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People that grew up before the internet age, how was life different? (1 Viewer)

I remember seeing HBO for the first time.  

The opening HBO title sequence used to be a big deal.  The big letters over a city or the letters themselves being a futuristic building of some kind.  When it changed it was a big deal.  HBO would actually run 30 or 60 minute specials on the making of their opening title sequence. 

 
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First computer was an Apple 2e. Just thinking about floppy disks is funny. 

Learned beginners all purpose symbolic instruction code.... cobalt(?) I think.... was there a locus 123or something?

 
Anyone mention PBS?  Ours was channel 13. Sesame street,  Mr. Rogers,  3-2-1 Contact (with a young Sarah Jessica Parker)... the Great Space Coaster... Electric Company... Reading Rainbow (that was Lavar Burton, right)... 

All the news with Gary Gnu......

We watched a fracking puppet Gnu run a talk show and we were happy dammit!

 
There was one grocery store that used to put its Playboys next to all the magazines on one of the aisles.   My friends and I had ridden our bikes to this store from my house because I had told them about this goldmine.  We came up with the plan to casually place the Playboy in between a Sports Illustrated and casually browse in the aisle.  We must have been pretty obvious because within a couple of minutes an employee came over and told us to never come back in the store.  My Mom would always wonder why I chose to stay in the car when she went to that store.

 
Yankee23Fan said:
I remember seeing HBO for the first time.  

The opening HBO title sequence used to be a big deal.  The big letters over a city or the letters themselves being a futuristic building of some kind.  When it changed it was a big deal.  HBO would actually run 30 or 60 minute specials on the making of their opening title sequence. 
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I remember the title sequence “making of” video. So cool. 

When we first got HBO it was pretty limited. I must have watched The Music Man 50 times. And Fraggle Rock. 

 
bosoxs45 said:
How was life different before the internet? Im a “ millennial “ and am curious how did you guys stay in touch? How did you find out where to meet people? What did you do at night without a TV to watch? How did you get around the city in which you lived? What kinds of clothes did they wear? What kind of food did they eat? Basically, how did you live?
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We had to use a Game Genie for cheat codes.  It's hard to remember how I even passed the time without the internet.  I know it sucked having to actually look up directions before GPS etc.  Information was so hard to come by, people actually paid money for encyclopedias and Nintendo hotlines.  Arcades were so dope before home tech caught up with them.  I miss a lot about the 90's.  

 
randall146 said:
I remember the title sequence “making of” video. So cool. 

When we first got HBO it was pretty limited. I must have watched The Music Man 50 times. And Fraggle Rock. 
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Fraggle fracking Rock.

You know it's on again now. They've been rerunning it. Even the wife is giddy with me when it comes on.

Kids think we're crazy.

 
randall146 said:
If you are in your mid 40’s you are the lone generation who made “mixtapes” as a sign of love and affection. Mixtapes were a BIG deal  

No cd’s or mp3s. If you wanted a particular song you had to buy it (expensive, and then you needed a double cassette player) or wait for it to play in the radio and hope to press record quickly enough. A good mixtape took a lot of thought and work and time  

“Record” is a little red button nestled in with the “play” button. 
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OMG.... waiting for it on the radio..... my lord I remember that.

 
ren hoek said:
We had to use a Game Genie for cheat codes.  It's hard to remember how I even passed the time without the internet.  I know it sucked having to actually look up directions before GPS etc.  Information was so hard to come by, people actually paid money for encyclopedias and Nintendo hotlines.  Arcades were so dope before home tech caught up with them.  I miss a lot about the 90's.  
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ah, yes. Road maps.

Had to have a road map in the glovebox at all times.

... and if you drove beyond your map, better stop and buy another map for THAT area. The convenience stores would always have them at or near the checkout as they were very popular. 

 
randall146 said:
If you are in your mid 40’s you are the lone generation who made “mixtapes” as a sign of love and affection. Mixtapes were a BIG deal  

No cd’s or mp3s. If you wanted a particular song you had to buy it (expensive, and then you needed a double cassette player) or wait for it to play in the radio and hope to press record quickly enough. A good mixtape took a lot of thought and work and time  

“Record” is a little red button nestled in with the “play” button. 
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And you get pissed when the DJ talked over the intro

 
Land line phones were our main source of contact ... other than just knocking on somebodys door to see if they were home and wanted to do something.

It was a major deal when the phone rang. Since the whole family shared the one phone, siblings would stop what they were doing and race for it when it rang ... hoping it was for THEM. "Dang, it's just grand-ma.", "yes, grandma, I'm fine, here's mom".

Now the few of us that still have a land line just ignore it (telemarketers).

I remember getting major nerves calling a girl for the first time to ask her out. Wasn't so easy like texting or snapface or whatever the teens are doing now.

 
Bossman said:
ah, yes. Road maps.

Had to have a road map in the glovebox at all times.

... and if you drove beyond your map, better stop and buy another map for THAT area. The convenience stores would always have them at or near the checkout as they were very popular. 
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Back when the yellowpages weren't a total waste of a tree.  

I'm not that old, but I'm glad I'm old enough to appreciate cassette tapes and eating inside of a Pizza Hut, as well as playing the pinball game on Windows, but young enough to grow up and understand AOL install discs, winMX, how to use the internet from the very beginning, etc.  It's been a very amazing era to grow up in techwise.  

 
Picking up the phone to use it and hearing that awful noise because somebody was connected to prodigy. 

Going to the airport to pick somebody up and waiting at the gate to see them come off the plane.

 
Bossman said:
ah, yes. Road maps.

Had to have a road map in the glovebox at all times.

... and if you drove beyond your map, better stop and buy another map for THAT area. The convenience stores would always have them at or near the checkout as they were very popular. 
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I am still so old school with directions. Map store near me just went out of business. I was sad. 

 
Not every other kid was overweight.  I look at the playground at my daughter's school and at least half the kids have a paunch.  Boys and girls alike.  I always felt I was a bit chubby, albeit very very handsome.  Looking back at old photos, I'd be in the top 25% of fit kids nowadays.  

 
We didn't have parents who would drive us all over the state for "travel ball."   

We played ball a lot, in the church parking lot where we also played a lot of roller hockey.

Anyone else remember trying to armor your hockey stick blade so they wouldn't wear down to a nub on the asphalt?

We duct taped strips of sheet metal onto the bottom edge at one point.  

 
shuke said:
Forget buying video games, we have to make them ourselves!

I had a Commodore Vic-20.  You had to buy these magazines that had code in them for different games.  You would have to type pages and pages of code like this.

This was by far one of my favorite "toys" as a kid.
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My Dad had the Vic-20 .. I worked the summer after 8th grade as a "Corn Detasseler" to save up enough money to buy the Commodore 64.
Spent a lot of time going through "Compute" magazine and programming in the games and then saving them on...... wait for it...... Cassette tapes!!! :lol:

Two years later, our High school offered a Computer programming class as an elective. I walked in the first day and low and behold there was the Commodore 64 and I started laughing. Teacher asked me what was so funny... I told him that I've owned one of those for 2 years... He handed me the "final" for the Semester, which I finished the first day.
He gave me an "A" and said "Well, I guess you can help me teach this semester" :bowtie:

 
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I remember thinking we had moved up a little in class when mom found/bought one of the new long phone cords for our lone house phone in the kitchen.  You could get on the phone and take it into another room for a little privacy instead of standing there in the kitchen talking like a doofus.  Course your brother would just pull the other end of the cord out of the phone base.

 
Yankee23Fan said:
randall146 said:
If you are in your mid 40’s you are the lone generation who made “mixtapes” as a sign of love and affection. Mixtapes were a BIG deal  

No cd’s or mp3s. If you wanted a particular song you had to buy it (expensive, and then you needed a double cassette player) or wait for it to play in the radio and hope to press record quickly enough. A good mixtape took a lot of thought and work and time  

“Record” is a little red button nestled in with the “play” button. 
Click to expand...
OMG.... waiting for it on the radio..... my lord I remember that.
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yep... and we went one better... Hooked up our TV to a Recorder and would record the Music from MTV (back in the day when they played Music Videos) onto cassettes.

I would then put in the cassette at parties and everyone would be in asking where I got it from since it sounded so different from their Cassette tapes.. ;)

 
Jayrok said:
I remember thinking we had moved up a little in class when mom found/bought one of the new long phone cords for our lone house phone in the kitchen.  You could get on the phone and take it into another room for a little privacy instead of standing there in the kitchen talking like a doofus.  Course your brother would just pull the other end of the cord out of the phone base.
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YES!  The long cord was money.

 
Bossman said:
Land line phones were our main source of contact ... other than just knocking on somebodys door to see if they were home and wanted to do something.

It was a major deal when the phone rang. Since the whole family shared the one phone, siblings would stop what they were doing and race for it when it rang ... hoping it was for THEM. "Dang, it's just grand-ma.", "yes, grandma, I'm fine, here's mom".

Now the few of us that still have a land line just ignore it (telemarketers).

I remember getting major nerves calling a girl for the first time to ask her out. Wasn't so easy like texting or snapface or whatever the teens are doing now.
Click to expand...
Plus... any number that didn't share your area code and exchange (the 3 numbers after the area code) was "long distance" and you would be charged for calls to those numbers.

I had a girlfriend in the next town over who was a "long distance" call. Spent a lot of my weekly allowances calling her :crazy:  

 
I remember being in Saudi Arabia during Desert Shield and Storm having to sign up on the phone list at MWR tent and waiting for your 5 minute turn to call your sig other/family.  You had to try and guess how long it would take to time it because you had to go back to work and later check back to see how close you were to the phone.  It was like a crowded doctor's office or hospital waiting room.  If you timed it wrong and got passed over, you put your name at the bottom of the list.  

I saw a movie recently where the sniper guy was talking to his wife on the phone while at work on the top of a building in Iraq taking shots.  

 
gianmarco said:
Who used to get the TV Guide? That was the only way to know what would come on TV.

I'd study it every week to see what movies might be on that I could watch. 
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Homer to Bart: Boy, you have to learn how to read. Otherwise you will never know what's on TV.

 
Also, when my activities would finish, I would sit at our meeting spot until my mother showed up to pick me up. If the time was 6pm, I was there 5 minutes before and waited until she showed up. That could be 6. Or 6:10. Or whenever she could make it due to work/traffic/whatever. 

What didn't happen was her getting there and waiting on me. No one's parents parked cars at kid's practices to wait on them. It was more like a getaway car that you got in quickly and you were lucky if they came to a complete stop.

Now, parents actually attend and wait at almost every activity and God forbid a kid has to wait to get picked up. I was actually 5 minutes late to my son's soccer practice one day and got a call from the coach to make sure everything was ok.

 
gianmarco said:
Who used to get the TV Guide? That was the only way to know what would come on TV.

I'd study it every week to see what movies might be on that I could watch. 
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Great one!  Not sure why, but I used to collect them.  I also liked doing the crossword puzzle in the back of each one because they were TV related (i.e. easy)... sometimes they'd have a jumble puzzle too!)

 
randall146 said:
If you are in your mid 40’s you are the lone generation who made “mixtapes” as a sign of love and affection. Mixtapes were a BIG deal  

No cd’s or mp3s. If you wanted a particular song you had to buy it (expensive, and then you needed a double cassette player) or wait for it to play in the radio and hope to press record quickly enough. A good mixtape took a lot of thought and work and time  

“Record” is a little red button nestled in with the “play” button. 
Click to expand...
Before the internet and file sharing, if you wanted music from live shows, you had to trade people.  I would get someone's mailing address, dub one of my shows on my dual cassette player and send to them, and vice versa.  

I still have all my old cassettes. I haven't listened to them in years, but I can't get rid of them.

 
RE: TV guide.  I always loved the Sunday paper because the complete TV guide for the week was included.  Sunday after church I'd get it (dad got it first thing in the morning) and look through the enter week to see what shows were coming on and when.  I liked that guide better than TV guide.  

 
One thing that I talked to my son about being a blessing and a curse with the ability to have anything you want at the touch of a button as far as music and movies go is that you don't get those great attachments to things anymore.  Granted, I would have been all over Spotify and the like in HS if I had that technology, but there was something great about not having the money for a bunch of stuff, having to choose a couple albums, and since that's what you had in your collection you listened to it over and over an formed a connection with it and the band.  Same went for movies - I watched Karate Kid, Back to the Future, and Ghostbusters a ton of times because those where the 3 VHS tapes that we had in the house.  

As far as what the OP is getting at, yeah - it wasn't that hard.  Basically we knew where people met at night in town - mostly the school's park since it was a small town.  It's not like we didn't have phones, so we could call and make plans.   The biggest difference is we didn't all have our pocket-sized distractions so we actually were hanging out and interacting with each other, not just occupying the same space as each other while we **** around on our phones.  ;)

 
Calling girls was an adventure.  She probably gave you her number using a word and 5 digits, if you were in an area that had 7 digit dialing.  (I spent my summers in a four digit area where you dialed only four digits or if you just picked up the phone and waited a minute the operator would come on and ask who you wanted.)  For instance Becky's number was SUnset 6- 5969.  When you called it was almost invariably some kid brother or sister who would run to the phone and pick it up.  Then you would hear some snotty call out after you said who you wanted, something like "Beeckyyyy, its that booy again!"  Then Dad would pick up the phone and ask what you wanted.  Well you could not tell him a B.J. from Becky so you would say "I would like to speak with Becky, Sir, if that's all right."     Then you would hear him say, "At this hour" or "On a school night", or "Do you know this is the time when decent folks are eating?".  You would say "Yes Sir.  It will only take a minute Sir.  I apologize if I interrupted your meal, Sir."  Then she would get on.  She couldn't talk on her end because maybe her kid sister was listening on an extension and her father was standing over her.  You could not talk on your end, same reason.  If in the4 digit dialing area it was a party line where others could listen in just by picking up their phone so you would speak succinctly and surreptitiously.  Generally you would just set up a place and time to meet and do all of your communicating face to face. 

Becky was fine, like Cheryl Ladd, but hotter .

 
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The other funny thing is how much we just wandered around town on our own or were able to bike to work compared to how people react to that now.  Biked everywhere - including a couple miles to work when I was 14 and weather allowed.  Now it feels like you are a bad parent if you let your kid walk more than 3 blocks because of the boogeyman and kidnappings and sex rings and stuff.  

 
I remember making a cassette with friends at school for a class project.  It had music (Journey, Styx, Boston, Meatloaf) and commentary (ours).  I remember thinking that I could edit it and make it better/funnier, etc., so I tried to clip here alter there, record here and there.  Of course I got out of control and screwed up the whole thing.   :bag:   Not a great moment for me.  

 
Try fishing a dime out of your pocket in -20 degree weather, inserting it in a coin slot outside somewhere, and successfully dialing a rotary phone with mittens on or frozen fingers.  You would often hang up halfway through the process for fear that you had let the rotary slip and you where going to waste your dime on a misdial.

 
Jayrok said:
RE: TV guide.  I always loved the Sunday paper because the complete TV guide for the week was included.  Sunday after church I'd get it (dad got it first thing in the morning) and look through the enter week to see what shows were coming on and when.  I liked that guide better than TV guide.  
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Just the Sunday paper in general.  It provided hours of entertainment.  It was the main source of sports news.  Even as a young internet-free adult I could spend a Sunday morning drinking coffee and reading the paper.

I could still buy a Sunday paper now, but the papers suck, and the internet has destroyed my attention span.  Anything longer than 100 words or so is TLDR

 
Eesh, thinking of writing papers and essays and the library, I remember just having to make copies of stuff was a chore.  There were no scanners.  There weren't Kinko's.  You'd go to the library and pay 5 cents for every sheet. 

And since encyclopedias were in the reference section, you couldn't ever check those out.  So you'd have to make copies of the pages you needed.  And when you tried to open up the Encyclopedia and get it on the copier, you invariably screwed it up where the words would be blurred because you didn't mash it hard enough and now you just wasted 5 cents. 

 
Don't Noonan said:
There was one grocery store that used to put its Playboys next to all the magazines on one of the aisles.   My friends and I had ridden our bikes to this store from my house because I had told them about this goldmine.  We came up with the plan to casually place the Playboy in between a Sports Illustrated and casually browse in the aisle.  We must have been pretty obvious because within a couple of minutes an employee came over and told us to never come back in the store.  My Mom would always wonder why I chose to stay in the car when she went to that store.
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You're the reason they started sealing all the good stuff in plastic.   :angry:

 
KarmaPolice said:
The other funny thing is how much we just wandered around town on our own or were able to bike to work compared to how people react to that now.  Biked everywhere - including a couple miles to work when I was 14 and weather allowed.  Now it feels like you are a bad parent if you let your kid walk more than 3 blocks because of the boogeyman and kidnappings and sex rings and stuff.  
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We had bussing but sometimes I would ride my bike a few miles to school when I was in 6th or 7th grade because it just made me feel free.

 
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