Badmovies.org Forum

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdSHeKfZG7c

I like the host's response when the kid figures out the record player...
Sorry about the language, but its still good.
Le Ed

I have one of those old,very heavy black phones.From the 40's. You could beat someones head in with it. Of course the cord is a huge 3 pronged thing-not compatable with anything now.....I just sit it on the endtable for looks.

  I have one of those too. Some of my very young cousins were visitng and they thought it was some kind of gum ball machine. They thought you put money in the dial. They also couldn't believe there was a time when you couldn't carry your phone aorund and watch movies on it.

I find it funny when explaining old phone techology to people under the age of 25. When I was a lad, some people had answering machines, but most did not. This is what life was like before voicemail, answering machines, caller ID, wireless technology, etc.:

The phone rings. You have no idea who is on the other end. It could be a friend, an enemy, an unwanted pursuer, a family-member sharing urgent matters, a bill-collector, or an obscene caller (no consequences back then). There's no caller-ID, there's no *69, no answering machine, no way to know who it is without answering, unless you want to wait until next months phone bill. Then, if you answer, the phone you're talking on either has a cord that limits you to only walking a short distance, or even attached to the wall allowing you only a few feet of mobility. The person on the other end knows you're at home, and knows that he/she loses you it's not due to a drop in reception or atmospheric conditions or whatever. If you want to terminate the call, your only option is a loud click. The conversation is likely to be longer and more in-depth, because you can't go anywhere with the phone, you're not pumping gas, standing in line at Starbucks, watching a movie, etc.

This is not judgemental in any way. It's just a difference in persective. I wonder if anybody under the age of 25 can even relate to the scenario above.

What about sitting on a central location to use the phone?  Try and explain that one.

I honestly never thought I'd be the old guy who rags about how kids today have it so easy.  However, my I should have known my fate was sealed.  My big thing is when we wanted porn back in the day, we had to go to the newstand or video store and look a person in the face who you know was thinking "what a pervert". 

 :bluesad:

Such things were banned in South Africa and where I was born so when you finally managed to get your hands on an adult magazine (via someone and someone else) all the pages were stuck together for some reason.  :tongueout: :wink:

Me either.  Kids today wouldn't know what to do with themselves if their tech was taken away.
That is difficult for me to comprehend because I was raised very differently.

I read an ABCNews story recently where a teacher dared his students to go without their cell phones or Facebook for one week.
Several of the kids stated that it was hard for them and many of them slipped.

Is that sad or what?
What kind of pussies are parents raising these days!?

 :buggedout: :buggedout: :buggedout:

The youngsters I know have never even used a payphone.

I knew a guy in my hometown who collected old phones. He not only had a variety of them around his house, including an entire phone booth in his living room, but they all worked. In his basement, he had a working telephone exchange - one of those huge, electromechanical jobs that used the pulses from your rotary dial to ratchet through a series of contacts from one relay to the next. And that was connected to the outside phone line. All the phones in his house could call each other, and all of them could dial a number for the outside line, and the exchange would click away as he dialed. The funny thing is, his exchange also sends a different ringback when you call him. It's apparently the ringback from the old exchange, what people would have heard making a call when it was in use.

I believe it was the old phone exchange from our town, or at least a couple of banks of it. A lot of attention to detail too. The phone numbers on his phones are printed with the town's old "Mohawk" prefix, which was before my time.

I would be able to go a week without either except that I have good reasons for using both at least once a week. My cellphone is my only phone line, so it'd be a bad idea to cut that off for a week (plus I use mine as a watch). As for Facebook, I use it to make sure my gaming group is on the same page about upcoming sessions. Otherwise I'd have to call or e-mail each on individually, relay information from each to the others, etc.

I don't even have a Facebook, and Sometimes I leave my phone off to avoid talking to people. I guess I could win that teachers game.

It is funny because I have had many similar experiences.  What was it like before this thing or that thing?  What was like when you had to do this or that?  It is funny to think about in a way.  I can remember things like speaker phones were a big deal.  Actually, even seeing ads in the 80's when you had to distinguish between color and black and white TVs.  I'm in my early 30's and sad to think I am getting old.  Oh well, we can't change it we all do. 

Hehe.. the vid reminds me a bit of this show they had on VH1 for awhile called "Rock of Ages", where, among other things, they'd show old stuff (not just electronics, but album covers and whatnot) to younger and older people and ask them to identify what they thought it was.  They also showed the young people clips from various groups that were popular at the time, and older people groups that are popular today to get their reactions.  It was pretty funny.

My daughter finally asked me about the 16mm film reels I have mounted in a frame. She wondered why I hung a bunch of wheels on the wall. Took quite a bit of explaining - how moving pictures work, how a film projector works, how movies have only come on tapes and discs for a relatively short time, and so on.

I actually have an old 8mm projector in the basement that I picked up at a rummage sale a couple of years ago. Thought I might put it on display or something. I should buy some films for it off eBay and show her how it works.

Or you can just invite me over and I will bring some films to screen for you.  :teddyr:

There's something almost magic about watching projected film with a projector like that.  I think it's because it's so much easier to understand than the technology in newer formats.  Vinyl is the same way.  It's just neat, and is one reason vinyl has had a minor comeback amongst young people in the past 5 years.

I have a significant amount of experience with old tech for someone my age (27).  My dad brought home a teletype machine that was going to be thrown out, so I messed with that.  We had a rotary phone in our basement that I used sometimes for some reason (honestly, I have no idea why we had it, they were already outdated in the late 80s).  My dad had all kinds of OLD computer equipment, including punch cards.  A love of old video games has led me to buy a few made before I was born.  I remember messing around with our 8-track player.  Those things suck.

We also had two Betamax players when I was younger, and almost all the films I watched growing up were recorded off HBO/Cinemax on Beta, and we and still had one hooked up til about 2000.  I own several hundred films on LaserDisc.  I've toyed around with the idea of buying a CED player, but haven't gotten around to it. 

As far as modern kids go...  I do find it somewhat worrisome how dependent some are on the internet/cell phones.  I'm very glad now that I grew up without such things.  Well, the internet was AROUND and I first used it around 1992 or '93 (my dad was an engineer and used it for work in the early days) but I can fully remember when it was not so useful.  I also find some people's attitudes about cell phones to be extremely annoying.  Particularly how shocked and appalled they get at the idea of being unable to use theirs for more then literally minutes at a time (and this is hardly just young people either). 

Ever read the reactions people give to the idea of theatres actually blocking cell phone signals inside the theatres (a fantastic idea, by the way)?  They act as if you'd be cutting off their hand.  They whine about emergencies.  Yeesh.  Has that EVER mattered in the history of cellphones in theatres?   :lookingup:

eh, I can go without both- Before Eighth grade, I never had a cell phone nor had (and STILL!!!)  have a Facebook account.

PS, The Social Network robbed Inception of its Golden Globes, That nailed the coffin of how I will NEVER have a Facebook account! :hatred:

I have a rotary phone!  :teddyr:

I used to be fascinated by 8-track players. Just having this cartridge without the exposed mechanisms of a cassette, that could continuously play and wind the tape back onto the same reel. And a head that could shift from one set of tracks to the next. It was ingenious. I just hated having to wait for the tape to come back around to the same song if I wanted to hear it again.

I remember when my dad installed an 8-track player in the family Suburban. I use the term "installed" very loosely, since Dad refused to drill holes in the truck's interior. The deck sat loosely in the glove compartment, cushioned by sponges affixed to it by electrical tape. The surface-mount speakers were screwed to a board that sat under the front seat. It wasn't pretty, but it allowed us to enjoy a shoebox full of John Denver, Charley Pride and assorted bagpipe music on family road trips.

And Dad being a cheapskate with little interest in gadgets, we had rotary phones in the house until the 90s, including a hardwired wall phone they still rented from the phone company. Big black thing, so old that the outer shell was the only plastic on it. Metal hook, metal dial, metal everything. When Dad finally gave in and got me to install a jack for a touchtone with call display, the phone company actually wanted the old relic back (company policy, I suppose). Personally, I think they had a nerve to continue charging rent on it, much less ask for it back. I just wish I could have been at the local Bell World store to see the looks on their faces when Dad strolled in past the cellphones, satellite dishes and modems to present them with the thing.

A rotary phone remained in use in the basement until my parents sold the house a few years ago. Only rotary desk phone I've seen with an external Caller ID box.

 :teddyr: :teddyr: Me too.

My folks had a rotary phone in Zimbabwe and they had to get used to a push-button phone here once they moved.

I have had to teach kids how to use a broom.  Not little kids: kids well into their double digits age-wise.   :buggedout:

HEY - I actually had to USE the teletype at a job I had back in the '80's!

I live on a farm.

The only landlines available are NOT capable of high speed internet.  The phone company has no plans to replace them any time soon: it is too expensive to do.

Our phone is rotary-dial because that service is cheaper.  (Our second phone will produce tones when needed)  I am not going to pay for an upgrade to touch-tone until the phone company gives me no choice.  Why should I?  I get the same service.  We've been here since 1992 and that has not happened yet.  A neighbour still has a party line - for the same reason.

We do not have any cell phones in the family.  No texting teens here!  Hubby carries one for work when they ask him to - or a pager.

Yes we have internet: dialup.  TEN bucks a month.  (Compare unreliable wireless at $60/month) Yes my kids use it.  Three of us are on Facebook.  Big deal.  It provides contact with far-flung relatives and friends and it is cheap entertainment.  Nothing more.

We have satellite TV.  Largely a waste of money, but it is our one major indulgence.

People ask me, "What if someone wants to talk to you when you are away from the phone?" - they can wait until I check the answering machine!  The Prime Minister knows where to find me if he needs my immediate input.   :wink:   I do find that people are less willing to leave a message - they let it ring twice and if nobody picks up they break the connection before the answering machine picks up on the third ring.  THEN they tell me, "I called and called, but there was no answer!"  WTF???  If you really want to get in touch with me, give me the option returning your call you idiot!  (And it is not just private parties: businesses do it too)  IF I am expecting a call, I use the intercom in the barn to monitor the house phone.  I can hear it ring - and hear any incoming messages.  IF it was not important enough to you to make the effort to leave a message, it is NOT important enough to me to look up your number and call you just because you called my number! (Nope: no call display either.  Why pay for that?)

My kids understand that we are unwilling to spend the money to have wireless internet at the current rates and five cell phones, and that that money gets spent on other things we need or want more.  It's just not practical for us. Convenient? Perhaps. Essential? Absolutely not.

Years ago (over 20!), I encountered kids who were unable to tell the time on an analog clock - I have to say that disturbs me.  Now they cannot tie shoelaces, or even figure them out.  Read a map?  Not a hope.  Know which way is north?  HA!  Follow written directions?  It is to laugh!

And don't get me going on the lack of manners!  HOW is it polite to carry a cell phone, insist on keeping the ring 'on' and then to ignore the calls coming in - while you are doing something involving paying attention to another person?  If you're not going to actually USE it, HOW is that different from me being away from my phone and answering machine in the house?

As far as I can see, we're not gaining skills, we are losing them.  Including patience.

No wonder we have so many people who feel extremes of anxiety: they cannot be alone and they have no abilities when they are 'cut off'.  That IS scary!

BTW: my family is active in outdoor activities: all are involved in Scouting, camping, boating, fishing, sports, etc.  My kids DO spend a good bit of time playing games on the computer, and on the internet, but it is only part of what they are 'into'.  We're even more committed to Scouting as a counter to what we see happening to kids these days.  There is a great deal of self-esteem to be gained from a feeling of capability and self-reliance.

Sorry this turned into a bit of a rant - hit a sore spot!   :tongueout:

(edited for spelling!)

Found an identical phone on Wikipedia. The Western Electric Model 554 with a metal dial, circa 1959. That would have been about when the house was built, so I assume it was the original phone.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b8/WE554wallphone.jpg/800px-WE554wallphone.jpg)
Been a long time since I can remember seeing something like this inside any electronic device.
(http://www.electronixandmore.com/adam/images/phone/blk554_1.jpg)

Back when rotary phones would still work on the lines, a friend of mine put one in just because he's an aficionado of old technology and a fan of 70s-80s kitsch. It was one of those wall phones with a rotary dial in the handset. I used to think those things were so cool when I was a kid. So did my friend, so he was thrilled to find one. Even today, it seems a really creative mix of old and new (for the time) technology.
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2593/3760861639_c1d76301ef_z.jpg)

Speaking of teletype machines, I went to electronics school in the Navy in 1998, and they were still teaching about how to troubleshoot them in the context of a full communications room on a ship. I never saw an actual teletype machine once I hit the fleet, however. I just remember that phase of school and the TTY machines always having the old teletype testing sentence that contains every letter in the English language "THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY BEAR" over and over.

In the mid '90's, I went for a year with no phone at all.  It was great and I loved it.  (I did have phone access at work, so if family across the country had to get in touch for an emergency, they could).

To order pizza, we had walk or drive to a nearby gas station and use the pay phone.

I'd LOVE to be phone-less again.  For most part, I don't want people to get in touch with me; I want to be left alone.  However, I admit with the children and their activities (schedule changes, etc) that it would be harder to do without.

As for old tech...well, we don't have pressurized running water and we certainly don't have hot running water.  We have a hand pump, and when we need hot water, we heat it on the stove; that includes for mundane tasks like washing dishes.  No oven and no microwave, either, so cooking is a little more "old school" (we cook on a propane stove).

We also have no refrigerator, so storing food is a low-tech approach.  We do have a passive ice box.

The funny thing about all this is how other people react (kids and adults).  They assume that we are unhappy - because we don't have a microwave oven, for example - like we would change it if we could.

That's the wrong assumption.  We reject those 'conveniences' as a requirement to being happy, and that's the disconnect.  Others act like "how can you be happy without x?"

Oh Newt!  I love you!  I got a cell phone for my 21st birthday and cried... because I was sad, not because I was happy.  I'm really wrestling with modern technology.  I see all the benefits, but I can't get over people being so obsessed.  I refuse to use my cell phone for conversations... I'll call you at home or come over.

I admit, I have trouble reading analog clocks.  I can do it, but it just takes me about 5 seconds or so.  I can't glance at it and know what time it is.  I've always had one at home, so it's not for lack of exposure!  I'm slow at reading too, so maybe that's related.

I used to have a rotary phone!  I miss it.  I always wondered why 9-1-1 was the emergency number when 9 takes so long to dial on a rotary phone.

Don't feel bad about the reading thing. I'm not the fastest reader either, but my retention is outstanding.

Hmmm...  If I went without a phone that means I'd basically never see anyone ever again.  Everyone I know lives far apart and keep odd hours...  So cell phones are the only practical way of keeping in touch.  Kind of sucks sometimes actually. 

I do not have a cellphone.  My employer had offered to pay for the thing, yet I declined.  I do see the practical uses, and if I was commuting as I had been back in the '90s, I would carry one.  Otherwise, my thought is: "Why would I want my phonecalls following me around?? :question: :thumbdown: 

I had no television for more than two years until I moved into this house.  I had a TV, so I could watch VHS, but no cable, and never bothered to connect the thing to the antenna that had been on the roof of the old house.  I did not watch television at all for about 30 months; I still don't watch much television. 

Write a letter?

I mean, if you are really spread out (like my family was when I went without a phone), you don't get together on a whim.  It has to be planned.  Writing works.  And a letter is something you put some of yourself into that the other person gets to keep.

Just think about how much of history we know from personal letters that were saved.  That's pretty much gone, now.   :bluesad:

Don't worry!  I still write letters!  And I collect stationery!

Well, I am exaggerating a bit.  We're not so spread out that we can't drive to each others houses, it's more like we all live half an hour by driving, and people are rarely home.  I always have to plan out when I meet friends, most of them have unpredictable work/homework and I can't readily communicate with them any other way than phone.  So it's very difficult to see anyone without talking to them on the phone.

As far as letters go, archaeologists now consider us to be in a far better era as far as preservation of personal history - tons of people save their emails, and the telephone had already vastly reduced the number of letters written.  There's way more being preserved of people's correspondence now than 20 years ago.

The one thing that bothers the heck out of me is that I have an almost new camera and because it uses roll film, I can't use it anymore: no store sells film anymore.  :question:

Letters are precious: my mom has collected all the letters and notes I sent her when my kids were tiny into one 'book' and revisits my accounts of their antics regularly.  That will become a family heirloom.  My dad treated the stories I sent him about a beloved dog the same way.  Dad is gone now, but we can read the things that made him laugh and relive a bit of those shared moments.  I'm afraid I have yet to hear of anyone preserving e-mails without printing them off.  Unless your 'documents' are deemed sufficiently significant to be archived somehow, it seems to me your electronic media are even more likely to disappear shortly after you are gone.   

Stationery!   I lucked into a trove of older, high-quality letter paper, cards and envelopes at an estate sale.  Thick, high rag content cream with deckle edges and a lovely finish/texture, stored in its own cedar box.  Even the simple feel of it makes letter writing special and using it elevates a mere note to an occasion!

Well, then they are being INCREDIBLY short sighted, because most tech - geek discussions on this subject seem to be more in the line of stuff being more fragile now.

Electronic media require a reader - most the hardware and the 'translation" of the signal into meaningful data.

Due to compression and other storage protocols, the ENTIRE record of information may need to be readable in order to read ANY of it.  Finding 1/3 of a thumb drive may be useless, even IF the technology exists to read and translate the thing.

The data itself is more fragile.  Data on CD's and DVD's, for example, is only reliably good for 10's of years, which may be a bit longer than magnetic media.  Contrast this with the 1000's of years physical and macroscopic media have been preserved well enough not only to see the data but to translate it into meaningful info.

From a technological perspective, data now is far more likely to be lost for the future.  Note here that I am talking about day-to-day data not stuff that, like Newt points out, is specifically preserved.  Who knows if THAT will last, either.  I often wonder if they underestimate the forces of decay that could be at work.  After all, it's all untested hypothesis at this point.  We have yet to actually preserve electronic media for 1000's of years, through natural disasters, weathering, perhaps warfare like destruction, etc.  We/They just don't KNOW it is better now, and there are a lot of indicators that it is far, far more fragile.

Precisely, ulthar!  (And I AM speaking as a trained Archaeologist here) our current methods and technology should drive home the meaning of the word "ephemeral": "lasting or of use for only a short time".

Speaking on that subject they had specified that it is rather unlikely to survive long.  I don't buy most things I see but they discussed this on "Life After People" on the history channel.  They were talking about how long our fingerprint would last if we were all gone.  Data as we currently have it can last but only under ideal temperature and moisture conditions.  Most stuff that is being preserved wouldn't last long without proper structures to maintain it.  Even under those conditions books last far longer.  Though it is interesting to note the things they thought to last the longest.  Concrete structures and stone carvings. 

Somebody hand me a hammer, chisel and big slab of rock. I'm gonna have to record badmovies.org's existence for the ages.

Instant doesn't always necessarily mean better. That to me is a major flaw in today's thinking. Give me a traditional phone conversation over texting or cell-phones anyday. At least the old phone had a wire that limited your movement and kept you from doing stupid things like walking into walls, falling down manholes or into fountains. Yes everyone having these constant everyday distractions make them so much more efficient at work, on the highways, walking down the road now doesn't it??  :wink:

Today's multitaskers are often today's morons as well.

Instant downloads may be more convenient but rarely do you get the same level of quality as with a CD. There's something lost in not having access to the record sleeve and its often artistic covers. There's something lost without the smell and musk of reading a book or a comic book, the feel, hold and smell cannot be duplicated online.

 :teddyr:  The year 2011 marked when humanity realized stone was the most lasting medium to write and began copying everything into the stone archives.  There was much debate but the decision was finally reached that chiseling movie scenes would be too expensive and time consuming. 

Just for fun: the next time you are in a suitable environment (city, large town, commercial area) take a look around and imagine what would be left to leave an impression of who we were after you remove everything that burns, rots, corrodes or otherwise decays.  Then try picturing the culture that produced just those things that remain: what were the people like as a group and what was important to them?   :wink:

The TV Show Life After People (I think it is) on the History Channel talksabout this, and by their reckoning, nothing much we have build will last 500 years in a recognizable form.
-Ed

The only problem with that show is that it is almost all blind conjecture.

That's what's happened to the History Channel in recent years...they've replaced solidly researched programming with out-of-the-anus speculation on a variety of topics, all unsubstantiated by anything scientific, create some cool animated computer graphics, and ENTERTAIN, ENTERTAIN ENTERTAIN.

Why let little things like facts and real science get in the way...and how is most of what they show now HISTORY anyway?

Even Modern Marvels (some of those things will last a while, I'd wager) has taken a nose dive of late, I notice.  Lots of topics, while interesting in their own right, are neither modern nor marvels.

The bottom line is that it is VERY tricky to extrapolate much of anything into the future.  There are few things we CAN do this with very well, but only when we stick to things that lie very close to our fundamental physical laws (gravity, conservation of mass, etc).  Once we get into complex dynamical systems, all bets are off beyond some tiny fraction of the timescale of the perturbations from equilibrium.

Although they are at least partly right about what's likely to happen to a lot of our material culture. Digital files just don't last long; even if you have it on a disk or something that somehow survives, how will you access that information? We have trouble accessing files and programs from media that are only 10 years old! Add to that the fact that many things are designed to break or just wear out after X number of years/uses, and well...okay, it's likely that our trash is going to survive. That stuff just does NOT decompose.

5000 years from now, they're still going to be finding plastic bags from our time (unless we recycle all of them, then they'll probably find whatever we turned them into).

I will give you that but I wouldn't say they were completely wrong in there calculation here.  At least, in there answer of how long most modern data will last.  However, in the end, isn't that the problem with being human an obsession with time.  How or if we will be remembered.  There is something in us that drives us to leave some mark on the world and hope it is noticed. 

This is all true (a bit of trivia I like: it's more reliable and considerably cheaper to store Hollywood films on film than on hard drive backup stuff), but there's such an incredibly large amount of data being produced now that even if less than a thousandth of it survives as has survived from antiquity, we'll still have WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY more stuff from the past 20 years than any other era ever.  Not to mention the gigantically huge numbers of physical books still being created (though, of course, only the acid free ones will survive for long). 

Preserving our heritage and old stuff is an ongoing task, but it always has been.  If it hadn't been for the scholars in the Islamic world, we'd have lost quite a bit of the stuff from antiquity.  We still need such people, of course, but when people actively work to preserve history (like what I do - I periodically reburn redundant backups of all my old documents, going back nearly 20 years now), as is going on right now, it's not something I'm really that concerned about.  You just constantly migrate and backup data (something much easier with vast interconnected networks, which when designed right are resistant to damage), and make periodic hard copies.  I hear people talk about file systems, and file types, and all that stuff. That was once a big deal, but not as big of an issue as it once was.  I suppose it is possible we'll see some huge advance in file systems or the way digital data is stored, but personally I find it unlikely it will be impossible to translate texts to it.  You can convert over text files from the very first PCs to a brand new one with a little work, and that's a 30 year gap.  And in the past 20 years, there are a number of files types that really HAVEN'T changed.  The trend now seems to be convergence and greater stability.  The extreme importance of the internet, which seems unlikely to end, means all computers coming out will be standardized to work with it, with files shareable between them.

Granted, all this could change. 

It is worth mentioning now that only a tiny fraction of written history has survived from any past period.  That's not likely to change.  But the shear volume is so enormous today, I think we'll see a lot from the current era surviving for millenia.