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Again this next one is closely related to home computers/internet and that is MP3 players. Even when personal stereos first came in, you still had to buy loads of different cassettes and cd's and decide which ones you're going to take with you and of course they could hiss if they got dirty or damaged or get mangled up in the mechanism and you'd spend ages trying to rescue it without breaking the tape or the machine, then finding a pencil that would fit in the holes and try and wind it all back in to find it happens again five minutes later. When they did work properly having to wind on blindly trying to find the track you wanted to hear. Those times when you remembered an old record you used to love way way back, searching the record shops, second hand shops and boot sales all to no avail, and whilst it could be fun at times, and fantastic if you found what you wanted. Now at the click of a mouse you can hear anything and everything because of sites like spotify and youtube! There are so many ways to transfer your music to your mp3 player, eg, rip your cd collection onto your computer for transfer, download directly from an online retailer, transfer music via bluetooth from somebody else's collection. The music can be arranged exactly how you want it, you can actually see what you're looking for and even better than that you can take hundreds and hundreds of tracks out with you and it'll take up less space than a purse or a wallet - amazing!
 
I agree wit all this apart from "arrange the music any way you want".

This is true unless you have to use iTunes, then it is arranged the way Apple decides.

And if you use an iPad or iPod, you HAVE to use iTunes!

Same with photos on an iPad, you can't name them, So I have to look through about 5000 to find the one I want.

Unless anyone knows otherwise.
 
I agree wit all this apart from "arrange the music any way you want".

This is true unless you have to use iTunes, then it is arranged the way Apple decides.

And if you use an iPad or iPod, you HAVE to use iTunes!

Same with photos on an iPad, you can't name them, So I have to look through about 5000 to find the one I want.

Unless anyone knows otherwise.
 
merryone said:
Again this next one is closely related to home computers/internet and that is MP3 players. Even when personal stereos first came in, you still had to buy loads of different cassettes and cd's and decide which ones you're going to take with you and of course they could hiss if they got dirty or damaged or get mangled up in the mechanism and you'd spend ages trying to rescue it without breaking the tape or the machine, then finding a pencil that would fit in the holes and try and wind it all back in to find it happens again five minutes later. When they did work properly having to wind on blindly trying to find the track you wanted to hear. Those times when you remembered an old record you used to love way way back, searching the record shops, second hand shops and boot sales all to no avail, and whilst it could be fun at times, and fantastic if you found what you wanted. Now at the click of a mouse you can hear anything and everything because of sites like spotify and youtube! There are so many ways to transfer your music to your mp3 player, eg, rip your cd collection onto your computer for transfer, download directly from an online retailer, transfer music via bluetooth from somebody else's collection. The music can be arranged exactly how you want it, you can actually see what you're looking for and even better than that you can take hundreds and hundreds of tracks out with you and it'll take up less space than a purse or a wallet - amazing!
Click to expand...

I think I was possibly a little hasty when I posted this, 'cause when the humble personal stereo first appeared on the mass market in the early 80's I know that I thought it was literally the best thing since sliced bread! Music on the move! Every day I had to travel by bus to work and it was a good 40 minute journey during rush hour, it was ok when a friend got on and you could have a chat, but nine times out of ten you'd be sat there bored getting frustrated with the slow moving traffic. Before this happened your on the go music, which had to be restricted to the park or your own back garden was the humble transistor radio or "tranny" as we used to call them! Remember them? small, cheap plastic thing with a wrist strap, which used to take you ages to tune in, then when you did the sound wasn't that great, and it would slip out of station every five minutes! And yes what I said about MP3 players/downloaded music still stands, but I really need to give a nod to the good old personal stereo which was undoubtedly the root of all our portable music!
 
My next shout is for the "clock/radio". When I was a kid, ok I relied on my parents to get me up in time for school, but when I started work in the late 70's school summer holidays and after that, a Saturday job, it was up to me. I had a functional clock that you wound up and the back and pulled out a metal button to ensure that the alarm went off, and when it did it was a cacophonous bell no fun whatsoever! and there was also the having to switch the light on to see the time if you woke up in the night. I remember receiving my first wage packet from my holiday job (packing t shirts) the princely sum of £10. Like a shot I was off to the nearest burger bar, then to the newsagent to buy cigarettes, forget 10 no. 6, it was 20 Sobranie please (sophisticated, so I thought, cocktail cigarettes) and I think I blew whatever change I had on sweets! I had nothing tangible to show for the fruits of my labour. My best friend on the other hand, when I asked her what she had bought told me she'd bought a "clock radio" and had enough change to buy herself a new lipstick!
I went to her house and she showed me this wonderful thing, with it's imitation wooden surround, it's beautiful red l.e.d display, showed me how she could wake up to the dulcet sounds of Noel Edmonds breakfast show, hit a snooze button if she wanted an extra few minutes in bed - I was amazed. I swore that my next wage packet would go on exactly the same, but sadly we were all laid off before that could happen, so it went straight onto my birthday wish list! A few months later I was the proud owner of a slightly more expensive model and I was thrilled with it and have never looked back!
 
Another crazy little thing to remember about the 70's and earlier is how none of your small electrical goods, eg hair dryers came with a plug attatched! If you were lucky there was a plug in the box for you to put on yourself, but mostly you'd have to buy them separately! Looking back that seems absolute madness!
 
I've probably still got a stockpile of plugs lost in the depth of Strato Towers.

I thought I had a bargain buying a lot at once, then they brought in the rule that they had to be pre-fitted.
 
I've probably still got a stockpile of plugs lost in the depth of Strato Towers.

I thought I had a bargain buying a lot at once, then they brought in the rule that they had to be pre-fitted.
 
Is it me, or did a lot of these things "happen in the 1980's?" Whilst I'm sure a lot of stuff was invented before then, the 80's seemed to be the decade when things became commonplace. In the late 70's I was a teenager, so I didn't do a lot of cooking but there were times when I was off sick from school or during holidays if brave enough I might heat up a tin of soup for myself, or boil the kettle and have a pot noodle, but most of the time as you could imagine I'd just stuff my face with crisps and biscuits, or have the odd piece of toast and marmite. Then all of a sudden along came the microwave! My young life was transformed and I could cook myself something hot in seconds, even have a complete roast dinner on a Sunday complete with it's own plastic plate. In the 70's, the only family I knew to have a microwave was a friend's family, and they ran a guest house, there's was huge and industrial like and I didn't even consider that a few years later we'd all have them in our kitchens and us teenagers and young 20 somethings would be making our own soggy pizzas and ready meals without having to wait to see what mum was cooking for dinner, or just raiding the fridge and stuffing your face with random stuff.
Again another 80's thing was the video player/recorder an amazing change, and so funny to think that they're pretty much obsolete these days. I don't know about you, but going to the video library on a Friday or Saturday night, a bottle of wine and a takeaway was as good as any night out on the town! How things change! I guess there's nothing bigger than mobile phone technology and the internet that have come along in later decades, for me the transition from 70's - 80's has been the most life changing!
 
The video recorder was the most complex piece of electro-mechanical equipment ever put onto the domestic market at the time. I think it was surpassed by video cameras that also used video tapes, so had the same complexity, plus all the other parts to make the camera.

Obviously, things like smartphones and tablets have very advanced technology, but they have no moving parts so do not have any mechanical complexity.
 
Totally forgot about the camcorder, possibly one thing that leapt into prominence during the nineties! Back in the day some families I knew had clunky but charming footage on cine film, but other than that it was either photographs or slide shows (many a boring evening eh?) But in the early nineties for sure, especially kids school productions like the nativity play - whole bunch of parents standing at the back of the school hall camcorders clasped to their eyes , lens caps swinging freely (if they'd remembered to remove them of course) oblivious to the fact they're missing the real ambience of the performance....WHY? They seem to have died a death now, I guess you can do it all on your mobile nowadays. I volunteered as a steward for the Brighton marathon this year and I was amazed to see so many people busy recording the elite runners coming in....I mean why? They're standing in touching distance of all these brilliant athletes, yet they're recording it to watch later...FGS they may as well of stayed in and watched it on telly!
 
Bringing it right into the late 20th/ 21st century...anyone remember "dial up internet"? OMG! I remember getting our first PC in about 1996 and our internet provider was Freeserve. I remember having to unplug the telephone and stick the phone jack into the side of the computer and it actually "dialling up" to get access (you could actually hear the ringtone etc) I remember it being terribly slow to connect, so time to make a cup of tea while you waited, and then limiting yourself to how long you were on there cause of the cost, though to be fair I think it was only a couple of pence per minute. However, you had to remember that whilst browsing the net nobody could ring you cause the line would be engaged! I remember trying to call people and it would be engaged, and would keep trying and then say...oh they must be using the internet! ...and not to mention how blooming slow it was...pages would emerge slowly, you could see a picture gradually appearing on your screen...it was all very exciting though. I used to have a special "internet timer" that you rested on top of the monitor that would count down the minutes you used, and when it beeped you knew your time was up. Could have used an cooking timer I guess, but I loved all the gadgets at the time! Course back then hardly anyone had a mobile phone, so the internet literally tied up your phoneline...Seems unbelievable now doesn't it?!
 

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