June 30, 2009
iPod versus the Walkman
13-year-old Scott Campbell swaps an iPod with a Walkman for a week:
It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette.
Another notable feature that the iPod has and the Walkman doesn’t is “shuffle”, where the player selects random tracks to play. Its a function that, on the face of it, the Walkman lacks. But I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down “rewind” and releasing it randomly – effective, if a little laboured.
I remember the first time I had to use a rotary phone, I was clueless.
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“Reel-to-reel scares me,” said a friend, younger than me, when she was working in a symphony orchestra archive.
Have you ever threaded 8 mm film into a projector that appears to be made out of cast iron? Jesus. I do miss, though, the flurry of scratchy numbers and the flopping sound made when when the end comes….
Daryl, I would not know how to do that. I suspect I could figure it out, but I have literally never done it. I was born in 1980.
[...] Speaking of youth, a 14-year-old, Caroline Moore, found a supernova that baffles scientists: Her discovery did indeed turn out to be a supernova, but it goes against all the rules we thought we knew. For example, it’s in a galaxy that’s in the process of “eating itself,” UGC 12682, where supernovas don’t usually occur. It’s also one of the least luminous supernovas ever detected, and scientists haven’t found any evidence of hydrogen, which usually turns up around dimmer supernovas. Now scientists are theorizing that the lack of hydrogen may stem from the fact that this was a massive star that lost mass. Perhaps its core collapsed into a black hole without transferring any energy to the outer layers of the star. [...]
“I’m relieved that the majority of technological advancement happened before I was born, as I can’t imagine having to use such basic equipment every day. ”
In 30 years his son will be comparing the iPod to the newest device and saying exactly the same thing.
Andrew, I was born in 1978, and we had at least one rotary phone in my house until the early ’90s. And we had a party line in the early ’80s. Do you even know what a party line is?
And just to be clear: My house had two computers in it in 1984 or 3 (an Apple IIc and a Commodore 64—and before that, Colecovision). And we had a laserdisc player. And we got a DVD player in 1998. Which is to say that we were certainly early adopters, but we still had the rotary phones. I actually miss them a bit.
Jonathan, I had to google “party line” on Bing to find out what it was.
I suspect we had a rotary phone at home during the age I didn’t have a need to phone a call, but my first experience was at church. I had to call my mom to come pick me up and I remember some adult’s amusement at the fact that I was staring at the rotary phone like a dog would a card trick.
“In 30 years his son will be comparing the iPod to the newest device and saying exactly the same thing.” Michael, you have it right I think–although it might be half that span of time and kids will be saying–My god, back then you actually had to touch something to get your music!
When MGS and I moved-in together (1981) we had a party line with apartment downstairs.
When I was in high school, my parents got one of those fancy phones with the push-buttons that lit up for their bedroom~~~ a powder blue “princess” phone. It was my favorite.
I love the smell of 8 mm film reels.
I always wanted one of those princess phones, in powder blue or pink.
Hey, I still use film!
I remember when I joined the police back in 1980 I would occasionally be asked to man the switchboard – it was one of those with all the wires and holes – I loved it, I really felt like I was doing something important when driving that baby!
When I hosted a radio show from 1982 to 1984, I twirled pots (potentiometers) and dials and knobs and flipped toggle switches and had me all kinds of fun!
Andrew said google on Bing.
google on Bing
…and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe
Wocky-tocky.
…rotary phones, well water, only party lines (where one said: “Flemming8 – 4352, please, Betty. Oh, and Betty? my folks are over to the Rudnick’s – could you let them know I’ll be heading to school in an hour? Thanks!”), outdoor johns (under a cherry tree that produced the world’s sweetest Bings [Google or no]), natural a/c (open windows) and no television, much less advanced electronics…i remember getting my first pocket radio in ‘62.
Funny, people tend to equate those days as the “better, simpler” times. They were of course no such thing. Bodies washed up in the Missouri river daily; children would occasionally go missing, women and young ladies were “interfered with”, crime was just as prevalent, humanity just as willful. At the time, however, we believed those miscreants were few and far between. Advanced electronics have long since disabused us of that notion . . .
I understand why folks wear iPods 24/7.
You’re right, Doc. There never were no better, simpler good ol’ days.
One thing I’ve noticed you do see less of lately, though, is your arsenic poisonings. I think that the more widespread acceptance of divorce may have something to do with that.
Still, arsenic would be cheaper.
Also: Doc, can you tell me when sex was invented? Was it the early or mid sixties?
@ Andrew Simone –
holy crap! don’t they teanch ANYTHING in these new fangled schools these days!
@ Andrew -
Seriously, I understand sex was invented in the late 50s by a young Tennessean named Elvis Aaron Presley who, reportedly, shook it like a chorus girl…
Prior to that sex was a innuendo only glimpsed in film noir.
Oh! So that was what was going on below the head of his femur.
@ Sheila -
I do believe arsenic was indigenous at the time to the farming communinty; lead was more of an issue in the cities…
; ‘ )
Easier, though, to taint your husband’s hoecakes with arsenic than with a fatal dose of lead filings.
Wasn’t sex invented in Sweden in either the late 1950s or early 1960s? People really liked the peculiarly Swedish novelty aspect of it: it was both dirty and hygienic at the same time.
I think that its spread internationally had something to do with Swedish stewardesses.
@ sheila –
city dwellers didn’t bother with niceties back then. packaged and propelled served lead well enough…
@ Andrew –
well, that’s what happens when my iPod pumps “all shook up” in my ears; ah, to watch the horror in the young, hip eyes…
@ Sheila -
re: Swedes
I’m fairly sure that was considered ‘porn’, not sex…
Doc, I’m thinking that’s what the menfolk went for. We sneaking, cowardly womenfolk often prefer the chemical ingestion route, either for ourselves or our spouses.
With respect to what I said just now of the menfolk, I was thinking of packaged, propelled lead, not porn.
Although I know they both have their appeal.
“With respect to what I said of the menfolk, I was thinking of packaged, propelled lead, not porn.
Although I know they both have their appeal.”
At once? That may just be a Southern custom…