Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
I'm afraid you're going to have to let your microwave example go, it just doesn't qualify. All of your other examples were excellent analogies to the OP's theme.

Okay, I'll concede that for America. Not so much here though as I only got my first microwave in 1996 as it was still a keeping up with the Joneses expensive gadget here until they started becoming more affordable around the early '90s and everyone started getting one.
 
I remember in the late 80s our rented VCR 'remote' was attached to the machine with a long wire.
 
i was born in '89. so technology has always been very prominent in my life. i find it enjoyable, such a great thing to get emersed in - (not really).

i wonder what the future holds for us socially..
 
I can't say that I knew life before the Internet, but I do remember it before the internet of today. Even though I'm only 17, I'd be willing to wager that anyone +1 or -1 year of my age is at least familiar with older technologies. We're most certainly the last group to grow up with VHS tapes, cassettes, floppy disks, and (geez louise!) :eek: CD's. Anyone younger than 15 doesn't even know what half of those things are...

Really, we're special simply because we grew up on the divide between analogue and digital. I most certainly knew how to use a computer when I was 4 or 5 years old (Windows 95!). I never used the internet ever, only those interactive Storybooks or games. Although my family did get DSL-broadband quite early in 1999-2000-ish.

Perhaps I'm a bit out of the ordinary though since I still have quite a fondness for cassettes and records and other old equipment, unlike most my age...:p

So yes, I remember my life before the internet.:apple:
 
Also a young-en, the things about technology I remember was playing loads of "Bugdom" I think it was called on the old blue iMac G3, oh. I also remember when my brother got our houses first mp3 player. I remember everyone was in awe, of course it only held 29 songs.I can remember before online gaming, when someone had to be physically next to you to play the game. I also remember many hours playing star fox on the good ol' N64 trying to beat the game on all the secret levels.
 
Using a phone box, looking for books in the local library, and buying magazines to find the best mail order price from the ads.

Oh and this one is the absolute worst. Having to keep instruction manuals for stuff :D
 
...looking for books in the local library...
This defines the new age: instant information. Yet I'm sure now most people would say they don't have time to visit the library. Instead of making our lives more luxurious, computers seem to make us busier, with everything they input into our lives. I have this recurring daydream where I get rid of our computers and go back to nature...
 
I do too and it feels like the internet has ruined the social interaction of people. Instead of hanging out people just seem to tweet to their friends :eek:

I completely agree, but on the flip side it has also allowed us to keep in contact with friends that are all over the world.

When I was growing up I pretty much just had one group of friends beginning in elementary school. As time went on we've all ended up in different parts of the country, and world. But because of the internet we still talk to each other every single day.

That aspect is fantastic. I will even admit that I found a really good friend through MySpace that I had lost contact with. Heh.. I refused to set one up, so I asked my wife to search for old classmates, and she found one that I was really good friends with that was outside my normal "group" of friends. That was back in about 2005, and since then we've been great friends again.

But not a single one of my "lifelong" friends lives in the same town as I do. The closest are about 150 miles away, the longest being on the other side of the world. Heh.
 
Remember when there were pay phones everywhere? Good luck finding one now.

And the flat screen TV is changing everything as we speak. Two years ago, the average store in a mall had nothing but static displays. Now pretty people on TV are selling stuff to you constantly. Ridden in a cab lately? Jeesh. Even if you find a personable cabbie who speaks English, the bloody in-cab TV won't shut up.

BTW ... Here's a change *since* the start of the Web. Remember when a web site would show the text THEN the graphics. Now it's just the opposite. Is this a conspiracy to make sure we get the ads first then the reason why we stopped at a site?

mt
 
If you wanted to track down your friends, you pretty much hopped from Bar to Bar until you figured out where everyone was (No Cell Phones).

About 4 AM, you usually hooked up at an after hours joint.
 
I remember that writing essays at University started with an outliine, and then a more or less free-association writing session where you wrote out, by hand, basically everything you were hoping to include in the essay. Some people with money bought index cards, and wrote a paragraph per card. Others, like myself, wrote on a lined pad of paper and then ripped strips out - one paragraph per strip. All of your references were keyed to each paragraph, with a number, and written on separate sheet(s) of paper.

Then you arranged and rearranged the paragraphs - adding new ones, deleting redundant ones, by spreading all these pieces of paper on the floor or a big table. Once you were happy with the flow, you: A) if you were a keener, wrote out an almost final draft by hand, putting the footnotes into order, etc - and then typed it all out, or B) went straight to the typing bit and did your editing and footnoting on the fly. This used a lot more white-out. It might have saved some time.

At the end you had an original piece of writing. Some people used carbon paper to make a copy as they went. Others photocopied their essays for a backup. Most of us just trusted to the supreme powers that nothing bad would happen between the all night coffee shop the prof's mail box. It was always hilarious to watch someone else's essay blowing across the parking lot, sheet by sheet, when a backpack was not as closed as believed.

As yes.... the good old days. It's just not the same watching someone chase a CD across the parking lot. :D:D
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.