×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You Know You're Old/Young If ...

(OP)
I have been reading various comments in the fora which seems to date the poster as "old" or "young" sometimes.

I though maybe there is sufficient interest to compile a list to help the old identify with the young, and the young to identify with the old.

If you are in between, I guess pick a side?

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You're old if you still have a "drafting pad" on your middle finger even though you haven't touched a drafting board in 20yrs.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
Steven K. Roberts, Technomad
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

(OP)
Dang! I do. surprise

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Uh oh...

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

(OP)
You know your old if you know what an eraser shield is - and still use one.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Or an Ames template

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Hey!
I'm young and I know what an eraser shield is, and I've even used it.
I cut my teeth on real drafting, the kind with the pencil and board, back in the 90s, used a template too.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

... or an eight-track tape!
... or 5.25 floppy

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You know you're young when you had your first computer class in 1st grade (they were macs but I won't hold that against them).pc3

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Hi Boys!

Now you are looking like the old guys of Muppets show on the theatre gallery.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Muppets???
rofl

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

.. or an eight-track tape!
... or 5.25 floppy

I still call CDs record albums. A CD is where you put your money and hope to get some interest.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

No blinking it. At 79, I am old.  Doesn't stop me from trying to do things. Young at heart I guess.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You know you are young if you can't ever remember The Simpson's not being on television.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
Steven K. Roberts, Technomad
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Funny how the award shows still have "Album of the year" and "Record of the year". Why not "CD of the year"?
But, CD's will be gone in 5 years.

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

...what about an 8 inch floppy?

Brian

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Or virtual realy

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You know you're young when you look forward to learning new software, new technology or new design theory instead of groaning about it.

You know you're getting old when you start telling the "...went to school and had to walk up hill both ways..." stories.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You know you're old when, living here in O.C. CA:
You used to 'watch the cows come home', and walk down a sidewalk and pick strawberries.

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

you know you're young when the first program you open every morning is winamp.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You know you're really young when you can chat with a friend on the phone, read a book, watch TV, listen to music and chat with 2 friends online...all at the same time....I can only manage two or three of these simultaneously...guess I'm getting old ;)

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Or the venerable RLO1 and RL02 hard drives?  
Or that disk "platters" used to be big than a large pizza pan?
Or the ASR33 terminal and punchtape?
Or a Nixie tube?

TTFN



RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Linen drawings and eraser machines anyone.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Hey Mad Mango...for the last 20+ years (we know where that puts me), I've been using my middle finger for "opinion  signalization", which has kept it routinely occupied.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You know you're young when your boss tells you his teenage daughter has a crush on you, then gives you the worst look ever. I avoided him for a week after that.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

ziggi,
Can you explain that in pictures?viking2
laughtears

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

(OP)
That is young! rofl

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You know you're old when you remember thinking a 50mb Zip Drive was the next best thing to sliced bread (and that wasn't long ago).

You know you're young if you type faster with your thumbs than all 10 fingers.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
Steven K. Roberts, Technomad
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Years ago I received a 486-DX, 66Mhz machine for my B-day, which made me the coolest geek in 11th grade.  4 Megs of RAM and it even had a modem.  People were starting to talk about the "world wide web".  Windows software was on 5.25 floppies.  I'm still young....I think....

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Punch cards; programming is supposed to be done using punch cards, and hope you get the run back in less than 24 hours.  These whipper-snappers don't know how good they have it.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Suffice to say that if you've never seen a punch card for programming....then you are young.  

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I've seen punch cards - one of my professors used them in class to demonstrate the added strength of intersections.  He bent one into thirds and set it on edge on the desk (Z shape in plan).  He proceeded to very carefully put a stack of books on it and it held.  He then took another one and folded it in half and set it on edge (V shape in plan).  He then put the same stack of books on it and it collapsed.  He had two comments:  it took him a long time to find the right combination of books to fail one and not the other, and he was proud to actually find a use for all of his old computer punch cards!

The first computer I ever played with was a Tandy TRS-80 with the smooth-top keyboard at the age of 9.  I thought it was the most amazing thing.  I programmed a minesweeper game on it.

I've never used a slide-rule, though...

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Ah, the good times we had with Nastran, Fortran, and all those other "state of the art" programs.

I fall in the middle area.  I saw the rock bands in their heyday and on their reunion tours.  And then when they toured the local bars on their last legs.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You know you're old if you remember when - - -

The first step of troubleshooting electronic equipment was to check to see if all filaments were lit.

The second step was to see if any of the plates were glowing red.

You had to turn off "Caps Lock" when typing numbers on your "keyboard".

You had a "dial" on your phone.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You are old if when sending an e-mail you ask for a physical address

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Old Engineers Never Die...They Just Change Their Plans

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Let's see. I can remember:

Uploading FEA models on a 300 baud acoustic coupler to the time sharing bureau in Birmingham, who sent them over to the data centre in the USA for processing.

Backing up the FEA model onto paper tape.

Writing our own pre and post processors.

Having to calibrate FEA models against Bruhn.

Recording noise and vibration inside a sportscar on a 24 track tape recorder that weighed 25 kg, balanced on my knees.

My boss buying me a 286 with a VGA card to run MathCad v1.0

Driving back from Melbourne at 200 kph on the back roads

and these days...telling graduates to go and draw a free body diagram.

Yup, I must be turning into an old fogey.

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You know you are old when you remember life before airplanes even existed.

You know you are young when people mistake you for an intern. My response is that when I am 90 hopefully people will think I am 75.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

you know you are old when you tell someone to 'just freehand sketch it' and they look at you like they have no idea what you are talking about.

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

'Freehand sketch' is that a UGS product?bigsmile

I'm having trouble with this thread, so far I fall in the old category by more definitions than in the young but I'm only 28.  Is it just because I used to work at a fairly old fashioned company, and even now with a lot of more senior colleagues or am I old before my time?

How about, you're old if you can remember when signed hard copy was the master.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I remember when my son was born, like it was yesterday. He just graduated HS and is going to college.bugeyed
ifeelold

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Just to get away from techie geek metrics...

You are firmly middle age if you saw the Rolling Stones first "last ever" concert tour.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

KENAT...if you're an engineer, you're already old before your time by definition!

I received a Post Versalog as high school graduation present 'cause I wuz going to engineerin' school.  If ya know what a Post Versalog is....you're probably not young.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Ron was that a sort of log shaped plastic thingy filled with Post Raisin Bran?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You're getting there if you remember seeing Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers playing at the Whiskey, with the Dead Kennedys opening by playing their masterwork, "Holiday in Cambodia."

TTFN



RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You know you're old if your school computer club didn't actually have a computer.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You know you're getting there when :-

you still think a 20 Mb Hard disk is big

you hang on to the 5 1/4" diskettes you've had for 20 years in case you ever find something that'll read them again

you try to sell you're kids on how great a slide rule is because it never needs new batteries

you can't think of a drawing office without associating the small of ammonia from the dye line printer and Old Hoburn from the Chief Engineer's pipe

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

This one i read im a MAD magazine 10-15 years ago:

You know your old when you like the music they play in the elevator (lift - whatever). I still remember the drawing that came along - LOL

Best regards

Morten

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

you are young when you want to seem older and you are old when you want to seem young.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

What's a winamp?

You know your old if you have ever even seen, much less used an analog computer. (I have done both upside down )

-The future's so bright I gotta wear shades!

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

When asked to describe what Simulink is, I normally say it's a digital simulation of an analogue computer.  These days the most common reply is "what's one of those?".

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You know that your getting up there if you have drafting templates with melted spots from being tossed on your ashtray.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

... and you have arthritis from squeezing your pencil too tight.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Comcokid:  That's good about the tubes.
My first "adult" job was working graveyard at 7-11 convenience store.  Most stores had tube testers and late night, the wire-heads would bring a brown bag of tubes in and stand for a couple of hours testing them then ask me to open the storage door to get their replacements.  They'd get pretty miffed when I didn't have all the ones they needed.

(sigh) those were the days.  smile

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Some evidence that I'm over the hill:

1.  I keep my slide rule and pocket protector in my top desk drawer;
2.  I remember being taught the graphical method of determining forces in structural analysis;
3.  I have books that I bought new on my engineering library shelf older than most of my co-workers;
4.  Some of my old code books are smaller than Reader's Digest magazines.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

What is everyones opinion of listening to music through earphones at you desk?

In my office all the Engineers, say 35 years and under, all listen to personal music either mp3 players or using the CD drive on the pc to listen to CD's.  None of the older Engineers do this.  There have also been times where it has been commented upon as unprofessional to listen to music at work (by the older Engineers).

I have read studies that certain types of music can make you cleverer, classical and celtic for instance are supposed to raise the IQ.  On the otherhand hardcore techno and dance music is supposed to have the opposite effect.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

and I've read that those studies that connect classical music and IQ were poorly done and therefore greatly flawed. Who to believe?

As far as listening to music at work, depends on the situation. If the engineer is doing a report that has to get done that day, anything that helps her relax and finish the job, I am in favor of. While all of us would like to listen to our mp3 players during meetings, unfortunately this is an example of an inappropriate time to listen to music!

For average, everyday work, no report deadlines, etc., I would discourage mp3 players at work--around my work, lots of stuff happens (short discussions generate spontaneously, for instance) and would be missed by the mp3 listeners.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I'm a bit over 35, and I consider headphones to be a vital piece of equipment.  It is much easier to get into the flow of what I am working on with them on, provided the music is of sufficient tempo.  My ipod currently has over 2500 songs on it, with room for about 1500 more, and I create playlists to match whatever I am doing.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Ussuri when those 35 years old engineers and under change to listen classical and Celtic music they are getting deaf old people I am not sure if they are being more clever.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Quantum50 - Funny, I don't think of my self as being so old. Most Engineers are just kids who left their Erector sets, chemistry kits, Tinker toys, Tonka trucks, and Lincoln logs behind to work with more complex toys. But kids, at heart, they still are.

In my case, when I was a teenager, what you bought at the store was transistorized, but most of the things thrown away on trash day contained tubes, so my first designs were with tubes. Nowdays, I design stuff that I have to solder under a microscope that operates at frequencies that 'typical' tubes could never reach.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You know your young if you post homework questions on Eng-Tips!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"It's the questions that drive us"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

(OP)
You know your old if you build a radio, metal detector, lie detector and etc, from a Radio Shack electronics kit. (Christmas gift.)

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Amen, Comcokid.

Re. headphones; I exceed 35 by 143% (or is that 43% but that's another thread) but I find my streaming classical music invaluable.  It helps block out the conversations which don't concern me and those BLASTED speakerphones that people are too lazy to.......sorry.  Got sidetracked.

I have started listening with only one bud in so I can hear if a conversation does concern me.  I've gotten adept at keeping the music in the middle-ground, conversations in the background, and my tasks in the foreground (in case my supervisor is reading this). winky smile

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Taken from an old song;

"When it takes you all night to do what you used to do all night, you're the oldest swinger in town."

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You know you're old if you got to build a crystal radio from scratch as a school project and used the dial hook for an antenna connection

TTFN



RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You can tell the age by asking them if they still remeber smoking cigeretts at their desk...

Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

(OP)
You know you are old when you still address strangers for the first time as Mr. or Ms. (Miss. and Mrs., of course, would be too presumptuous).

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You know you're old when you complain about the younger generation (instead of being the younger generation).

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

when you say "Kids, these days..." a lot...

TTFN



RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You can always tell if somebody is old or young by the way they file things.  Ask them to find something for you.

If young: They will immediately turn to their computer,
If Old:  It is guaranteed they have a hard copy in a drawer or stack of papers somewhere that they can find just as fast.


 

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You know you are old when you start shaking your head at stories the younger generation are telling you instead of thinking, "Man, I have to try that!"

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
Steven K. Roberts, Technomad
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You know you're old when the bouncer at the dive bar that you are entering says: "How are you this evening SIR?"

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

JAE...yeah, that's it....as you get older you need the Raisin Bran!

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You know your getting old when the VERY young girl at the Hallmark store asks if you are eligable for the senior discount.   AND you are still a few years away from even thinking about that kind of stuff!

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

you're young, sort of, if you remember who Kurt Cobain was, you're old if you remember John Travolta's strut, ahh those crazy middle aged people and their crazy disco music hehehe

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Quote (IRstuff):

You know you're old if you got to build a crystal radio from scratch as a school project and used the dial hook for an antenna connection

You know your young when you have to ask what a dial hook is.  winky smile

Good one, IRstuff!

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You know that you are old for having had an "obligator" military service "in a war theater".

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You're old when people tell you that whatever bit of kit you cut your teeth on and you've still got lying around on the "nostalgia shelf" (I'll find a use for it one day") is "collectable".
My wife threw away my Amstrad PCW just about that time (to my regret) and I'm now told my old Nokia phone is now "collectable".
I suppose also if you can remeber the first digital watch, the first pocket calculators and the days when the first electronic pub games were asteroids and paddle tennis.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

OLD-When you can remember programming your own games on an Atari 800.  Also the first version of donkey Kong and space invaders, how about a tape drive for storage.  I'm only 26 but I grew up in the backwoods of Hawaii.  Your old if you dont have an Ipod or the faintest idea of how to use one.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I'm in my mid twenties too and I remember the tape drive, my buddy and I played 'Montezuma's Revenge' on it until we could barely hold anything from all the blisters on our hands. I think that game had something like 400 levels, we made it to 218.

As for the Ipod thing, I guess I am getting old, b/c it took me forever to figure out the whole spin control thingie ie. what that big circle up front is for. My 10 year old niece does it all in seconds.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I lusted after Pong.  It was too expensive for mere mortals.

I do still own my 1982 Casio fx-180P, which I got when I was 14.  Nobody takes that away from me and lives!

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I had another one of those "young" moments today...

A couple of the older engineers were just talking at lunch time about their weekends, and one mentioned that he didn't have such a great one because there was a rave in the forest a few kilometers away, and they could hear it all night & day (it lasted about 3 days).

I made sure to just shut up and keep eating, since I was at that same party...

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Oh yeah, more oldies...

LED watches -- Fairchild sunk literal truckloads of the red bezels in the Arizona desert, after having bought them for their watch line, only to see the LCD watches take over the market.

Channel F -- Fairchild's abortive attempt to compete with the likes of Atari.  Cartridges for the game are buried in another hole in the Arizona desert.

I've still got an Osborne 1, one of the first "transportable" computers.  Dang thing weighed like 35 lbs and worked very well as a boat anchor.  Came with dual 86K(!!!) floppies!!  Try getting that thing under an airliner seat winky smile  It still booted the last time I checked it about 5 yrs ago.

Daisy-wheel printers.  Got one of those in my garage as well.  

Oddly, dot-matrix printers are still available; my doctor's office uses them for multi-copy forms.



TTFN



RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

"you hang on to the 5 1/4" diskettes you've had for 20 years in case you ever find something that'll read them again"

Yup.

"You know you're old when you remember thinking a 50mb Zip Drive was the next best thing to sliced bread (and that wasn't long ago)."

Check.

Other evidence for being old:

I learned to type on a manual typewriter.
I've used BITNET and Gopher.
Few of my co-workers recognize the Bill Cosby lines I quote.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies:  FAQ731-376

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Hah, at least I learnt to type on an electric typewriter.  (I think it was electric not electronic, I can't remember the distinction now).

Dot matrix, I miss the sound of machine gun fire in the background!

I started feeling old when the people serving me in a pub or bar were older than I was.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Primarily for Electrical Engineers;

You know that you're old if you know what a "Jones Strip" is.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

If the following either interests or bores you (seen them enough), you're 'babyboomer'  -- young & old won't care(?):
The Rolling Stones Return to North America with 'A Bigger Bang' Tour -- Kicks Off September 20th in Boston
http://www.keyt.com/entertainment/3422036.html

You're old if
-- your first calculator cost more than a few of your cars,
-- high-tech was SEM software loaded from a cassette tape,
-- "Gasoline price" & "war" was a combination devoutly to be wish'd,

Middle-aged if you remember
--- "Disco sucks"
--- "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM"
and if you've added a USB card & CD drive to an old computer having both 5.25" & 3.5" drives 'just in case you ever need to transfer something.'

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

(OP)
I learned to type on a mechanical/manual typewriter.

We did have white-out strips - you back space, insert the strip over the boo-boo, and hit the key to imprint the white-out over the black ink. Repeat as necessary until the black is all covered.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You're old if......the first video you took of the kids was on full size VHS tape, side loaded into a camera that came with its' own shoulder pad (it was way too heavy to hand hold) and your balance was maintained by a battery pack in a separate holdall on the opposite shoulder - total weight iro 40lbs ! (Battery life all of 90 mins if you were lucky!)

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

you're old if you played Pong.

you're young if you can name all and every of those Pokemon things.

We can barely notice that age reference is easily enough measured from a technology point of view :D

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer Consultant
France

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Ashereng, thanks for the reminder about the whiteout strips.  I had forgotten about the whiteout reels that you could load into the selectric typewriters (IBM).  I use to have entire sentences written backwards on the strips when I decided not to say what I had emotionally inserted into a memo.  winky smile

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I remember when you would dress up in the stupidest clothes to go to a rave, it was like halloween....with bright lights.....I remember one person coming to one in scuba gear sans tank, I was dressed up as a giant frog.....ahh the good old stupid days.

You know you're old when you remember socialising with your friends on the jungle gym...now kids just mostly type, or SMS text or whatever.

I still remember the scheduled school yard fights, it was quite satisfying to see the local load mouth get his 'painful' just desserts.
I think that sort of stuff is banned nowadays, something about emotional problems. Although back then anti-social behaviour was stamped out very quickly, or at least as fast as the fist would go ;)

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

FrenchCAD, you're dating yourself.  Pokemon is so early 2000s!  (unless France only just got them).

When I learnt to type our machines had the white out tape in them but we still had to use regular correction fluid for when we did carbon copies, using separate carbon paper of course not self carbonated.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Ziggi
Would that also be when you just got on with life and took the knocks without becoming a "victim" who needs counselling and/or protecting from themselves and everyone else under health and safety legislation! I may be looking through the old rose tinted, but I'm sure it was a healthier attitude to life back then.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I once saw a typewriter....I didn't know they could come in manual or electric though...

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

White out STRIPS?  Oh so modern...
try sniffinf the original Wite-out with methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) as the solvent winky smile

TTFN



RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I remember they use to sell the solvent for Whiteout so you could squeeze every last dried-out drop from the bottle.  I thought it was so stupid to waste the money because the bottle of solvent cost the same as a bottle of whiteout.  Came with a little tiny siphon tube which didn't help much because the bottle hole was so small and surface tension equaled more solvent on the desk dissolving your other documents than into the bottle.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Who remembers eradicating fluid?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Ziggi, the chants of “Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight,” echoing across the school yard, good times.

I’d like to think I don’t count as that old but how about.

Playgrounds at school & parks which didn’t have any kind of protective flooring.  If you fell off the monkey bars or round-about you hit concrete or asphalt.

Or maybe receiving corporal punishment at school.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You're old if your high school allowed off-campus lunches and was considered an "open" campus (sans fences and metal detectors).

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
Steven K. Roberts, Technomad
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

KENAT,
I didn't even know they had protective flooring under playground monkey bars, we always had dirt, if you fall you get a mouthful of grass hehehe, it sucked when it happened to you but it sure was funny when it happened to someone else hehehe.

Here's another one:
You're old if you've actually been in a school yard fight which didn't involve weapons of any sort.

Come to think of it the fights were very well set up considering whom set them up, they were always far from the school buildings and any trees or equipment and always on grass, ie. by the time a teacher got there, it was over; and the only pain would come from your opponent.

I remember my first (and only) fight, I won, yay me, my opponent and I became great friends after that.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I'm gonna sound like someone from a Dudley Moore Sketch but,

In my day grass/dirt was considered protective flooring.  Certainly compared to the alternative of concrete or more usually asphalt.

These days the little brats get bark & rubber matting.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You're old if you start quoting Dudley Moore...

peace Sorry, I couldn't resist the urge.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
Steven K. Roberts, Technomad
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

oh, speaking of school, we had ditto machines and mimeograph machines winky smile

TTFN



RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You know you are old:

if you know what a Foxboro 40 is and can change the chart and tune the constants

if you were around when that little ol' band from Texas (Z Z Top) became popular

if you ever pumped gas at $0.25/gallon

if you paid $100 for your first car and it started and ran fine for many years

if there was no FM on the radio dial

if records only played mono

if you had the pleasure to meet Dr. Warren L. McCabe in person while at university


Good luck,
Latexman

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Ok, I got another one that I see all the time...you know you're old if you use the eyesight on a digital camera instead of the relatively enormous 3" screen on the back....

and then you still need someone to explain to you how to use it....

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

(OP)
Quantum50,

The whiteout/black ink tapes were a much more recent invention.

The whiteout strips that you had to insert manually is more old school.

rofl

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

With the little plastic holder for the whiteout strips (or maybe a big long roll of whiteout strip) that stuck to the side of the typewriter with double-sided foam tape...

Hg

Eng-Tips policies:  FAQ731-376

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

OK, so maybe I'm not old by the white out strip test.

That said I just thought of a good one.

You're old if you witnessed one of the Zeppelin Raids on the UK during WWI.

I just thought of this because one radio show in the UK used to have the zeppelin club for such people.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Mmmm...the smell of freshly minted dittos.  Only the suck-ups (teacher's pets) got to hand them out.  Then you'd read it and realize it was another pop quiz.  One of those whoosh-bang moments.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Quote (KENAT):

FrenchCAD, you're dating yourself.  Pokemon is so early 2000s!  (unless France only just got them).

no I'm not. I'm older that that, I grew up with first PCs and Nintendo NES (Famicom in U.S. I believe). But I have a sister 10 years younger than me who grew up with Pokemon and knew all of them by heart...well, you could tell me if was not better to know all Alex Kid and Super Mario Bros levels but I do believe it was better to know that rather than Pokemon things...

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer Consultant
France

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Alex Kid, Nintendo NES with Duck Hunt, ahh the memories...

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Aha!  I finally understand all those "Whiteout" posts.  Over here we call it Tippex.  Whiteout is more to do with snow.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You know your old (or have an antique auto hobby) if you have ever had to change points and condenser on a car, and while you were there adjusted timing and carburator settings. My Dad once got the distributor rotor in backwards on our 63 Buick. I jumped in the front seat and started it up while he was leaning over the engine. A nice flame shot out the carb, which burnt a strip out of the middle of his buzz cut hair. I think he may have been the first person in history to try a reverse mohawk hair cut....
I loved that car, sure wish I had kept it....

-The future's so bright I gotta wear shades!

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Alex Kid was a great game, I remember that a whole group of us spent a whole two weeks working on that one.
Then someone got Contra and we lived in their home for two weeks :)

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I loved the ditto sheets!  It was a requirement to get a buzz off of them before beginning the quiz.  The fresher the ditto, the better....the..... What was the question again?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You know your old when ...
It was fun to work on you car, and OK to dump the old oil in the weeds behind the house.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

What was it with the fingerprints that usually showed up on dittos?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

What the heck are dittos???

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Dittos - copied worksheets for the class to do.  

You know you're old when you had to make your own dittos, none of the fancy Xerox mess, and they had to be made from animal skin or stone that you caught or quarried yourself, and you had to walk up hill both ways to get them.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Dittos = pre-xerox copies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_duplicator

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
Steven K. Roberts, Technomad
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

There is a nice scene of students smelling the ditto sheets in Mr. Hands' classroom. (Fast Times at Ridgemont High)

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Now you have to explain what "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" is!!!!
smile

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

A glimpse of high school life in 1982.  Funny and pretty accurate (for some).

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You're definitely middle aged if you remember the music in Valley Girl.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Here’s a good one that happened today and made me feel old anyway……

You know you’re old when the girl who sometimes works in your buildings deli that is the deli owners daughter and you assumed was 16-17 working during holidays/free periods etc turns out to be 21!

I always wondered why any sane man would let his teen daughter work around this many male engineers.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

ewh, there is no "middle age" in this debate, you must draw a line between "old" and "young".  If you've seen the original release of Valley Girl, then that puts you in the old column. winky smile

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
Steven K. Roberts, Technomad
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

But it was only 23 years ago!

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Old is remembering November 22, 1963.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

sure, wasn't that when the guy from PT-109 died cry

TTFN



RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Real old is remembering the phrase "you won't have Richard Nixon to kick around anymore"

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I once said to a girl on a date;

ME; I read that most people remember where they were when President Kennedy was shot.

SHE; I remember.  I was home watching television.

ME;  But it was a week day.  Why weren't you in school?

SHE;  I wasn't old enought to go to school.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

(OP)
HgTX,

Yup.


SomtingGuy,

Tippex? Okay.

sreid,

I loved that one.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I'm disappointed; no one commented on PT-109 sad

That was the one and only small vessel model I ever built.  Everything else was tanks, large vessels, planes, and spacecraft ("Danger, Will Robinson!!)

Slightly mod to crystal radios -- You're REALLY old if you used a cat's whisker.  I used a glass-body diode, so I don't qualify for that winky smile

TTFN



RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

ah, this is what this "whiteout" is all about...just simple Tippex  lol

I was lost as well with this thing :P

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer Consultant
France

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Today I feel old, not having had a vacation yet this year.  Hopefully when I return in a bit over a week, I will feel young again.

I can remember Woodstock.  I wonder where that puts me?

Regards,

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

FrenchCAD:  The Whiteout was liquid correction fluid.  I'm assuming Tippex was the correction strips.  I don't remember what the strips were called, maybe Tippex?!?  I used them long before I ever saw whiteout.  I remember writing a biology paper in high school and having a used pile of the strips next to the typewriter (manual, of course).

IRStuff:  I remember how thrilled I was week to week watching the original episodes of Lost in Space.  It was (is) no doubt lame but was the best TV had to offer until that strange new program came on called Star Trek.  I still remember the TV ads leading up to the pilot episode.  It was hard to tell what it was all about.  (sigh)  Those were magic times.  winky smile

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Tippex is Whiteout! It's the same thing, just a different name.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I'm just really jealous of KENAT right now.  I wish there was a 21 year old anywhere near where I work.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Careful what you wish for...

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Particularly if you don't specify the correct gender winky smile

TTFN



RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

So what were the correction strips called?  I was using them 10 years before Whiteout came on the scene and I know they weren't called Whiteout.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

The fact that you guys are having problems remembering things suggests placement in a specific camp.  :)

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Correctotype?

Hg

Eng-Tips policies:  FAQ731-376

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Latexman,
I remember meeting Barnes Wallis one time... does that make me old?

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

(OP)
I thought that the typewriter correction tape was called "White-out" strips. Then again, I'm so old, I don't know what i remember. smile

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I'm visiting my parents' house right now, and my father has a pack of Ko-Rec-Type Typewriter Opaquing Film on his desk in his study (Copyright date in it is 1976).
He still has his old IBM typewriter which he actually uses when the computer starts to p*ss him off.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I am definitely NOT old and my Lloyd's accumatic 321 calculator is definitely state of the art. However I did have to give up on my Xerox 820 computer. The new floppies were too small to fit the drives.
B.E.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

jmw (Industrial)
You met Barnes Wallis. This guy was my hero when I was a teenager. However I am still not old.
B.E.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You're old if you're at home in VMS or Ultrix, know what an RL02 is, and have heard of DECnet.

You are really old if the name PDP-11 fills you with misty-eyed nostalgia for the good old days before Microsh*te came along and ruined things!

----------------------------------
  I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy it...

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Nah, only close.

Nothing like Basic running on a PDP-8, or playing Lunar Lander on same.

Or, the wall of lights that was the computer on the Seaview or the Flying Sub.

TTFN



RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I actually found out I could rent Fireball XL5 from Netflix.  I can't believe I use to get excited about that Saturday morning program but it was neat to think you could swallow a pill and not die in the vacuum of space.  And their take-offs were so cool.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Quantum50

I remember sending off for a free model of Fireball XL5 from Kellogs! So excited when it arrived ! That was around the same era as Supercar/Mike Mercury/Mitch ?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Windows New Technology (WNT) is just the next generation of Virtual Management System (VMS) written by the same person, Dave Cutler.

How about if you remember playing Dungeon on a PDP-11 or VMS? Only text, limited command parser, etc. I found a copy compiled for MS OS's on the internet a few months ago. I gave a copy to my 16 year old son to play for a comparison to Warcraft.

"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli
Sr IS Technologist
L-3 Communications

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

How bout Zork?

And more of what makes me old:  I pay extra $ to have a unix shell account for my email (though I don't do much else with it).  But I'm not *that* old--I use emacs, not vi.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies:  FAQ731-376

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Zork was the commercialized version of Dungeon. I used to have Zork Trilogy for my Apple IIe, along with ScreenWriter II word processor.

"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli
Sr IS Technologist
L-3 Communications

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Isn't emacs older that vi though?

I've never used it; I used TECO winky smile

TTFN



RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I thought to myself "What is TECO?". While looking for it, I realised it was a forerunner of emacs. Very good, IRstuff! I also found http://www.xemacs.org/ which looks interesting. A download job for work tomorrow.

vi is a good editor, just a steep learning curve. Better than the diabolical edlin of early DOS releases. Who remembers the EVE editor for the VAX?

Going further even further OT - has anyone downloaded the gargantuan Solaris 10 OS for the PC? Whatcha think? Nice to get a copy of a decent OS for free, and it solves my immediate problem of needing an X client without using eXceed and without buying a Sun box.

----------------------------------
  I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy it...

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Oh, wow, I'd forgotten about edlin!  Used that, too.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies:  FAQ731-376

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Yep, edlin was, I think, also on CPM80, as was Turbo Pascal 1.0 (really sweet); it only took up a whopping 35 KB of memory, leaving nearly 20 KB for programs, yeah!!  Whole thing ran on a 4 MHz Z80 with 64 KB RAM and 2 floppies (smoking!!).  Morrow Computers, unfortunately, didn't last past the second generation of PCs.

btw, CPM80 was the predecessor of CPM86, which was the predecessor of DOS.

TTFN



RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I can see the future of retirement homes now, gummy old nerds arguing about COBOL and Amstrads hehehe. Maybe even engaging in an all night Zork fest ;) .

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Zork!  that's so new-fangled.  The D&D'ers at school didn't use computers to play.

TTFN



RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

OH LORD ...I must be REALLY old, I had a 4 track tape player in my GTO!! *G* (Wish I had it now!!!) ...Mark

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I can recall playing Ultima on a TRS-80 Model III.  ASCII art and all.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
Steven K. Roberts, Technomad
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You know you're young when you're the 166th reply to this thread and hanging in there ...yawn

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Anybody remember a game called "Whumpus" A rooms game played in basic, in which a troll lived with a big stick with which to Whump you if you lost.
  I remember this on one of the first IBM PCs. Middle to late 70's I think. If you do remember, you can only be in one camp and it aint young.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

IRstuff,
I remember playing DnD, and I ain't old...just didn't get laid much in high school....I'm sure it wasn't b/c of the DnD.....no....couldn't be that.....

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Chris,

I think that all it means is that nothings has changed in 30 yrs; nerds still don't have life winky smile

TTFN



RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

my life ...pc1

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Berkshire,

Could not have been in the 70's as the IBM PC didn't exist prior to 1981.

Yes, PC's as we used to know them are only 25 years old!

"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli
Sr IS Technologist
L-3 Communications

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You're young when all of your presidential election choices have consisted of W and another guy.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

....so far I'm 0 for 2 thumbsdown

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

No but it still entered the market in 1981 according to the link you posted.

The Apple ][ entered the market in 1977.

"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli
Sr IS Technologist
L-3 Communications

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

(OP)
edlin, vi, VMS, PC, that is all pretty new.

I remember VM/CMS on an IBM S360 (which took up an entire basement of the building) and using IBM's state of the art PROFS (that is a text editor) to do my resume in university. Oh, the S360 was the top of the line mainframe back then.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I remember when using a microwave in a snack area was the coolist thing since sliced bread.  Big and bulky, and the food really didn't taste very good, but the novelty was huge.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

About as young as I can remember, I was writing DOS code to make my friend's Commodore 64 run the game Double Dragon and Spy Hunter.  Then came the Nintendo.  Ten yard fight, Excitebike, and Duck Hunt were staples.

I was born the last year the Steelers won the Superbowl...guess that puts me on the short side of this conversation.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

(OP)
Your old if your record player runs 33,45 and 78 rpm.

Your even older if you still have 78 rpm records.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

text editor on the 360?  That's pretty modern.  My father took a training course on the 360, where the programming was done with patch cords.

78 rpm, sure - but do you have any 78 rpm singles?

Of course, if someone has any wax cylinders, that would certainly trump any 78 rpm stuff.

TTFN



RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Asherang,

Tempting to say you're old if you ever owned a record.  (Barring certain devotees etc)

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Old = remembering FEM node input was manual.  No graphic outputs.  Stacks and stacks of green stripped paper!

Steve Braune
Tank Industry Consultants
www.tankindustry.com

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Oh, how about the mechanical pencils with the single long lead with the "pointer" with its sandpaper for sharpening the points.

And, those wonderful ink pens that had the India ink reservoirs that you manually filled?

And those little bags of rosin for drying out the ink drawings.

TTFN



RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You're old if none of your childhood toys required batteries.

I was just poor and only had sticks, rocks, and lizards to play with. smile

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
Steven K. Roberts, Technomad
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Old = first learning 'dos' in Spanish class.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You're old when you used to turn in (riding a bike) GLASS Coke bottles at the nearest liquor store for change or candy. A candy bar was 5 or 10 cents and 25 cents for a large one.

You're old when you could play at a construction site without being kicked off or arrested.

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You're old when you remember Texas Instruments and Timex Sinclair being big names in home computers.

You're old when you start in on family history research and find your great-granddad was a Civil War Veteran.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I remember riding my bike down to the local arcade to spend my allowance on Gauntlet.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I remember playing with the very first release of redline hotwheels.  If I had those in unopened packages today, I could make a mint.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Blinking flip!  If my great grandad were a civil war veteran I could be be over 300 years old!  Now that is old!

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You're old when your remember a Mars bar costing 4d. and the boost to their sales courtesey of Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithful but when was that?(you're definately old if you remember when the Rolling Stones were young).

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

StompingGuy wrote "Blinking flip!  If my great grandad were a civil war veteran I could be be over 300 years old!  Now that is old!"

You know your old when you remember teachers made you learn stuff like when the Civil War was and how to do simple math, to know - THE CIVIL WAR ENDED 141 YEARS AGO!  How the crap do you get 300 years old?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

OH NO!
How do you get egg off your face?
Or is that another forum?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

CorBlimey,

Touch harsh but point well made.

I'm sure the UK and US aren't the only countries to have had civil wars referred to as just 'The Civil War'.

Any other takers and how old would it make you!


RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

KENAT,
I don't think CorBlimeyLimey was harsh at all, some of the "guys" can get real nasty.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

(OP)
I think just about every country is either a product of a civil war, or has had a civil war in their history.

Yes, most Americans are US centric. And, yes, most Europeans are Europe centric (respective of their country).

It's only natural.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Dammit, half of the tips say I am young and another half say I am oldbanghead

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...


Alas, poor quark, old before his time!

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Easy, you are old if you are 30 and above, and consider as young if you are below 30. For those who are above 30 and thought they are still young ...... knock, knock ,knock, WAKE UP DUDE AND FACE THE TRUTH!!! blllttt

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

fglass
Harsh, but regretably true !!

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You're getting there if you were amazed how your first calculator took mere seconds to calculate 2+2.  (The batteries drained soon after that !)

Did anyone record their first programs on audio cassettes ?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You know you're getting old when you stop chasing girls and start chasing their mothers!

----------------------------------
  I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy it...

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

ScottyUK:  Another harsh reality.  Some of my son's friends mothers are foxy to me.  winky smile

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

(OP)
mcutchi

Audio cassettes?

I saved my first program on computer cards - written in HB pencil or sharpie.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

A sign of being old is when you start looking at people your own age and no longer find them attractive in the slightest.

My Korean friends make a big deal about someone turning 31.  I found this strange as in the USA most big birthdays are 16 (driveing), 18 (offical adult, voting), and 21 (drinking without sneaking).  I was at a 31st birthday party and finally had to ask why 31?  The response was they celebrate 31 as being over the hill, as one is closer to 40 than 20.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
Steven K. Roberts, Technomad
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Civil war?
Well some countries had revolutions instead e.g. France and Russia and others just had "uprisings".
Of course, the US, just to be sure they weren't missing anything has had both revolution and civil war but not yet an uprising.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

jmw, think it's on the horizon?!?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You must not have heard about the Conch Republic in the Florida Keys.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
Steven K. Roberts, Technomad
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

The GWB administration plan for the Conch Republic:  Drowning via global warming.

And as blue states, the first countermeasure:

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

jmw (Industrial)
You will be telling us next that you could go to the sweet store (candy store) and buy a 1/4 of a pound of assorted sweets for sixpence.
B.E.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

looslib (Mechanical)
You are right, it was 1979 The computer was an IBM mainframe with 18"Winchester drives and terminals that looked like PCs. I remember now they were "dumb" terminals with orange phosphor screens.
IRstuff (Aerospace)
I bought the xerox 820 in 1982, it cost me $7000 with two 8"floppy drives, it actually worked until 2003 but god it was slow compared to a new pc.
B.E.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Well Berkshire,
I do remember going and buying 1/2 lb of broken biscuits for 6d. or so (and the shopkeeper would throw in some iced gems for free) -  biscuits were then sold by weight loose from the manufacturers tins and supplied in paper bags or in paper twists.
The local village hardware store sold just about everything you could want and in the quantities you wanted. They had a huge inventory and if you wanted just one washer, that is what you bought. No bl**dy blister packs of cheap soft metal imports, all top line goods of indigenous manufacture (this was before DIY was a recognised thing.) Those were also the days when cars had starting handles.

Quantum 50,
Revolution etc. may not be that far away for many western countries. In fact I believe there is a US think tank report (optamistic or pesamistic depending on how you view these things) that the EU will come apart in blood and tears. They could be right.
I think they were referring to the original membership who have a past histpory of duffing each other up and internal strife, and not the new members (or potential new members) some of whom appear to be just about getting their latest spell of bloodletting out of the way.
In fact, this might not be a topic for humour but serious concern. Many EU countries have in recent years, had some pretty nasty riots or "incidents" and they must be expected again. Who knows if they will spill over from localised disorder into "uprisings", " revolution" or "anarchy"?

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

jmw - starting handles! My Lada came with one of those and the most complete tool kit you could imagine, circa 1990!

You're old if you can remember the sense of achievement if you managed to get your car past 50k miles before it needed it's first decoke (can you still get Redex??).

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I remember my favorite candy was Cherry-Its.  Small pea sized cherry flavored candies in a poke (small canvas bag with a pull string closure).  The bag came with a small straw and you could either suck the candy from the poke and chew it or use the straw to then pelt your friends.  Quite fun actually.  I'm sure they were removed from the market because it was quite easy to suck one down the windpipe.  Just a learning experience, not a suit opportunity.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

monkeydog, I didn't think corblimey was actually harsh at all, he was a lot nicer than I was going to be before I read his post but I was doing my bit for Anglo/US relations.winky smile

Asherang, I've found people from the US to be more insular than people from other European countries.  It may be partly because the US has such influence on culture etc in Europe that we pick up some stuff.

According to the 30 year definition I'm still young but,

In the UK you're getting on if you remember 1/2 pennies and definitely old if you remember shillings etc!

Or in the UK you're old if you still can't work out what a kg or m is.  Young if inches leave you baffled.

I'm fluent (more or less) in both.  Learnt metric at school & imperial at home.  Dead handy now I'm in the US.

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Ha'pennies & Shillings ??? ... I remember using farthings!!!

cheers
Helpful SW websites  FAQ559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions  FAQ559-1091

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I just wish the US would finally bite the bullet and switch to metric.  This glacial move into SI is maddening.  I daily work with designs that are English (Imperial?) in disguise like bored holes that are 9.525mm.  Yeah, right! (grump)

And I'm old (but not at heart!)

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

I thought the US was going metric inch by inch?

How about remembering the rag and bone man and his horse drawn cart?  I remember this, does that make me old?

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

We DID go to metric.  I do all my range predictions in metric and then convert back to nautical miles to verify compliance to my Navy spec winky smile  

Naturally, the Navy spec also lists altitude in ft, which I convert to km in the analysis program.

TTFN



RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Over the weekend I watched War Games forgot the actor”s names, but it was about a kid who unknowingly hacked into NORADs defense computer system called WOPPR.  The kid was using dialup by using the phone receiver and putting it onto the modem.  Remember those days!  I think he was using something bigger than 5 ½ disks to boot up his computer that used green font.  I remembered seeing the movie the first time and was at aw at how his stuff was so advanced.  Man I feel old…

Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

You're old because you can't remember the actors' names: Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/

Do YOU want to play Global Thermonuclear War?

TTFN



RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

How about a nice game of chess?

"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli
Sr IS Technologist
L-3 Communications

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

Thanks! :)

How about "It has come to my conclusion that your defense system sucks!"

Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."

RE: You Know You're Old/Young If ...

The WOPR and its blinking lights was very retro for that movie; harkens back to the ship's computer in the SeaView and the Altair 8800 DIY computer that was in Pop Elex.

TTFN



Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources