Things that kids today will never understand...

I remember my Grandfather, who was born in 1912, telling me that he had lived through the most dramatic period of change in World history. By that he meant that he had seen a World with virtually no cars on the roads, no universal electricity, telephones etc. evolve to a World which put men on the moon and had supersonic passenger aircraft. However, he died in about 1981 and never saw a computer.

Born in the late 1960's I would suggest that in my life time the degree of change has been even greater. So I started thinking about the things of my youth that have been totally eclipsed by technology. Things that a child growing up today would never experience - here's a list of few in no particular order, if you can think of any more I'd love to hear them so leave a comment...

1. Sitting in the hall way at home talking on a telephone that is attached to a cable
2. Watching movies on video (VHS and Betmax)
3. Typewriters
4. Music on vinyl that got scratched or cassettes that stretched or snapped
5. Getting a cable to connect two tape machines so that you could make mix tapes for parties, journeys and friends. The rich kids had twin cassette machines.
6. Travelling with a Sony Walkman and a selection of tapes
7. Not being able to contact people at all times - making a plan and then having to stick to it.
8. Having a diary and an address book.
9. There only being 3 TV channels
10. Houses with just single glazing and no heating
11. Cars without central locking
12. Cars that could be started with a starter handle (yes I really do remember that)
13. No telephone answering machines (voice mail), if they didn’t answer you just rang back later.
14. A world where shops opened from 9-5 and were closed on Sundays and holidays (hanging I live in Norway, its still like that here!)
15. A world without computers
16. Computers that were just stand alone
17. Sending birthday cards to people
18. Dialing on a rotary telephone
19. Being excited about getting post
20. The filofax
21. TV channels that shut down at night
22. Learning to climb by just going out trad climbing. No walls, no sports routes, no bouldering
23. A world without McDonalds in the UK - it arrived when I was about 22!
24. Being served petrol by an attendant at the petrol station
25. Getting paid in cash in a brown envelope that was filled out with details of all your deductions in special boxes
26. Computers that just ran on floppy disks
27. Computers were software was loaded from a cassette player
28. A World without big brother
29. Teletext
30. Computers with green screens, that replaced just using the TV as a monitor
31. Sending your camera film off to be developed
32. Using cash
33. Scheduling at least some of your life around the timing of the TV shows you wanted to watch.
34. An alarm clock that you have to wind up
35. Using log tables
36. Using stereonets
37. Chequebooks
38. Using a travel agent to book a flight
39. Meeting your bank manager
40. Navigating using just a map and compass