Obsolete Technical Skills
This popped up on
Slashdot recently. Mine include:
- Making a pot of tea without using teabags.
I'd almost forgotten that you could still get loose tea. Always remember to warm the pot first. Can you still buy teapots?
- Sucking eggs.
Yes, really. It's not just an expression. A good April Fool (if you're twelve) is to suck an egg, then serve the empty shell in an eggcup, as if boiled.
- Using a darkroom to develop photos.
Ah, the great smell of develooping fluid!
- Making a roach out of an IBM punched card (whatever that is).
- Using a "dictionary" to check spelling.
And you?
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ReplyDelete- Darning socks (people didn't even do this when I was a child, in the 1970s, but my Granny insisted on teaching me, anyway!).
ReplyDelete- Making bread from scratch without a breadmaker (and using fresh yeast, not the quick-acting powdered variety).
Blimey, IBM punched cards! When I worked at Leicester Poly/De Montfort University, there was a building inspired by punched cards. Now sadly demolished.
1. Putting your little girls hair in rags to make it curly. (My mum used to do that to me...I was not born in the Victorian era before you ask)
ReplyDelete2. Getting up to go and switch the telly over (OK, not really a skill)
Drive a manual transmission????
ReplyDeleteYou won't get far in my car if you can't!!!
Watching "live" TV shows....does that count? I record most of what we watch on our DVR then watch it later so we can skip the commercials.
ReplyDeleteUsing a blue-bag to get your washing white.
ReplyDeleteChanging the ribbon in a typewriter.
Programming the video. There was usually only one person in the family who knew how to do that anyway.
I still use a dictionary to look up words. It's a great big 'normous dictionary too, although it is called a Pocket Dictionary.
ReplyDeleteI also know how to programme the video.
I do not own a DVD player and I don't have access to multi-channel television. Am I stuck in a time warp?
For my kids, it would be coloring with actual crayons in an actual coloring book rather than in a computer program.
ReplyDeleteI have a teapot. I don't use it very often, but I like the whole ritual of it. And the fact it's a very pleasing lime green colour.
ReplyDeletedoing mental arithmatic in imperial currency, except in my local village shop where this is not actually obselete yet, sigh
ReplyDeleteUsing MS DOS commands.
ReplyDeleteSimilar to rilly super, using a cashbox and counting back change without a cash register. I never had to do it in imperial currency, though.
On another note, I got some very nice Scottish coasters in the mail yesterday from some very kind person. I now have the ability to call my husband a crabbit eejit. Thank you!!!
Julie - Darn! Those are good ones.
ReplyDeleteMisssy - Hair/rags - I did not know that one. My mum probly did.
TV without a remote - v.g. I did know someone who thought you couldn't reboot a mainframe computer without a light-pen. Same idea.
Sew - Is that really obsolete?
Jacki - I am so with you on that one!
Z - Good. What about backspacing the typewriter and using that chalk-coated paper to erase mistakes? Good times!
Liz - Thanks for not pointing out my own spelling mistake. I am an eejit. And too lazy to fix it.
I have watched maybe 12 DVDs, tops. I don't think you've missed much.
Marie - What the feck is the point of colouring things in using a computer program?
How hard can that be? Flood-fill. Click. Done.
Cat - Want!
Rilly - A sixth of a pound is three and four. A third of a pound is six and eight. Totally useless outside of The North.
Laurie - Remembering to write a cover note to go with a package. Doh!
You're very welcome.