thing to tell them is "I remember when EVERYONE thought Power Rangers were cool." Let them shudder on that.

Yeah I'm in that boat. I totally loved Power Rangers..... leave me alone I was 5 when it started.



....Cassette tapes were still popular, but CDs were starting to get cheaper.

....the internet was practically unknown to the average joe.

...AOL first came out *shudders*

....Computer Games were released on floppy disks twice the size the ones still in use

....Gas was under $1.00

....Pluto was the 9th planet

....Having a separate phone line from your parents was the equivalent of getting a cell phone now. Only more rare.

....The console wars consisted of SEGA and Nintendo. Guess who won.

....Metal playgrounds with Merry-go-rounds, animals on springs, and the playground ground was nothing but rocks that always somehow got stuck inside your shoe.

....sitcoms were still popular forms of television.

....there were only 3 Star Wars films, and they rocked!

....cartoons were funny, and still used anvils, cannons, and guns as a form of slapstick comedy. (those were the days....)

....movies still used models and clayanimation, and computer effects was still a rather new and unrealistic-looking option for visFX.


....and I'm only 20....the world is changing way too fast.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

So I'm not the only one that did that? It was the only way to save those "Battlestar Galactica" episodes from the time when Starbuck was male.

No, you were not alone. I liked taping sitcoms (but BG was one of my favorite shows). Happy Days, Fish, any variety show that had someone I liked on it (like, for instance the Hudson Brothers or the Bay City Rollers or Peter Frampton. ) Oh, yeah, Frampton was on Black Sheep Squadron once and I taped that.

First time I ever saw Queen was on The Midnight Special.

So as not to hijack this thread, I'm starting one about concerts. Anyone who liked going to concerts, meet me there.

[SG15Z]

6) Two words= Skip-it!

Skip-It! rocked! I was pretty good at it. Though I haven't seen one in years.

[Kagato]

....The console wars consisted of SEGA and Nintendo. Guess who won.

If you went back to the 80's and tried to tell someone that in the new century there would be Sonic games on the Nintendo, they would probably call you a dirty rotten liar =p

[Racket_Man]

When I was your age.....

56k Dial up was the fastest internet connection speed

If you wanted to make your own mix, you had to press the record/play button to record your favorite songs from the radio on your cassette tapes

)

reel to reel tape was the high end of audio recording. then came cassettes and I made my mixes by putting my stereo speakers by my little cassette recorder and p;laying various album cuts


I remember when 300 BPS was the bomb and there was no publicly avalaible internet or WWW all you could do was access single user at a time BBS's. the modem for the below computer was $500

an Apple][+ was the latest and greatest thing esp with a TV interface for color

when a computer was the size of a full sized Hummer and punched cards still ruled the day

gas was 15 cents a gallon and it was full service only and they only sold gas and maybe some candy bars

you could get a HUGE Herserys bar for 5 cents and get a 3 foot long Pixie stick for 10 cents

we had several corner mom and pop grocery stores within 4 blocks each having a full service butcher shop in them and everyone knew your name and family

coffee came only in one flavor: black

we had neighborhood barbershops not Style Centers

you could buy a brand new Mustang for $1500

[SG15Z]

If you went back to the 80's and tried to tell someone that in the new century there would be Sonic games on the Nintendo, they would probably call you a dirty rotten liar =p

Heck I'd be one of them.

[SengaKitty]

*I had My Little Ponies: The Movie (When it was the ONLY My little ponies movie) on VHS
*Watching TGIF with my family EVERY Friday, after having a family dinner. This was back when Dinosaurs, Family Matters, Full House, and (I think?) America's Funniest Home Videos was what was on.
*Two words, Candy Cigarettes (at 10 cents a box).
*Having a banana seat bike, and being proud to have one.
*Playing Monopoly on a DOS based computer
*Playing games like Oregon Trail and Math Blaster was fun time in school!

ETA: I also loved the Power Rangers, and remember my brother (then at LEAST 10, but probably more like 12) writing what we would today call fan fic, but then he called them alternate scripts for the Power Rangers. Then playing them out with our friends! OUTSIDE!

[Rapscallion]

When I was your age...

the dead sea was just a little poorly.

Docs were the height of fashion.

ditto for two-tone trousers (had to squint to see the effect).

a 16Kb RAM pack for the ZX81 was grounds for serious cred.

you always made the heaviest of your group go on the rope swing over the ravine* last, because if it broke and they plummetted at least you'd had your go.

Rapscallion

(* actually a gully, but ravine sounds more amusing).