You are too old if you remember.......

[Rothman]

I still have my "coding card" for IBM OS/360 Assembler Language.  Indeed, there were several times in my career that I had to pull it out when debugging with data dumps.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/414823815654139325/

Heh.  My mother said being able to analyze data dumps became a generational trait in the latter years of her career.  Mainframe would spit out the dump and the younger programmers would have to find an "old greybeard" (her words) to read it.

[Scott5114]

Assembler hurts my head and I give major props to anyone that can comprehend the stuff.

[kendancy66]

...

Blockbuster Video (screw Netflix) 

...

Windows XP

...

I remember when Blockbuster opened around here they were initially very unpopular. The big local chain was Erol's, which dominated the market, and people were reluctant to change. But Blockbuster were a bigger corporation with more resources and eventually saturated the market and drove Erol's out of business.

Regarding Windows XP, that's newfangled. Maybe we should have a thread on which version of DOS everyone liked best. (The first PC my parents got ran IBM PC-DOS 3.30 and WordPerfect 4.2.)

For some reason, I am thinking that Erols also had dial up internet?  I remember that they had computer stores, or were they just electronics stores.  I think there was one near I-495 and Braddock Road. If I had internet with them it would have been before cox finally arrived with broadband to my neighborhood

[kkt]

I still have my "coding card" for IBM OS/360 Assembler Language.  Indeed, there were several times in my career that I had to pull it out when debugging with data dumps.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/414823815654139325/

Heh.  My mother said being able to analyze data dumps became a generational trait in the latter years of her career.  Mainframe would spit out the dump and the younger programmers would have to find an "old greybeard" (her words) to read it.

I've analyzed some core dumps.  Unfortunately, analyzing a PDP-10 core dump is not a skill in great demand these days.

[1995hoo]

...

Blockbuster Video (screw Netflix) 

...

Windows XP

...

I remember when Blockbuster opened around here they were initially very unpopular. The big local chain was Erol's, which dominated the market, and people were reluctant to change. But Blockbuster were a bigger corporation with more resources and eventually saturated the market and drove Erol's out of business.

Regarding Windows XP, that's newfangled. Maybe we should have a thread on which version of DOS everyone liked best. (The first PC my parents got ran IBM PC-DOS 3.30 and WordPerfect 4.2.)

For some reason, I am thinking that Erols also had dial up internet?  I remember that they had computer stores, or were they just electronics stores.  I think there was one near I-495 and Braddock Road. If I had internet with them it would have been before cox finally arrived with broadband to my neighborhood

I believe they did offer Internet service, but I don't recall any details because we didn't have it. They also had electronics stores, not just computer stores–my father got our family's first color TV at an Erol's on Columbia Pike in Arlington sometime in the late 1970s. (To show you how your age changes your perception of things: I thought it sounded crazy expensive and I asked my dad how he'd ever pay for it. He replied that he was going to "use my plastic card." So then I wanted to know "why did the man give you your money back??!!!!" after the guy handed back his credit card.)

[snowc]

Windows XP and Windows 10
Dialup connection (JUST born when dialup was at its heart)
Mac and Cheese Crackers!
Crown Chicken Nuggets at BK!
House prices being at $170 rather than $340!
Personal Pan Pizzas at Pizza Hut
Monitors that had VGA connections rather than HDMI
Stereo Receivers! - Have one in my room!
Optiplex computers that had floppy disk drives and IDE dvd drives
Tube TVs
Free breakfast at the hotels
Tile flooring in houses
Linoleum floor in houses (fun fact: my house has it in the kitchen right now)
Saturday morning cartoons (who remembers garfield and friends?)
And more!

[hotdogPi]

Re: You are too old if you remember.......

Windows 10

Do you realize the point of this thread?

Linoleum floor in houses (fun fact: my house has it in the kitchen right now)

You are too old if you remember something that exists right now?

[kphoger]

Monitors that had VGA connections rather than HDMI

My work computer has dual flat-screen monitors:  one is hooked up by VGA cord, and the other is hooked up by DVI-D cord.  Neither one has an HDMI port, and they're only 16 years old.

At home, one of our flat-screen monitors went out last week.  The power button had gotten stuck when I turned it off, and we've been unable to fix it.  So I got my old CRT monitor out from the basement and hooked it up by VGA cord;  I checked the weather forecast on it early this morning.

Tube TVs

We just got our first non-tube TV a year ago, and it was a Christmas present.

[snowc]

Monitors that had VGA connections rather than HDMI

My work computer has dual flat-screen monitors:  one is hooked up by VGA cord, and the other is hooked up by DVI-D cord.  Neither one has an HDMI port, and they're only 16 years old.

At home, one of our flat-screen monitors went out last week.  The power button had gotten stuck when I turned it off, and we've been unable to fix it.  So I got my old CRT monitor out from the basement and hooked it up by VGA cord;  I checked the weather forecast on it early this morning.

Tube TVs

We just got our first non-tube TV a year ago, and it was a Christmas present.

FTFY

Re: You are too old if you remember.......

Windows Vista

Do you realize the point of this thread?

Linoleum floor in houses (fun fact: my house has it in the kitchen right now)

You are too old if you remember something that exists right now?

FTFY
Linoleum floors are non existent in houses now, and ours is about to give. 

[kphoger]

Borders bookstores

Your profile says you're 18 years old, and your location says Cincinnati.

Here's a Borders bookstore on GSV from 2008.

[1995hoo]

Dialup connection (JUST born when dialup was at its heart)

Modems not existing as a mass-market item at all. (I first had a dialup connection in my first-year dorm room in 1991.)

House prices being at $170 rather than $340!

Townhouse prices being at $340K rather than $700K.

Stereo Receivers! - Have one in my room!

I have two, a Denon I purchased in 1992 that's in my home office and an Onkyo home-theater surround receiver purchased in 2002 in the basement rec room.

Optiplex computers that had floppy disk drives and IDE dvd drives

Personal computers that had no hard drive, much less a CD or DVD drive.

Free breakfast at the hotels

Hampton Inn still offers that; I believe Embassy Suites does as well. Both subject to pandemic restrictions, of course.

[kphoger]

Also...

C:\>edit autoexec.bat

[kkt]

Also...

C:\>edit autoexec.bat

Oh thanks a lot now I'll have nightmares again.

Punch cards and starting over if you made a typo on column 73.

[frankenroad]

I've analyzed some core dumps.  Unfortunately, analyzing a PDP-10 core dump is not a skill in great demand these days.

I analyzed quite a few PDP-11 core dumps back in the day.  But, I've been out of programming for 35+ years and I could not do it now if my life depended on it.

[formulanone]

Also...

C:\>edit autoexec.bat

And if you didn't have a hard drive...
A:> copy con autoexec.bat

I think I last created an autoexec file in 2000, to make an old IBM PS/2 silently boot up Windows 3.1...so start off with ECHO OFF to look cool.

[1995hoo]

....

Punch cards and starting over if you made a typo on column 73.

Typing on a manual typewriter and finding you didn't leave enough room for a footnote and having to retype the whole damn page.

I was recently looking for something in a box of old papers and I found a copy of a rather sarcastic essay I wrote in the 12th grade about learning to type that extolled the glories of the manual typewriter. I don't remember what the assignment was, of course, but I got enough of a kick out of my essay that I scanned so that I wouldn't lose it. Everything I said was complete bullshit, of course. I had used my parents' manual typewriter, but I was no "veteran" and I was never any good with it.

A major advantage of the typewriter is that it makes typing footnotes more enjoyable than a computer does. With the typewriter, it's necessary for the typist to know in advance how many footnotes he'll have on a page and how much room they'll take up. He also has to keep track of the numbering throughout the paper. At the bottom of the page, he must have allotted the correct amount of space for the notes. After he types them and finds that he didn't leave enough space, he has to go back and retype the page, again guessing at how much space to leave for footnotes. Imagine my dismay when I learned that a computer doesn't require such an effort. I was hurt to the core when I learned that all I had to do was hit the "footnote" key after completing my quote. This key brought up a prompt at which I typed the text of the note. The machine would then calculate how much space would be needed at the bottom of the page and move me to a new page accordingly. To a seasoned typewriter veteran like me, this was pure heresy. Retyping pages had become an almost religious experience, and this was now being taken away. What would be next?

Then, later, in discussing Ko-rec-type paper versus the "backspace" key on a PC:

The Ko-rec-type system was wonderful: it let everybody who read a paper know that the typist had hit the wrong letter.

Regarding spellcheck:

These programs check the document to see if all the words are spelled correctly and if all the sentences are written correctly. I never had this on a typewriter–I typed the page and then proofread it to find mistakes. More often than not I found several and had to go back and retype the page. Businessmen had this same ritual, except that they generally paid somebody to proofread pages for them. This proves yet another evil of the computer: it increases unemployment by allowing people to easily proofread their own works. These spelling and grammar checkers are a true nuisance. All one has to do is hit a button and the document is analyzed. All spelling and grammar errors are pointed out–the program never misses any. Thsi is trooly reedikulus. I had to prufreed gud with mi tiperitur, but I know haf two doo that no mor. This takez haf the funn owt uv tipeing.

(The teacher docked me a point for "This proves yet another evil" because she felt it wasn't clear what "This" meant, but interestingly she didn't ding me for the split infinitive later in the same sentence.)

[kkt]

....

Punch cards and starting over if you made a typo on column 73.

Typing on a manual typewriter and finding you didn't leave enough room for a footnote and having to retype the whole damn page.

I was recently looking for something in a box of old papers and I found a copy of a rather sarcastic essay I wrote in the 12th grade about learning to type that extolled the glories of the manual typewriter. I don't remember what the assignment was, of course, but I got enough of a kick out of my essay that I scanned so that I wouldn't lose it. Everything I said was complete bullshit, of course. I had used my parents' manual typewriter, but I was no "veteran" and I was never any good with it.

A major advantage of the typewriter is that it makes typing footnotes more enjoyable than a computer does. With the typewriter, it's necessary for the typist to know in advance how many footnotes he'll have on a page and how much room they'll take up. He also has to keep track of the numbering throughout the paper. At the bottom of the page, he must have allotted the correct amount of space for the notes. After he types them and finds that he didn't leave enough space, he has to go back and retype the page, again guessing at how much space to leave for footnotes. Imagine my dismay when I learned that a computer doesn't require such an effort. I was hurt to the core when I learned that all I had to do was hit the "footnote" key after completing my quote. This key brought up a prompt at which I typed the text of the note. The machine would then calculate how much space would be needed at the bottom of the page and move me to a new page accordingly. To a seasoned typewriter veteran like me, this was pure heresy. Retyping pages had become an almost religious experience, and this was now being taken away. What would be next?

Then, later, in discussing Ko-rec-type paper versus the "backspace" key on a PC:

The Ko-rec-type system was wonderful: it let everybody who read a paper know that the typist had hit the wrong letter.

Regarding spellcheck:

These programs check the document to see if all the words are spelled correctly and if all the sentences are written correctly. I never had this on a typewriter–I typed the page and then proofread it to find mistakes. More often than not I found several and had to go back and retype the page. Businessmen had this same ritual, except that they generally paid somebody to proofread pages for them. This proves yet another evil of the computer: it increases unemployment by allowing people to easily proofread their own works. These spelling and grammar checkers are a true nuisance. All one has to do is hit a button and the document is analyzed. All spelling and grammar errors are pointed out–the program never misses any. Thsi is trooly reedikulus. I had to prufreed gud with mi tiperitur, but I know haf two doo that no mor. This takez haf the funn owt uv tipeing.

(The teacher docked me a point for "This proves yet another evil" because she felt it wasn't clear what "This" meant, but interestingly she didn't ding me for the split infinitive later in the same sentence.)

That is why there were people known as "typists" back in the olden days.  They'd take your earlier, probably typed, draft with corrections written in and after extracting a few primate manipulation papers hand you back a beautifully retyped copy with all the layout issues fixed and the handwritten corrections encorporated.

And then, because computers were so much better at calculating the space needed for footnotes, footnotes were dropped from the style manual of most journals and presses and replaced with endnotes that don't require any finesse to lay out but put the work on the reader to keep a finger tucked in to the last page if they want to see where you got your information.

Many grammarians don't consider split infinitives to be an error.

[Scott5114]

House prices being at $170 rather than $340!

So practically the entire population of the state of Oklahoma is too old?

(Hell, when I bought my house in 2017, we were looking only at houses in the $120,000—$140,000 range, and our realtor had no problems finding plenty of them for us to look at.)

[Scott5114]

Also...

C:\>edit autoexec.bat

Abort/Retry/Fail may well be the most ridiculous user interface decision of the 20th century, if not all time. I still barely grasp the nuance between "Abort" and "Fail". Good luck coaching Aunt Kathy through that one.

edit was good times, although it was nowhere near as powerful as the Unix editors that fill the same niche like emacs and nano. Actually, it had a lot of the same basic flaws as Notepad. But I always enjoyed using it instead of Notepad on the XP machines in high school, since editing HTML files in them made me look really wizardly. Or so 15-year-old me thought, anyway. Sadly, edit no longer exists on x86_64 versions of Windows, and apparently was removed from Windows 11 entirely.

Now if you really want a candidate for "you're too old if you remember...": using edlin. (Or Unix ed, for that matter.)

[Bruce]

Decent homes priced under $200,000? Even for the exurbs, those numbers haven't been seen since the 1990s.

Some little ones that I can remember despite being a youngin:

- The Bon, complete with the jingle
- The old crown logos on King County things
- The old old bus tunnel
- Boeing not having a completely tarnished reputation

[Scott5114]

Decent homes priced under $200,000? Even for the exurbs, those numbers haven't been seen since the 1990s.

You can see them today...

[Rothman]

House prices being at $170 rather than $340!

So practically the entire population of the state of Oklahoma is too old?

(Hell, when I bought my house in 2017, we were looking only at houses in the $120,000—$140,000 range, and our realtor had no problems finding plenty of them for us to look at.)

Sold my house for $170,000 in 2020 in NY...

[webny99]

Sold my house for $170,000 in 2020 in NY...

Although in the housing market, two years ago is a completely different world from now.

[1995hoo]

....

Many grammarians don't consider split infinitives to be an error.

Maybe not now, but when I was in high school, it was exceedingly rare for a teacher not to consider a split infinitive an error. I took another look–that essay was for my AP English class. For an English teacher not to mark a split infinitive as an error was even more unusual.

[formulanone]

Also...

C:\>edit autoexec.bat

Abort/Retry/Fail may well be the most ridiculous user interface decision of the 20th century, if not all time. I still barely grasp the nuance between "Abort" and "Fail". Good luck coaching Aunt Kathy through that one.

I remember when it was "Abort/Retry/Ignore" in the DOS 2.x days, which made more sense to a layman.

I think the first time I saw "Fail", I thought I should just turn off the PC right then and there.