Questions that make you feel old.

[AdminAssistant]

Every Breath You Take by the Police, which I long knew as "that song Puff Daddy sampled".

PS. "Rush Rush" was one of my favorite songs, like, ever. Spellbound was a great album!

[Rapscallion]

Back in retail, and this is over five years back now, I was on both sides of this.

Youngster was in, so I chatted while mater was shopping.

"Learn much in school today?"

"We did the Falklands."

"Oh yes, I remember watching it closely on the news. Counting the planes out and counting them back again and all that."

"Yeah, we did thaty in history."

Ouch!

Second time was a teenage girl going on about how her favourite band was the Beastie Boys.

"Are they still stealing VW symbols?"

"Eh?"

"When I was a teenager, they were wearing VW symbols as medallions, and their fans then were stealing them from cars."

"When you were ... you mean they're old?"

Heh.

Rapscallion

[El Pollo Guerrera]

My reminiscing about the Evil Dead movies brought up another story from many years ago... When "Army of Darkness" came out on video, I was watching it with a bunch from the club, and of course, I'm the oldest guy in the building. I hadn't seen it before, so when the village elder tells Ash the magic words needed to get the Necromonicon safely, I laugh out loud.

Then I have to explain where "Klaatu... Barata... Nikto" comes from.

Granted, I'm not THAT old, but I had at least HEARD of the movie...



And, another one... does anyone else here remember having to park your hard drive before moving your computer?

[Rapscallion]

And, another one... does anyone else here remember having to park your hard drive before moving your computer?

Damn you for dating me! Not in the romantic sense either!

Who here cut their teeth on boot disks with different config.sys and autoexec.bat files?

Rapscallion

[draggar]

And, another one... does anyone else here remember having to park your hard drive before moving your computer?

MFMs.

Who here cut their teeth on boot disks with different config.sys and autoexec.bat files?

New techs today don't even know what a boot disc is.

[SG15Z]

Sorry Jester, you can't be the cranky old fart of the forum. El Pollo is older than you. So on you and your need to one-up people!

I may only be 23 but I still get tired of "Who's Bill Nye?" questions!!

He's the science guy! "Inertia is a property of matter. Bill bill bill bill..."

The yellow thing...that's currently being used as a monitor riser Considering how much info is on the 'net now, I'm actually surprised those things are still in print. I've been in my house nearly 4 years, and I've only opened a phone book once. Such a waste of paper

But if you *really* want to feel old, tell a younger person that you once played Space Invaders or Pac Man on an Atari...

*raises hand* I've played both on an Atari. And not one of those joystick Atari things, no the real Atari. My parents knew how to raise me correctly. Good times....

[Stormraven]

Damn you for dating me! Not in the romantic sense either!

Who here cut their teeth on boot disks with different config.sys and autoexec.bat files?

Rapscallion

Been there, done that. Not much, I wasn't heavily into computers, but I did have to park hard drives for a time, and I definitely remember different bat files.

[NiennasMaid]

I was talking to a high-school aged kid about Avatar the other day, explaining that I thought it was fun, but a pretty lousy storyline, as is typical with James Cameron films.

Her: Oh really? I haven't seen any of his other films. But I suppose I really should see Titanic, since it's a classic.

Me: Classic? That was when I was in high school!!! There is no freaking way that can be considered a classic!

I also get ticked off when the Oldies station in my area decides to play songs that came out during my lifetime. I am 27, NONE of those songs are Oldies!

[Dreamstalker]

New techs today don't even know what a boot disc is.

I have a couple floppies in my kit (some are boot discs, and a handful of blanks for bios flashing--I don't really trust the within-Windows utilities), and get odd looks when I have to haul them out.

In a way I suppose it's good that "nobody needs to know DOS anymore"--it means I get called when it does become needed.

[SG15Z]

I was talking to a high-school aged kid about Avatar the other day, explaining that I thought it was fun, but a pretty lousy storyline, as is typical with James Cameron films.

Her: Oh really? I haven't seen any of his other films. But I suppose I really should see Titanic, since it's a classic.

Me: Classic? That was when I was in high school!!! There is no freaking way that can be considered a classic!

I also get ticked off when the Oldies station in my area decides to play songs that came out during my lifetime. I am 27, NONE of those songs are Oldies!

Yeah Titanic (regardless of my feelings on it) is not old enough to be a classic yet. You can't call something a classic till it's at least 30 years old. Maybe 20 years, but that's pushing it. Still it's weird when shows I watched as a kid like Home Improvement are now on Nick at Nite....

[Racket_Man]

But if you *really* want to feel old, tell a younger person that you once played Space Invaders or Pac Man on an Atari...

one better the old humungo cabinet quarter operated video games

One of my ringtones is a dialup modem handshake; never fails to get a "WTF" reaction. One kid asked me if it was some new techno music.

"What's this text saying C:\ with a blinky thing? You broke my computer!"
"DOS? What's that?"
"Nobody needs to use that anymore." (then why am I using it to salvage your computer?)

".

AHHH yes the squeal of the modem handshake. makes yours teeth hurt if listened to too long

9 years ago at my last IT joba bunch of us managed to catch a virus that just seemd to make copies of itself on you HDD. The anti-virus companies were having trouble keeping up but managed to get quick fix cure out to the public. the only problem was you had to kill off all of the copies manually (they tended to accumlate in the Restore Points Folder) AND you could not do it through Windows (XP, ME 95 or 2000 something about a file lock).

I still had a Win95 machine at home at the time, so I cloned off a DOS boot disk with AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS, COMMAND.com and a few other executables such as DEL and CHKDSK and Defrag (DOS version) to a 3 1/2 floppy. I took the floppy to work and bypassed the HDD boot to boot from the floppy drive. I was sitting there happily deleteing files when one of my co-workers asked how I was doing it. I explained and he was VERY VERY puzzled. had no knowledge of MS-DOS or of the command line commands.

[Cazzi]

And, another one... does anyone else here remember having to park your hard drive before moving your computer?

I do too

Who here cut their teeth on boot disks with different config.sys and autoexec.bat files?

I didn't quite cut my teeth on them, but I used boot disks. We had one to play the original Sid Meir's Civilization... full game on one floppy disk

And I have had possession of 5 1/4 floppies, although the first computer I got my hands on had a new fangled 3 1/2 inch floppy drive, the larger disks came included in software packs for a time.

I still have a pile of floppy drives next to my desk.. & I always have at least one computer in the house with one installed

[Jester]

I have had to explain to someone that the Korn's "Word Up" is a cover... Then I had to explain what a 'cover' was...

The first is an example of being too young. The second is an example of being too stupid.

Sorry Jester, you can't be the cranky old fart of the forum. El Pollo is older than you. So on you and your need to one-up people!

Oh, I know I'm not the oldest one here. Just got tired listening to people in their 20's bitch about being an old fart.

For the record, I am 24 days from being 40, and I can still out-party the vast majority of 20somethings here. And that is the only way I try to one-up anyone.

We need that story.

I'm sure I've told it in here before. But the short version:

1992. I'm 21, with long hair. Technically a mullet, though that word had not yet come into popular usage, at least not where I was. I decided, as a lark, to run for Mayor. I go about filing all the appropriate paperwork, getting all the necessary signatures, and actually got myself on the ballot as an official candidate. My opponents were a 26 year old grad student who took himself way too seriously, and the incumbent Mayor, who was very popular, and at that point in his career had never lost an election in his life. (He is currently a U.S. Senator, by the way.) And I had an absolute blast with it, doing newspaper and radio interviews, fending off calls from companies that tried to sell me all kinds of campaign material (though the idea of having my own pencils and other things appealed to me--if I were to do it all again, I would have beer coozies printed!), and spending all of five dollars on the campaign (mostly for running off copies of necessary documents). My friend His Majesty was my treasurer and, due to his bumbling incompetence, almost got me thrown out of the election. The highlights for me were walking into a polling place on election day, having one of the poll workers see my ID and saying, "Oh, a candidate!", and seeing my name on an actual ballot (at which point I seriously considered voting for someone else, just to be an asshole--but didn't); watching the anchors on the major network affiliates in Phoenix forced to announce my name on the air when the returns came in; and the Defeat Party we had at a bar Election Night.

For the record, I got 5% of the votes, garnering votes in every district in town...to this day, I only know 12 people who voted for me, so I am pretty impressed with my showing. And without question, I got the best return on my investment. After all, how many candidates can claim a percentage point for every dollar they spent?

Hold up, that doesn't make sense. She should have learned about it in history. (Yes, NOW I'm making all of you feel old).

I cannot and will not make excuses or explanations for the educational system in the Keys or any other part of Florida.

And this was apparently true when I was 18, but I don't understand it. I don't understand how anyone in high school who is able to vote would survive not doing so. I mean you could try to hide the fact from all your friends, but all the people who's birthdays are after the election date would KILL you if they knew that you could vote when they couldn't, but chose not to.

I don't know what high school YOU went to, but voting was not exactly the "cool" thing to do in my high school, or my college, or the high schools of any of my nieces or their friends or my friends' kids. Hell, if it interfered with fashion or drugs or MTV or rock concerts or getting laid or getting wasted or the prom, it was summarily ignored.

On Facebook somewhat recently, a coworker did one of the "what song was #1 on the day you were born?" apps and got Paula Abdul's "Rush, Rush".

For me: The Beatles' "The Long and Winding Road."

But if you *really* want to feel old, tell a younger person that you once played Space Invaders or Pac Man on an Atari...

Shit, I remember when they came out....in arcade version!

Then I have to explain where "Klaatu... Barata... Nikto" comes from.

The only thing I can think of is "Willow." And if it's not that, I have no idea either.

Her: Oh really? I haven't seen any of his other films. But I suppose I really should see Titanic, since it's a classic.

Me: Classic? That was when I was in high school!!! There is no freaking way that can be considered a classic!

I hate to tell you this, but it is indeed a classic. Sorry.

[Midorikawa]

one better the old humungo cabinet quarter operated video game

I have a Super Mario cabinet in my living room behind me. :-D found it for $50 at a garage sale.

had no knowledge of MS-DOS or of the command line commands.

This saddens me. Last I recall, it was still occasionally necessary to use DOS, especially when Windows gets taken over by a virus. Although, it's also just as easy to throw in a Knoppix disk and do things thattaway too.

In a way I suppose it's good that "nobody needs to know DOS anymore"--it means I get called when it does become needed.

It's been ages since I've had to touch anything Microsoft related other than my xbox, and I like it that way. That said, I can remember all the commands to it, once I get past my linux-geek "ls-instead-of-dir" reflex. :-P

...Although, I remember a few commands from my dad's Apple II even. It's a pretty strange feeling going to the computer museum in California, and seeing hardware you used as a kid on display. "Hey! I remember that! ...oh...wow...guess that hardware is 20 years old. sheesh."

They had an Apple II with a KoalaPad setup next to it. For those who haven't used one, KoalaPads are an early version of modern Wacom graphic tablets, just use your finger, or a retracted ball point pen instead of a nifty pressure sensitive pen. My dad had one on his Apple II when I was a kid. Spent hours playing with it, and learning how these nifty whirring beige boxes worked.

[draggar]

*raises hand* I've played both on an Atari. And not one of those joystick Atari things, no the real Atari. My parents knew how to raise me correctly. Good times....

Funny how you can fit an Atart 2600 emulator and over 500 games on a 1.44.

Wait, what's a 1.44?

This saddens me. Last I recall, it was still occasionally necessary to use DOS, especially when Windows gets taken over by a virus. Although, it's also just as easy to throw in a Knoppix disk and do things thattaway too.

Also checking network settings in a command prompt is far easier than though Windows. It's easier to reset them, too. Ping, tracert, etc.