When I Was Your Age....

[Jester]

Speaking of out of date computers, while The Bar uses a very modern Aloha touch screen system that absolutely rocks, the Waterfront Bar still uses an antiquated computer system that has a green on green screen, and to enter stuff you have to hit various different numbers that come up on menus, i.e., if you hit domestic beer, 11 might be for Bud, 12 might be for Bud Light, etc., right down the list. I literally had not worked on a system that out of date in over ten years before I started working there. Not since my days in the brewpub, which was 1996!

[DGoddessChardonnay]

The computer screens were all green (or orange) text on a black background and you had to type in commands to get it to do anything.

That was my first monitor . . . a 13 inch Magnovox with amber monochrome that I used with my Commodore 64C.

Remember using graph paper to plot out the sprite animations so you could key in the coordinates onto the computer using BASIC? That was cool.

COBOL and RPGII were fun back in the computer lab in high school, too. I wish I could remember how to do it.

[jnd4rusty]

I remember the day ELVIS died. People were so sad, my mom cried alot.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Speaking of out of date computers, while The Bar uses a very modern Aloha touch screen system that absolutely rocks, the Waterfront Bar still uses an antiquated computer system that has a green on green screen, and to enter stuff you have to hit various different numbers that come up on menus, i.e., if you hit domestic beer, 11 might be for Bud, 12 might be for Bud Light, etc., right down the list. I literally had not worked on a system that out of date in over ten years before I started working there. Not since my days in the brewpub, which was 1996!

B&N cafe used a similar menu system; I used to ring once in a while when they had a line and someone was on break, and if I was ringing for one of the guys I'd call over the drink to him and he'd call back the code for me. Now they're all cool with the touch screens and stuff, too.

[edible_hat]

I remember Grandad taking me to town to buy "Do The Bartman" by Bart Simpson. the first 45 i ever bought.

What a coincidence, The Simpsons Sing the Blues was the first CD I ever bought. I still have it somewhere.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

I remember the day ELVIS died. People were so sad, my mom cried alot.

I remember that too. My grandmother was awfully upset over it.

On a lighter note, does anyone remember these 8-track players?

[Jack T. Chance]

I was born in 1970. So much of this is amusing to me. When I was "your age," whatever the hell age that is.......

Tattoos were on sailors or outlaw bikers only. They were not fashion statements, let alone by suburban white kids.

Speaking of bikers, "bikers" were a collection of hardcore and dangerous outlaws that rode their hogs through towns, ran drug rings, and generally lived outside the norms of legal society. They were not lawyers and software engineers who trucked their gleaming new Harleys in on trailers to ride around for a few days for the "bike rally."

Gee, that reminds me of the bad stereotype of bikers you see in old episodes of Knight Rider from the 1980s!

Getting back to my childhood, I remember with much distaste corduroy pants. Even back them I hated them, but they were part of the norm. Please tell me those fucking things have been launched into space and exploded. All of them. For you younger folks you haven't a clue what I am talking about, these were torture devices disguised as pants that made an annoying sound when you walked, as the fabric of the inner legs rubbed together to create a "swish" sound. Corduroy pants sucked!

-=SNIP!=-

Especially if they did away with corduroy pants.

Ah, "whistle britches", I remember those atrocities!

Good riddance, I say!

I really don't think there was ever a time when they were cool. Let alone when everyone thought so.

Seconded!

They still do stuff like that, with all kinds of things. If you have ever been to a resort that has their own label of wine, for example, trust me when I tell you they don't have a vineyard in the back. Generally, resorts license with vineyards to buy the vineyard's wine and have it labeled with the resort's label. When I worked at a resort in Phoenix, for example, our "resort wine" was actually just relabeled Fetzer.

But there are many other examples of rebranding, my friend. The practice has not discontinued at all.

Oh, I know. Anything you see at Best Buy under their Insignia brand is made by other electronics manufacturers and relabeled with the Insignia name. Take my "Insignia" portable DVD player... based on clues from the system menus and exterior design elements, it seems to have been made for Best Buy by Philips/Magnavox.

Try sitting around with the family playing Monopoly.....on a board.

How about going to a school and playing MonopolE on the school computer, because the software programmers were too cheap to pay for the license to the real thing!

You mean he doesn't eat cookies anymore? Why not? And if he doesn't, do they still call him Cookie Monster?

Just in case you missed it on the prior page....

As BookstoreEscapee pointed out, in an effort to be more PC, the producers of the show have now forced Cookie Monster to refer to cookies as a "sometimes" food, that are not healthy to eat all the time!

The computer screens were all green (or orange) text on a black background and you had to type in commands to get it to do anything.

Bet you wouldn't belive me if I tell you that at work I use a system that operates on that very basis.

Ah, good ol' Monochrome. Grew up futzing around with a hand-me-down Apple //e, complete with original Apple green-screen monitor. Whenever a program called for color, it'd appear as some sort of goofy pattern on the screen, making using the color demonstration portion of the Apple Presents Apple demo disk rather surreal...
-Adam

Speaking of out of date computers, while The Bar uses a very modern Aloha touch screen system that absolutely rocks, the Waterfront Bar still uses an antiquated computer system that has a green on green screen, and to enter stuff you have to hit various different numbers that come up on menus, i.e., if you hit domestic beer, 11 might be for Bud, 12 might be for Bud Light, etc., right down the list. I literally had not worked on a system that out of date in over ten years before I started working there. Not since my days in the brewpub, which was 1996!

Yeah, well, when I worked for the now-defunct Rockaway Bedding in '06 and '07, they used a computer system called "Storis"... which was the very latest in computer technology.... circa 1986!

Oh yeah, it DEFINITELY had the green, monochrome screens. When a customer would try to get me to match an online price (which we did not do) and would ask me "can't you pull it up on your computer?" I'd laugh and then SHOW THEM what I was working with! We were lucky that we could get email on the blasted things!

From what I've heard, Mattress Discounters was also using Storis at the same time.... and still does, as far as I know.

[AdamAnt316]

On a lighter note, does anyone remember these 8-track players?

Ah yes, the Weltron 2001 "Space Ball"! I currently have mine sitting on top of my Farfisa Compact combo organ in the basement studio. It doesn't have a whole lot to do with the instrument setup, though I did find out by accident that it's FM section is able to pick up the spurious noises my ARP Solus synthesizer spits out when I have it set to free-run. Most of the time, though, it serves as a quasi-mascot, as well as a nice hat stand.

[freeatlast]

On a lighter note, does anyone remember these 8-track players?

When I was in high school, the family a babysat for every weekend had one of those 8 track players - it also had an AM/FM radio which I used to listen to Dr Demento anytime I babysat on Sunday night.

I remember when Elvis died - it was the summer after I graduated from high school and I had a summer job at a bank. One of the ladies I worked with had taken the afternoon off and called us with the news. Several of my co-workers started crying when they heard about it. His last concert had been just a couple of months before right here in Indiana.

[Lachrymose]

...big pic of synths and schtuff.

Holy crap! My parents had that same brown organy type thing. I think they still might.

Funny thing is, neither played, but I ended up the musical one out of our family.

I still remember how long the organ took to warm up!

[Jester]

I don't clearly remember the day that Elvis died, though I was 7 and definitely cognizant of the world around me, but I very much remember the day John Lennon was assassinated. It was, as fate would have it, my 10th and a half birthday. (What? You folks remember half birthdays, right?) I remember the radio playing non-stop Beatles and Lennon stuff, and my older sister (14 at the time) just freaking out. My parents were a little shocked, but being older, not that completely affected as some were. Hell, when the Beatles came out, my parents really didn't care for them all that much. At least my mom didn't. (She loves them now, though.)

[AdamAnt316]

Holy crap! My parents had that same brown organy type thing. I think they still might.

Funny thing is, neither played, but I ended up the musical one out of our family.

I still remember how long the organ took to warm up!

Which of the brown organ-y type things are you referring to?

Assuming it's the one on the right in the picture, yeah, the Magnus does take a few seconds to warm up (not as long as the red Farfisa, however). as the cheap blower motor creeps up to speed. Once it does, though, pseudo-accordion noises abound. Not quite my favorite among the arsenal, but I can play a mean rendition of Van Halen's "Jump" with it...
-Adam
aka Dr. Optigan

[JenCdn]

Ok, this thread is making me feel nostalgically happy and very old at the same time!

I remember:

• Micheal Jackson before the 'tragic' Pepsi commercial
• thick, flourescent shoelaces that had to be aligned just right and never tied up. Usually on your Adidas
• break dancing on huge pieces of cardboard
• Saturday morning cartoons, two words: Captain Caveman!
• being able to send take out food to friends/enemies houses because *69 and call display did not exist yet
• calling 911 when we first got it in our area and nearly crapping my pants when they called back after I hung up on them
• buying a bag of Doritos Cool Ranch and a small bottle of Coke for less than $1.50
• "new" Coke
• Doc Martens, Tretorns, workman pants and Levis 501s
• Carrying my "boom box" to school everyday, even though the thing weighed about 15 lbs.!

[Jpurple]

I'm disappointed- no one has mentioned the best 'olden-days' way of destroying your knees: (cause knee pads were for hockey!)
ROLLER SKATES! I had a metal pair that you tightened with a key, and perpetually disgusting knees from the age of 8-11!
None of this Roller Blade nonsense with the helmets and the padding and the excessive speed, you had to have heavy, noisy roller skates!

[Lachrymose]

Which of the brown organ-y type things are you referring to?

Assuming it's the one on the right in the picture, yeah, the Magnus does take a few seconds to warm up (not as long as the red Farfisa, however). as the cheap blower motor creeps up to speed. Once it does, though, pseudo-accordion noises abound. Not quite my favorite among the arsenal, but I can play a mean rendition of Van Halen's "Jump" with it...
-Adam
aka Dr. Optigan

Yup, that's the one. The Magnus (although I can't really remember the name and it doesn't ring a bell at all).

And "pseudo-accordian noises abound". That's for sure!