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Old 3rd Apr 2015, 7:56 am   #181
Alan Stepney
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Forget the prickers for Primus stoves, they are easy to make.

What about the central "rod" for Rotring pens?
Plus UNO stencils, and all the other gadgets we had to use?

At the radio club recently I mentioned Brady Tapes, to get bemused looks from the younger members.
I am sure some here used them.
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Old 3rd Apr 2015, 9:04 am   #182
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

I have some 'pre-Rotring' dafting pens - essentially a similar tubular nib surmounted by a small funnel, which has to be filled for each use. I wonder how long ago they were last used in anger.
On the subject of drafting, I dug out a pantograph the other day. I guess that most people brought up on CAD wouldn't have a clue....
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Old 3rd Apr 2015, 9:25 am   #183
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I think there has already been mention of slide rules, even the basic type bewilders some people the rotary and cylindrical models are even more mysterious. It did though bring another aspect to my mind. A few months ago I was aligning an old radio and wanted to convert wavelength to frequency. I didn't have a calculator handy but had a slide rule in the drawer. As I needed to convert a few wavelengths it occurred to me that all the results were instantly available at one setting.

My keyboard dexterity is not as good as today's texting generation so this made a big difference for me. I wondered whether there are other cases where older forgotten items can produce a more effective solution than the generally accepted modern instruments.

Miguel's comment about wind up alarm clocks brought other aspects to mind. Some people would think the world had ended if they had run out of batteries and the shops were closed.
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Old 3rd Apr 2015, 9:43 am   #184
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

There is still a significant following for mechanical cameras. They pooh-pooh ones with battery powered shutters and say that their cameras will till work if they forget to carry fresh batteries. For some reason they seem to overlook that the same argument applies to them forgetting to carry fresh film

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Old 3rd Apr 2015, 10:19 am   #185
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

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'There is still a significant following for mechanical cameras.'
I like opto-chemical photography (as well as digital) and I still enjoy using my Pentax MX, which I've had serviced three times now since I bought it new in '81.

They're not without problems, though. The last film I shot a week ago (Kodak Gold 200) tore about 7/8 through the reel and I'd to have it unfurgled in the processors' darkroom. Whether it was the variation in temperature with leaving it in the car a few days and nights or just a poor-quality film, I don't know.

Actually, I compromise: I have the negs processed and scan them from there.

And that's another thing. I have a good quality slide and neg scanner given to me by a professional photographer, but I've had to dig out my old PC from the shed and put a clean install of Windows ME on so I can run it through the SCSI card, as XP onwards won't hack it! I have a USB neg scanner, but it's debateable whether the quality of the scanned images is better than the 'old' Acer Scanwit I was given.

You're spot-on with your mayfly lifetime comparisons here.
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Old 3rd Apr 2015, 1:44 pm   #186
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Using a steel pen. Although I have a set of Rotring pens, in my last few years at work I seldom needed to use them, and rather than having to clean them out before use, found it more convenient when making minor corrections to drawings to use the Rotring plastic ink bottle to put a drop of ink on the tip of the nib of an old steel pen I still have, and use that. It is possible to adjust the line width by adjusting the pressure.
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Old 3rd Apr 2015, 2:29 pm   #187
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Making a 999 call in smoke or darkness on a dial telephone.

Which was quite useful to know if the light in the local telephone kiosk was smashed, which it often was.
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Old 3rd Apr 2015, 7:26 pm   #188
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

How about the hand held DTMF keypads, once used to access the answering machine at home, amongst other uses.
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Old 3rd Apr 2015, 8:00 pm   #189
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Originally Posted by Phil G4SPZ View Post
And have we had this one yet? Analogue radios that have to be tuned-in manually... although technically this technology isn't obsolete (yet) but most people under 30 haven't had to learn how to do it.
I have to disagree with this, as most of the apprentices at work or anyone doing work experience have no problems in retuning my 1980's Grundig to Radio 1, when I am not looking & they dislike what I am listening to.

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Old 3rd Apr 2015, 9:43 pm   #190
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...most of the apprentices at work or anyone doing work experience have no problems in retuning my 1980's Grundig...
Well, I'm pleased to have been proved wrong. Your apprentices are clearly top-notch youngsters!
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Old 3rd Apr 2015, 10:03 pm   #191
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Re the tone-pads mentioned in post 188: I've got a program on my smartphone that does just that. I can hold it over a proper telephone's mouth piece to call a number in the smartphone's memory. Old and New technology in perfect harmony.

- Joe
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Old 3rd Apr 2015, 10:55 pm   #192
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Originally Posted by russell_w_b View Post
I have a USB neg scanner, but it's debateable whether the quality of the scanned images is better than the 'old' Acer Scanwit I was given./
You don't want another Scanwit by any chance?
I have a very little used one in the loft and I have to lose a fair amount of accumulated stuff as the house is up for sale.

A.
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Old 4th Apr 2015, 11:12 am   #193
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Thanks for the offer, A, but I must decline. It would be a contravention of the current household decluttering policy.

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Old 4th Apr 2015, 1:21 pm   #194
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

The one thing that keeps old scanners going is vuescan.

In my case an LS5000 Coolscan V for 35mm.

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Old 4th Apr 2015, 7:21 pm   #195
Karen O
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Hi Everyone,

I'm just a little concerned that people outside the forum might see this thread and interpret it as a youth bash fest. I know this isn't the intention and I don't think anyone here thinks the current youth are any less able than we were once. I owe my technical abilities to some very able and inspiring teachers, coupled with a time when, by and large, you could take something apart and see how it works. My daughter has had neither of these opportunities.
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Old 4th Apr 2015, 7:34 pm   #196
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Originally Posted by wireful3 View Post
I think there has already been mention of slide rules, even the basic type bewilders some people the rotary and cylindrical models are even more mysterious.
I've never seen a cylindrical one. I'm ok with logs and regular slide rules now, but once they were incredibly confusing. It wasn't until I heard about Napier and why he was doing things with logs that it made any sense. My school maths teacher never gave anything any context. The class was basically divided in to people who were good at doing stuff they didn't know why they were doing, and people who were completely confused. I think this is a good explanation for why seemingly simple stuff from the past confuses people, it's because we don't know the aim of the thing and we have to try to guess. The problem with guessing from a modern mindset is we're trying to reinvent another way to do something we already do, and often in a simpler way as well. It's quite a mental barrier. For example, why would you have to spin an old telephone dial when you can just push a button on a 'normal' phone? If you just tell someone that the inside of the dial is the switch, and that the more of it you move the more pulses it sends down the wire, thus turning each number in to a specific number of pulses the telephone exchange can understand, they'd probably see what is happening right away.
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Old 4th Apr 2015, 8:27 pm   #197
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Hi Karen

I've certainly got no intention of bashing any later generation. I'm somewhat amused at some of the things we did (or had to do) that would seem ludicrous to anyone who did their growing up in the last decade.

Some of the time, I may think they've missed out on a formative experience - something that would make later things clearer, other times I think they are damned fortunate to have missed some of the things we went through.

It's swings and roundabouts and it's not a difference in the people concerned, it is a difference in the opportunities which different people have had presented to them.

Getting to understand how things work because I wanted one, and because I could only afford one if I made it for myself was a formative experience for me. Because of much greater disposable wealth nowadays and much greater availability of 'stuff' the pressure to follow this route has gone.

A larger proportion of the population used to be closer to the technologies they employed. People have changed, needs have changed, and technologies have become further abstracted from what most people can visualise. A gap has widened - from both sides.

It has become acceptable, in fact expected, for people to say "I can't understand that, it's technical!"

There are people who are exceptions to these sweeping generalisations, people with curiosity and drive. People who look at a crappy product and say (as many before have done) "I can do better than that!" And they often do. These people find that there are ways in to understanding ALL the modern technologies, and that those ways are not terribly difficult.

One big tool they have that I would have killed for, is the internet. It has risks and dangers to teach you to be careful. It has traps for the unwary. It has huge steaming piles of false information spread by the misinformed and the malicious alike. But despite the drawbacks it also has the real stuff, and this trumps all the problems.

You can get a datasheet on anything, fabulous reference libraries are available, you can find exponents on all sorts of subjects and ASK them. It gives a level of access never dreamed about before. Sure, many people see it as just a source of illegally copied films and porn, but those are mere distractions. Noise. The internet is much more than that and it has earthshattering potential. It is the key piece for anyone who wants to get to the level where they change the world because these people usually wind up educating themselves.

Was our generation better than the current one? No.
Is the current generation better than ours? No

But we sure have different opportunities.

In an art class, at a grammar school in the sixties, we were told to draw the control room of a really advanced spaceship. Kids were furiously sketching endless panels of dials and switches and a few attempted robots. I drew a room with a comfortable sofa, a bookshelf and a teleprinter in the corner (Creed 7B).
"What are you doing?"
"It's a control room, sir."
"It's supposed to be an ADVANCED spaceship laddie, not a dentist's waiting room. How do you fly that?"
"You type in 'Take me to Mars' and the ship does all the rest. It IS supposed to be advanced, sir."

Guess who got a detention for 'cheek'

Personally, I think Arthur C Clarke carried some of the blame. The Lion of Comarre, The City and the Stars, and Against the Fall of Night.

David
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Old 4th Apr 2015, 9:46 pm   #198
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

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The one thing that keeps old scanners going is vuescan.
I use Vuescan for my USB neg scanner running on Vista, but haven't found a version that works on Win ME yet! There must be one somewhere, and it must be better than Mirafoto...
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Old 5th Apr 2015, 2:42 am   #199
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I'm ok with logs and regular slide rules now, but once they were incredibly confusing. It wasn't until I heard about Napier and why he was doing things with logs that it made any sense. My school maths teacher never gave anything any context.
The important thing is that logarithms are basically just indices; after all, if we're talking in base 10, the anti-log of x is 10 ** x. Now it's obvious that (a ** b) * (a ** c) = a ** (b + c) when b and c are integers; when you expand it, you will have to write a b times, then another c times, and insert multiplication signs. What might not be quite so obvious (except for the tiny pointette that it just has to be true for maths to work at all) is that it works even if b and c are fractional numbers. Hence, logarithms.

Now, the slide rule is just a mechanical representation of logarithms. It has scales where the markings are positioned according to the logarithm of the number shown. So when you move the two scales against one another to line up 1 on the C scale with something on the D scale, the total distance from 1 on the D scale to the where the number on the C scale meets the D scale is the sum of the logarithms of C and D -- which is equal to the logarithm of the product of C and D. Sometimes, you have to pretend the C scale is really a C/10 scale (and C/10 by definition will always be one full scale's length to the left of C), line up 10 in the improvised "C/10" scale with D and and read off the product CD/10.

Quote:
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"You type in 'Take me to Mars' and the ship does all the rest. It IS supposed to be advanced, sir."
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Old 5th Apr 2015, 9:59 am   #200
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Drilling a raise without a raise borer

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