Photo #1 - An adding machine. Accountants would get a workout pulling the lever while totalling up amounts.
Photo #2 - Typewriter ribbon. This one is fancy smancy with both black AND red ink!
Photo #3 - A wringer washer. Wet, soggy clothes were fed into one side of the wringer, and something resembling Wile E. Coyote after an encounter with a steam roller came out the other side.
Photo #4 - A computer punch card. Judging by your comments on the quiz, many of you have very fond memories of these things.
Photo #5 - Kudos to my clever cousin, Bradi who guessed this one correctly. It is indeed a vacuum tube or as it's formally called - a pneumatic transport system capsule. Compressed air or vacuums caused the capsule to shoot along tubes within a building, transporting money or mail. Cool, huh?
Photo #6 - Popular with Cold War Era spies and librarians, these microfiche cards hold teeny tiny photographs of information. The cards are placed in a projector which enlarges the data so it can be read.
Photo #7 - Everyone know this one, right? But does anyone know what it is called? I'll call it a 45 record centre hole thingy (and yes, that's how we Canadians spell center).
Photo #8 - A floppy disk. My very first computer game was on these things - Leisure Suit Larry. The goal of the game was to get Larry laid. I spent hours at it!
Photo #9 - A phone cord - great fun for fidgeters (that really should be a word!)
Photo #10 - a hair dryer. In decades past when everyone seemed to have more time, woman would relax under these things with a magazine. The down side was you couldn't hear the beauty shop gossip.
Photo #11 - A credit card imprint machine. Cha Ching!
And now that I've come to the end of my quiz and we're all feeling older than dirt, let's all have a laugh with Leisure Suit Larry!
Hey! That's EXACTLY what I call #7 too! LOL My granddaddy had his own business and he had an adding machine just like that one. The only one I didn't know was number 5 but I thought it was a vacuum tube thingy but then I thought, nah, they didn't have those back then. :)
ReplyDeleteThis was fun, BTW
Pam, while you were here leaving a comment, I was over at your blog doing the same!
ReplyDeleteI wish I had been paying closer attention because I knew every single one of these things! Down here in the Wild West, our vacuum tubes were a little different. We had pneumatic air capsules, too, but we called them something different (I don't remember what). My bank still uses them in the drive-up window. Our vacuum tubes were little pieces of electronics that could function as transistors, amplifiers, etc. and were common in older TVs, radios, aviation electronics, and so on. They were replaced by solid-state electronics in the 1970s. Just to show you how many people do NOT know what they are, I was asked by a colleague to inventory his collection of (very old and very dusty) vacuum tubes. The ladies I work with thought they had something to do with vacuum cleaners.
ReplyDeleteOne more before I go, several years ago, my daughter saw my collection of vinyl LPs. She wondered why my "coasters" were so big and why they had holes in the middle.
That's okay. One day, SmartPhones will look prehistoric.
I loved this post and I didn't. I bloody loved it because it was really bloody interesting, and full of gadgets (Brownie points there girl!). But I didn't love it because I actually remember quite a lot of the things from when I was young - like flopping disks, microfiches, and .... my favourite ....... the telephone cord! That was so funny, because you are right, telephones never have cords these days!!
ReplyDeleteTop post chick!
oh gosh, I am that old afterall. I can remember helping my grandma wring out the clothes on a machine just like that. Certain I have some floppy discs still in a box somewhere. And I know we have at least one phone plugged in somewhere that has that kind of cord. it will work in the event of a power outage, whereas our cordless ones will not.
ReplyDeleteawesome post - love this.
Oh wow, the 45 record centre! I know it well! It brings back memories of my youth and the babysitting money I spent on all those 45s!
ReplyDeleteOh, dear, I recognized every one of those! My daughter was just laughing last night at the things in her life now that her baby son will not know about 20 years from now.
ReplyDeleteI had forgotten all about those 45 centre holey things!
ReplyDeletePerhaps they are too recent, but the mixed tape might be a nice one to add next time :)
Gadgets and Larry, you're hilarious. Brilliant post.
ReplyDeleteI am proud to say that when I was in high school I took typing class on an actual typewriter. I think the year after me was when computers replaced them all.
ReplyDeleteHow scary. I remember them all and have no idea who or what "Larry" is. I've officially enter Old Fartdom.
ReplyDeleteDo you actually own all of these? I would be seriously impressed....
ReplyDeleteWhy, thank you! Do you know what's more obsolete than the telephone cord? Teenagers talking on the phone! Now they just text.
ReplyDeleteMost of my babysitting money was spent on music too - that and junk food!
ReplyDeleteIt's incredible how quickly technology changes! So...are you Grandma or Nana?
ReplyDeleteYes...the mixed tape! The hours I spent making those things!
ReplyDeleteWhy, thank you! And welcome aboard!
ReplyDeleteI wish I could say it was the year after me that computers replaced typewriters! But truthfully, I remember submitting writing for publication (a children's story) that was written on a typewriter.
ReplyDeleteTrust me Jayne, having an intimate familiarity with Leisure Suit Larry is not something I'm proud of!
ReplyDeleteSorry to disappoint, but a box of floppys somewhere in my basement is about the extent of my collection.
ReplyDeleteHoly bat crap! I knew all of them. That's disturbing.
ReplyDeleteHaha! I'm scared to show this quiz to my kids. They saw a typewriter on TV and asked me what it was...
ReplyDeleteOh man, I love those vacuum tube set-ups! I wish I had one in my house!
ReplyDeleteHow cool would that be?!
ReplyDelete