What I’ve noticed over the past 62 years
or
Memories from the BeforeTimes.
Part
1
62
years.
Sixty
– two years.
Siiixxx
– teeeeee – twooooo FUCKING YEARS!
That’s
how long I’ve been stumbling around this once (though no longer, thnx to us)
beautiful planet, which I’m sure is a hefty kick in the nuts to all those who
voted me ‘Most likely to be dead by age 30’.
Although, in their defense, it’s not like I didn’t try. Between really
bad judgment, oceans of alcohol washing down inhuman amounts of every kind of
pill, paired up with the vigorous, enthusiastic abuse of more substances than
most people even know exist, I would not have bet against them. In fact, I’m probably more surprised than
they are, having more than doubled the life expectancy they saw fit to estimate
for me. But what surprises me even
more is some of the shit I’ve seen and done during those years. Here are just a few examples, in no
particular order and hopefully real, not just some instances of the Mandela Effect.
Telephones – if someone
wanted to get hold of you, they had to call you at home because the phone was
physically attached to the wall. If you were already talking to someone, any
other callers got a ‘busy’ signal, no call waiting or voice mail. Plus, you
could lie about where you were if necessary, not like today, where your friends
can locate you via GPS. No touch screens or push buttons either, just a good
old rotary dial and only one ring tone – an actual physical bell inside the
phone.
Video Players -- When
we got to see a video in class, it was a massive effort – couple guys from the
Audio Visual club would wheel in the video player on a huge cart (the machine
was too heavy and awkward to carry), then they’d pull out the giant reel of
video tape, one inch at first, then down to a mere half inch a few years later,
and thread the tape through a complicated series of cogs and slots. Before
tapes, I recall filmstrips and scratchy 16mm film projectors. The first VCRs I saw for home use were
around $2,000, and the first of the ongoing format wars was fought out between
VHS and BETAMAX.
Electronics
– My generation’s level of tech savvy can be summed up in three words – Pong
Impressed Us. Big groups of us would skip out of school,
get baked on shitty Colombian dirt weed, and spend 5 or 6 hours having
tournaments, stunned rigid that we could play table tennis right in our living
room. We never got bored with that
stupid square pixilated ‘ball’ because we had never seen anything like it before,
and years later, you could still see the tell tale ball and paddles burned into
the TV screen, eternal witness to the biggest technological breakthrough in
home entertainment the world had seen thus far. It was only a couple of years before SPACE INVADERS and ASTEROIDS
came out, (big, standup arcade machines, we had to wait for home versions), and
we knew we were diving headlong into the marvelous Future the 50’s had promised
us, and meals in pill form couldn’t be far behind.
Calculators – The first electronic calculators we
saw were from Texas Instruments, about twice the size of a paperback, and cost
around $350. Once again, these portable math computers that anyone could own
astounded us. Boy, we were living right out there in the fucking sci-fi future!
Home
Computers- I
remember the first computer store opening in Semiahmoo Mall, in White Rock, and we got
curious and went for a look. I’m going to keep this short, mainly due to the
embarrassment re: what was thought of as a ‘home computer’ back in the Before
Times. Ready? Here we go - Huge, bulky
desk top system with a monochrome screen, heavy as fuck, less memory than a
wristwatch has today, everything had to be loaded separately on big 5.5inch
floppy disks all for the low low price of around $20,000. We didn’t get one.
Next time, we’ll get into Color TV, Cable TV and what we
had to go through if we wanted to view an ‘Adult’ movie at home.
Please
feel free to comment, let me know what advances you remember, no matter what
era you hail from, and, as always
Be
safe and don’t take any shit!
T.R.S.