Never, except for driveways and parking lots.
How long since you been in a car without headrests?
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How about drive in movie theaters?
I think I went to this one around 1980.
Not that long ago. My sister drives/was fixing up an old car, and we took that for a spin last time I was in the States.
How long since you saw a cigarette vending machine? One of the machines where you put the coins in and pull out the plunger?
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Yeah, about the same here. I can remember using an ancient laptop with a built-in modem to make a dial-up connection, because it was the only way I could get on the internet. At the time, it was difficult to find public WiFi, but there were one or two companies providing dial-up access for free. UK.
It was a bit slow, but it worked.
Early '90s, did smoke back then.
How long since you saw Marlboro man in a magazine ad?
Ha!!!
Any fax information servers? Ironically when they were popular, I couldn’t afford one. Customer Service would have to send me a PDF
Now, I got a free fax machine on my printer but no one or nothing to fax.
I figured, I’d play with some fax servers.
A month ago.
When was the last time you used a pencil to rewind a cassette (audio)?
How long has it been since you threaded a film projector?
When I first came here and until relatively recently every temple would show 16mm movie for the enjoyment of the god and ancestors.
Us mortals enjoyed them too. They were usually Kung Fu comedies all had English and subtitles.
Then they disappeared, replaced with digital projectors…
Where did all reels of film go? Judging from the behavior of my family and institutions I worked for, I bet there was a race to the dump to throw out them as quickly possible.
I’m always the one sneaking around rescuing things from the garbage.
I hope you and hope that these things are stashed away in a room waiting to be given to people who want to put them to good use.
I was an AV nerd all through school and college pushing around the projectors.
Still love them.
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Never.
I always used a Bic pen. They are perfect for the task!
Star Wars in 1977.
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Just before the closing for the pandemic.
I was doing my children and students what we used to do.
I’m tempted to buy another player.
I do not miss teaching from those things though.
when was the last time you use an overhead projector?
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Still very popular in Taiwan, AFAIK. Definitely being used at NTU within the past few years.
But then, this is a country where government websites look like they were designed in 1995.
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Don’t knock it these things have soul and they’re real…
Records, vinyl, hold real sound, even tape holds real sound.
Trying to get these things to work be it a projector a analog telephone or whatever real media uses problem solving skills
It’s a joke giving a rotary of your phone or a cassette player to some of these kids today and watch them try to figure it out. Some have no logic.
When was the last time you used a film strip projector…
Never.
When was the last time you used an electric typewriter?
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How long has it been since you danced the Macarena?
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Without a doubt, 2002-2003.
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- It was a crazy party!
Old-fashioned phones were way more reliable than the modern equivalents, at least in my memory. Long-distance calls were expensive, but generally speaking everything just worked. With modern cellphones, that’s not the case anymore - there’s usually some intractable software issue that prevents you doing what you’re trying to do.
Quite incredible really, since a lot of it - from the phones down to the local exchanges - was basically electromechanical.
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Yep, they did work pretty good. I’ve noticed that now modern phone connection quality has improved a lot, though not perfect.
On a related note, did you ever have the experience on the old phones when you’d be calling a friend and the hear some other people having a conversation on the same telephone line? That was always interesting!
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