[Parallax]

Well, one thing is painfully clear from this thread. Most of us, with the exception of Zoe, Fox, and a few others, are a bunch of old farts.

(Not nearly as old as Rupert, though. )

[robtcorl]

Originally posted by Parallax
Betamax was actually better than VHS
Originally posted by Ex Finn.
BETA-MAX was the cats meow...
Yes, a lot better than VHS.

OK, I take it back, it is no longer for sale since it will be worth mega-bucks!!!

edit, pretty obvious I'm an old fart, can't do multi quotes worth a damn.

[tim60]

Ironic, innit? Betamax was actually better than VHS, but Sony wouldn't license anyone to use the format. (In best Daffy Duck voice: "Mine, mine! All mine!")
JVC was a little more forward looking with VHS.

That Would make an interesting study one day - the strange artifacts in technology caused by company attitudes to IP rights that actually resulted in results different than then supporters of the rights argue.

[FantasticMrFox]

Most of us, with the exception of Zoe, Fox, and a few others, are a bunch of old farts.

When I was very small my family still had a VHS player and we would watch classics of children's television (Pippi Longstockings, Augsburger Puppenkiste, the Children of Bullerby, Emil of Lönneberga etc.) on VHS. We also listened to music cassettes.

I think I'm part of the last generation who completed at least parts of its childhood without (widespread) internet access and digital gadgets.

[gaweidert]

Just because I once said that the Beatles haircuts were just like Captain Kangaroo's does not mean I am an old fart. However; I do remember that we never got dirty when we were kids. Dirt hadn't been invented yet. Other things I remember.

Fizzies!!!. Your were a hero if you could hold one on your tongue until it completely dissolved.

Nuclear bomb drills. I lived close enough to the school that if the alarm sounded I could go home to be incinerated there instead of at school. Otherwise everyone to the halls. Girls crouched down low against the wall and boys providing a protective shield over them.

The original Hula Hoops.

I think I forgot about a lot of the older stuff. And some of the newer stuff too. I think.

[Joel B]

Nuclear bomb drills. I lived close enough to the school that if the alarm sounded I could go home to be incinerated there instead of at school. Otherwise everyone to the halls. Girls crouched down low against the wall and boys providing a protective shield over them.

Now I know why a very large number of children in the 50's grew up and stopped bathing or grooming!

[THoog]

By the 70s, our teachers assured us that we would all be dead in the event of WWIII. Which is why our generation grew up to be a bunch of cynical, snarky jerks.

We did have bomb drills - but they were the "some idiot wanted to get out of a test and called in a bomb threat" variety.

[ZoeB]

I remember floppy disks!

[gaweidert]

I remember floppy disks!

I remember bubble memory. At one time I even knew a little assembly language programming. My first home computer was a TRS-80 Model 4 with two 5 1/4" floppy drives and 64K of RAM. It cost me over $2,000. Sitting next to it in the store was a box about the size of the original IBM PC. It was a 5 megabyte hard drive! It cost $2,300. I passed on it but thought: WOW! Infinite memory!

[FantasticMrFox]

I remember floppy disks!

And they had that great little metal thingy you could push around.

[Racer X 69]

Most of us, . . . . . . are a bunch of old farts.

Speak for yourself you old coot!



Now, where did I leave my beer?

[robtcorl]

I remember getting our first television in the mid 1950's.
And my first transistor radio, it was red and had 4 transistors. (AM only)

My first digital camera was a Nikon Coolpix 100, their first consumer model.
It was discounted to $100 in about 1998. I sold it a couple years ago on eBay for $179, still had the original box.



---------- Post added 09-26-15 at 12:15 PM ----------

Speak for yourself you old coot!

You're younger than I pictured Racer.

[savoche]

I remember bubble memory. At one time I even knew a little assembly language programming. My first home computer was a TRS-80 Model 4 with two 5 1/4" floppy drives and 64K of RAM. It cost me over $2,000. Sitting next to it in the store was a box about the size of the original IBM PC. It was a 5 megabyte hard drive! It cost $2,300. I passed on it but thought: WOW! Infinite memory!

Ooh, I think the first computer I tried my hand on was a 4p which my father brought home from work. Our first computer at home, though, was a Commodore 64 - with a floppy station, no less! The floppy drive was equipped with the same 1MHz processor as the C64 itself. And cost about same, as well.

Next step was a $1,500 second hand XT with a 10 MB hard drive. Got it maxed out with 640KB of memory, too.

Yeah, I suppose I'm an old fart, too

[Jean Poitiers]

I think that I put about 2K quarters into one of these ... not all at once though.

[savoche]

I think that I put about 2K quarters into one of these ... not all at once though.

I'm happy to say I never got caught by those. Never appealed to me for some reason. I guess the C64 filled that need