Age verification challenge:
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@cstross Mechanical typewriter!
@70hz Yeah, I wrote my first million words on one of those too.
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@cstross Did you have a circular disc of offcuts of leftover fabrics secured with a button in the middle and kept in your pencil case to clean the business end of a fountain pen that might have leaked?
@christineburns @cstross
Nope, I just kept some bog roll in my pocket with my tube pens (like fountain pens, but omnidirectional; essential for writing on "blueprint" sheets to be duplicated on site). -
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Age verification challenge:
Growing up, I used a gramophone to play my mum's 78rpm jazz records (on shellac, not vinyl). And was taught to indicate I was about to make a turn by sticking my arm out the driver's side window on vehicles that didn't have indicators. (It was on the driving test back then.)
@cstross
That's still taught in driver's ed; partially so you know what to do if your blinkers aren't working, but mostly I think so drivers will understand cyclists' hand signals. -
@pheedbackPhil @Steveg58 There were no buttons on phones when I grew up. Just rotary dialers talking to Strowger electromechanical exchanges at the Post Office. (Motors and relays!)
@cstross @pheedbackPhil @Steveg58
> Strowger electromechanical exchanges
And what a fascinating back story *they* have!
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Age verification challenge:
Growing up, I used a gramophone to play my mum's 78rpm jazz records (on shellac, not vinyl). And was taught to indicate I was about to make a turn by sticking my arm out the driver's side window on vehicles that didn't have indicators. (It was on the driving test back then.)
@cstross
I remember using my dinner money to buy five Park Drive tipped. -
@Steveg58 @pheedbackPhil Pay phones in the UK didn't have buttons until well into the 1980s. They ran on pulse dialing and if you needed long distance you could either dial the area code *or* talk to the operator.
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@cstross @pheedbackPhil @Steveg58
> Strowger electromechanical exchanges
And what a fascinating back story *they* have!
@neil @cstross @pheedbackPhil @Steveg58 There was a working telephone exchange in Berwick Town Museum - though they seem to have neglected to put any information about it on the internet.
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@Steveg58 @pheedbackPhil Pay phones in the UK didn't have buttons until well into the 1980s. They ran on pulse dialing and if you needed long distance you could either dial the area code *or* talk to the operator.
@cstross @Steveg58 @pheedbackPhil button B predates me, but it must have been in the UK because i've seen them in old UK movies — and i seem to remember Hancock had a "bit" about them?
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@christineburns No, I just put up with the leakage.
@cstross @christineburns we went from pencils to ballpoints once it was time to use pens.
Not quite 60 yet, decimal / metric happened the year or so before I went to primary so I missed the change but it was still all new to the teachers which was a weird feeling; counting skills went up to 12 as a matter of course but no-one explained why or gave us anything to apply it to. Also calculators became a standard thing a year or so before we hit the exams, we got school-approved ones issued
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@pheedbackPhil @Steveg58 There were no buttons on phones when I grew up. Just rotary dialers talking to Strowger electromechanical exchanges at the Post Office. (Motors and relays!)
@cstross @pheedbackPhil @Steveg58
Until the late eighties in Argentina. In the early nineties we sold all of our public infrastructure to US and European consortiums and they dumped their slightly obsolete communications gear on us. Good times for phreaking.
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@lizmeyer Yep, calculators weren't permitted in maths exams until I was 15, and we had to learn to use a slide rule. (I was right on the cusp of the transition—got my first basic four-function calculator aged 13, and I'd already learned how to do the operations longhand, so it was a time-saver, not a replacement for learning.)
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Age verification challenge:
Growing up, I used a gramophone to play my mum's 78rpm jazz records (on shellac, not vinyl). And was taught to indicate I was about to make a turn by sticking my arm out the driver's side window on vehicles that didn't have indicators. (It was on the driving test back then.)
@cstross
I remember both these things. -
@stevewfolds @cstross blotting paper soaked in inkwell and fired at the ceiling with ruler!
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@stevewfolds @cstross blotting paper soaked in inkwell and fired at the ceiling with ruler!
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@stevewfolds @cstross i like to think i'm still bad! 🤣
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@cstross The elementary school cycling test?
That as well, but @cstross really is talking about the test that motorists have to pass.
https://gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/signals-to-other-road-users#armsignals
It's in the theory test nowadays.
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Age verification challenge:
Growing up, I used a gramophone to play my mum's 78rpm jazz records (on shellac, not vinyl). And was taught to indicate I was about to make a turn by sticking my arm out the driver's side window on vehicles that didn't have indicators. (It was on the driving test back then.)
@cstross Our first TV didn't have channel buttons. You had to look up the channel in the Radio Times, find out how many MHz it was, and adjust a tuning dial until you got the best reception you could.
Kids of today, don't know they're born ;)
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