What technology did you have in your childhood?

[Tycho Brahe]

I've just seen a tv-docu about home technology in the 70ies, and it made me think about my own childhood in that decade. Unlike the family in the programe, we had central heating, but otherwise it was pretty much the same. No microwave, no vcr, no dishwasher, one shared telephone, one small black and white TV and one (1) channel to watch, reccordplayer, cassette tape. At some point we got a chestfreezer. Oh, we also had a fridge and a washingmashine.

One of my friends had a game console you could play pac-man and pong on.

Picture of 16 inch telly from Bang & Olufsen (I wish I still had it)

VW type 1 ca 1970

 

[ParadigmShifter]

We had a PONG machine. We had colour telly though. VCR's we're amazing tech when they were first available (and too expensive for us for a while - I had to go round to my friends house to watch The Professionals on the VCR).

We had a washing machine and tumble dryer but my Gran had one of those twin tubs and a mangle for drying.

 

[shadowplay]

A 27 inch TV which I thought was huge, a VCR, and an NES. Oh my god I miss the 80's

 

[Disgustipated]

Compare the graphics of a game like this to the graphics of Skyrim. Things have changed just a little.

 

[Monsterzuma]

Atari ST.

 

[Integral]

The first computer I used extensively was a Windows 3.1 machine, though I remember a somewhat older machine being used by my family when I was very little.
My first gaming system was an N64, though I played on a friend's SNES. So I started playing video games on fifth-generation hardware.
My first handheld was a Game Boy, no color.

I'm young but at least I remember VCRs and floppies!

 

[Tycho Brahe]

We had a PONG machine. We had colour telly though. VCR's we're amazing tech when they were first available (and too expensive for us for a while - I had to go round to my friends house to watch The Professionals on the VCR).

We had a washing machine and tumble dryer but my Gran had one of those twin tubs and a mangle for drying.

No tumbledryer here.

My parents refused to let a VCR inside their house as long as they lived. They didn't mind CDs. Weird.


Link to video.

The Professionals

 

[ParadigmShifter]

When you reach 40, all you will have is floppies

 

[Silurian]

Black and white TV with two channels (BBC1 and Westward - ITV) until about 1975, we had an ariel the size of a car in the loft but it was not very good. But it was good enough to see the moon landings on the TV.

Then we got colour TV and could get BBC2 as well.
I had a valve radio in my bedroom that took about 10 minute to warm up but then it was ok for listing too the Today program in the morning and The Foundation Trilogy or Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy in the evening.

No heating in my bedroom - so cold in the winter, ice on the inside of the windows.

I had an old push bike with rod operated brakes (not cables) but it got me around for about five years till I sold it.

Did our maths at school with log tables but I bought a calculator in my last year at school. There was a computer club that would get stuff put onto punched card ad get the result back about from a town 40 miles away a month later.

 

[Tycho Brahe]

Black and white TV with two channels (BBC1 and Westward - ITV) until about 1975, we had an ariel the size of a car in the loft but it was not very good. But it was good enough to see the moon landings on the TV.

Then we got colour TV and could get BBC2 as well.
I had a valve radio in my bedroom that took about 10 minute to warm up but then it was ok for listing too the Today program in the morning and The Foundation Trilogy or Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy in the evening.

No heating in my bedroom - so cold in the winter, ice on the inside of the windows.

I had an old push bike with rod operated brakes (not cables) but it got me around for about five years till I sold it.

Did our maths at school with log tables but I bought a calculator in my last year at school. There was a computer club that would get stuff put onto punched card ad get the result back about from a town 40 miles away a month later.

My own calculator:

I still have it. I think. Can't find it right now.

Remember the digital watches with calculator? Haha! Didn't have one of those myself, though. Calculators where everywhere! Credit-card size whith solapanels!

 

[Andvare]

We had this.

Edit:

No heating in my bedroom - so cold in the winter, ice on the inside of the windows.

Of course, we had it though. We used to live in one room, all 26 of us.

 

[Silurian]

My first calculator was an Casio FX-29 which died in the early 80s.

http://www.vintage-technology.info/pages/calculators/casio/casiofx29.htm

Link to some pictures of bike with rod brakes like my old one.

http://www.bikejuju.com/2010/how-do-rod-brakes-work-a-visual-primer/

 

[Tycho Brahe]

I remember the walkie talkie-craze that followed Convoy (1978) and Smokey and the Bandit (1977). But I was to young to take part in that myself.

10-4 rubber duck!


Link to video.

 

[Integral]

Oh, I had a Ti-34. That sucker was the single most awesome piece of tech I've ever had in my hands. It did base-2, base-8, and base-16 along with base-10. It had logs, and trig functions, and all that cool stuff. Plus it was solar powered.

This badass mofo right here. This little sonofa got me through the SAT and ACT.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Access was denied for that webpage when I wanted to find my childhood calculator

It was the big white one anyway. It smashed but I managed to sellotape it together. Now I can use my rubbish calculator (which doesn't even have parentheses) to calculate exp, sin and cos by working out the first few terms of the Taylor series . If I have to work out a square root, I use the Taylor series for x^(-1/2) and take the reciprocal at the end, of course

 

[Tahuti]

I still remember these from my pre-teenage years

I love 'em!

 

[Cutlass]

Oh, I had a Ti-34. That sucker was the single most awesome piece of tech I've ever had in my hands. It did base-2, base-8, and base-16 along with base-10. It had logs, and trig functions, and all that cool stuff. Plus it was solar powered.

This badass mofo right here. This little sonofa got me through the SAT and ACT.

I had something similar. But don't recall the model number. It died in the early 90s at some point.


We had cars, black and white TV, later a 19" color in the early 70s. Washer, drier, refrigerator, central heat, record player and radio. Common 60s and 70s stuff. By the early 80s we had a dishwasher.

 

[Tecknojock]

I've had a PC and the internet all my life, though the earliest OS i can remember is windows 95. When i lived in Italy during the early 90s, we didn't have central heating/cooling.

 

[Tycho Brahe]

I've had a PC and the internet all my life, though the earliest OS i can remember is windows 95. When i lived in Italy during the early 90s, we didn't have central heating/cooling.

I guess they don't need it as bad as we do in scandinavia.

 

[Mark1031]

Stone knives and bearskins.