Do you remember compiling mix tapes? You know, when you’d record songs onto a cassette tape for playback on your walkman, or to blast in your car stereo? Do you remember when the process to make a mix tape became a whole lot easier with the advent of the dual cd/tape recorder? For that matter, do you remember when CDs came out? And then personal computers, CD burners, and the inevitable death of said mix tapes?
I don’t consider myself to be of an advanced age by any means—although the big 3-0 keeps ticking a bit closer, and I feel more and more like an old fogy—but I have seen technology change at an incredible pace.
I remember that the first DVD I watched was the James Bond flick: Tomorrow Never Dies. I was blown away by the clear picture, but I quickly became wary of how easily the DVDs scratched. I grew convinced that the whole DVD movement was a clever marketing scheme to compel consumers to re-buy DVDs that’d become unwatchable due to scratches. I just knew that DVDs were a fad that would fade almost as quickly as it had risen up. To prepare for what I saw as an inevitable decline in DVD popularity, I started stocking up on VHS movies.
Yeah, I haven’t seen a VCR in about ten years now, maybe even longer. All those VHS tapes that I so lovingly collected have gone the way of so many technological advancements, now defunct. It constantly amazes me how the times and technology change.
I was again reminded of those changes when my kids ran aground with one of their toys. Now, as a bit of background: my kids are no strangers to technological advancements, and although they haven’t tried the ‘ipad’ swipe on books and magazines to turn pages, they’ve been thoroughly flummoxed when the television or computer screen didn’t respond to their touch.
On this particular occasion, I realized just how far things had changed from when I was a kid. My son and daughter were playing outside when they spotted a some interesting bugs. After a several minutes of inspection with their naked eyes, they decided to pull out their magnifying glasses to get a closer look. For a few minutes, they seemed confused with the circular glass encased in plastic. They turned the magnifying glasses over in their hands a couple of times and finally held them up to my wife.
“How do you turn this on?” My daughter asked. She gave it a shake and suddenly noticed the distorted image through the glass. (I’m not entirely sure why she didn’t notice it before, but alas…)
“Oh never mind, I got it,” she said. My daughter showed her younger brother how to turn his magnifying glass “on” with a quick shake of the wrist, and they ran outside to inspect the bugs.
Ah, yes, life in these digital times. It’s a constant reminder to get my kids out of the house to experience things that don’t have power switches. And all the while, you can’t help but chuckle at the effect of all those changes on our lives.
--Derrick Hibbard
Oh my gosh, the magnifying glass bit is hilarious! I'm probably about 15 years your senior, and I really remember all of these transitions. And here I am, still boggled by the idea of recording sound in the first place--listening to an iPod the size of a credit card that holds hundreds of songs. We are living in Star Trek!
ReplyDeleteI remember when VHS tapes were "new". We had to use the rabbit ears on the TV to get a signal.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! The magnifying bit is priceless...
ReplyDeleteExcellent post, Derrick! Got my day started with a good laugh.
ReplyDeleteNice story and observations, Derek. I remember my wife having a discussion about music with the baby sitter a decade ago. She asked the girls if CD single still had 'B-sides' and then got embroiled in explaining her that before CDs there were things like CD that you could turn over and play upside-down to get to another song...
ReplyDeleteThis is just a gem. I went to a store one and asked for a phonograph, thinking that record player was too old a term. Aw well, phonograph stumped the young man as well. I finally realized they were called 'turntables'. However, with the return of some vinyl, phonograph might come back.
DeleteI will be turning 30 in a few months and have found myself thinking about these same things. I recently found a box of my old mixed tapes and the stereo I had when I was high school still works so I was able to listen to them, I can remember why I recorded every one of them. On a side note the music these days is just noise. :)
ReplyDeleteThat is too funny!
ReplyDeleteLaughed so hard at the magnifying glass part. I had something similar happen with my nephew.
ReplyDeleteI used to have an old Triumph Dolomite car, and I took my brothers kids out in it. Long story short, it was a hot day and I asked Harvey to open his window. After a few moments of searching for a switch he admitted defeat and I realised he didn't know what the handle on the door was for! When I showed him how to crank it, he was delighted with how clever it was. He had never been in a car without electric windows!
Makes me feel ancient
Mark E. Cooper
Funny! Being twice your age, I remember all the way back to no tapes,no CDs, nothing but a radio. Sigh. But how fast we adapt. I do have an iPad that I swipe to turn pages--and the other day, caught myself trying to swipe the screen of my laptop. Didn't work, darn it all!
ReplyDeleteI go back, way back to when we had rationing in London because of the war. One egg per family per week. The radio was run from 'accumulators' which were changed weekly by a delivery man. The insurance man was always regarded as the font of all knowledge as he made his weekly, door to door collections. I played with toys me and my brothers had made: scooters, box carts, matchstick guns. Swimming in ponds with no sign of elf 'n' safety. Digital age? It's the ruin of childhood. But I can claim to have written my first novel on a typewriter with carbons between the A4 pages. Now I'm digital.
ReplyDeleteWe lived in Spain for three years when my daughter was young, and they only had rotary dial phones. She kept pushing on the numbers and wondering why nothing was happening.
ReplyDeleteLove the magnifying glasses!
Haha! That IS funny! And for the record, I still make what I call mixed tapes. They're just MP3's on CD's now, but doggone if I'm gonna give up calling them mixed tapes.
ReplyDeleteLove the magnifying glass :) I can picture a couple of my grandkids doing the same thing!
ReplyDeleteI've lived through records (45's and LPs) 8-Track tapes, cassettes, CD's and now digital downloads. I clearly remember the discussion about whether to go with VHS or Betamax, and which was ultimately better... and let's not forget laserdisks and now DVD and BluRay. Life is change, but those changes seem to be coming so very quickly now.
The idea that I thought a Commodore 64 computer was "the best ever" becomes laughable now.
Thanks for the laugh and for the stroll down memory lane.
I must admit we still have a TON of VHS tapes and watch them - we're dinosaurs! :)
ReplyDeleteOur VHS player croaked, and I vowed to switch the tapes to DVD. But some of them don't COME in DVD format - like the original BARRAGE ensemble (musical show) or the movie "High Road to China." GRRR...
DeleteLike your first commenter, Lia, I too have been running the age race a bit longer than you (looks like about 8 years). Yet, I also remember the great VCR tape and how DVDs came along to make a thing once thought to be sent from heaven, almost unrecognizable. It seemed that once DVDs hit the scene a digital metamorphasis followed and the days of postage stamps, wallet photos, and phone keypads slowly faded.
ReplyDeleteLike your son and daughter, my children also live a digital life, oblivious to anything pre-smartphone era. With Android apps that allow you to shake your device to take action or video games that operate based on your body movements, it only made sense that shaking the magnifying glass would have resulted in 'operation turn on.' :) Last year we had the pleasure of briefly living in my hometown to which did not currently provide DVR service through its local cable provider, low and behold once my 4 year old daughter was given the chance to watch tv on her own, she was all too dissapointed to find out that her tv had somehow got broken because it "won't pause, rewind, or anything".
Ah, life in these digital times indeed.
Thanks for the memories Derrick... As for records, funny how many stores, here anyway, that sell no records but only CDs and DVDs still use that name, "Records".
ReplyDeleteThanks for the trip down memory lane, Derrick. I think I've got a few years on you, too- I remember riding my bike in and out of our basement garage while listening to Sha-Na-Na on 8-track and listening to Rock of Ages by Def Leppard on 45. I have a very scratched up copy of Michael Jackson's Thriller, as well. My dad thought it might be "worth" something someday. Yeah...he shouldn't have given it to a 7 year old to "listen" to. ;)
ReplyDeleteI do still have all my mix cassette tapes, compiled from listening to Kasey Kasem or Rick Dees Weekly Top 40 on the weekends and catching the replay whenever I missed a song I really liked. Nowadays I buy MP3s and I burn CD "mix tapes" in case I want to listen to them in the car.
I also have a large collection of VHS tapes that sit in boxes in my spare bedroom because every VCR in our house is dead but my stepson's new one. The last "new" one we got started eating my tapes within 3-6 months. Time to build a new DVD collection- slowly but surely.
The magnifying glass is funny! I find myself- often- having to explain to my stepson and daughter how "different" things were when I was growing up or how to use objects that are "ancient" in comparison to the techno items they have. My daughter has a fit if her MP3 player goes on the fritz. {shaking head}
Really great post! Thanks for the smiles.
Too funny!
ReplyDeleteYou're feeling like a fogy? Ha! My first job involved using a manual typewriter. It's crazy how things have changed over the years!
Hilarious!
ReplyDeleteI'll never forget when my kids were little and found a box of LPs (remember those?) in a closet and asked about the "big CDs". They made me feel truly old that day.
I can outdo you all. My night was complete when I was the one picked to hold the copper wire to clear up the static on the radio as we listened to the Lone Ranger. Wrist radios were only mentioned in the Dick Tracy comics - pure fantasy. One of the largest and ugliest pieces of furniture we had was for the state of the art 8 track tapes. As for VHS tapes - we did find a new player and still use them. My magnifying glass is used primarily now to decipher the print in some social media messages. Each day presents a new challenge - thank goodness for grandchildren
ReplyDeleteWait till you reach my age!! :D
ReplyDeleteGreat post! The digital age is moving fast, too fast. We just spent a few weeks in New York. Times Square is awash with ads that blow your mind with their technological wizardry. Yes, keep your kids going outside and discovering the magic of a magnifying glass. Fun!
ReplyDeleteI bought a VCR/DVD combination player when they came out. I think it was programmed to start eating the tapes after about a year. They are quickly dying out on me by virtue of VCR cannibalism. Thanks for the memories.
ReplyDeleteThans for the invitation, Derrick! A trip down memory lane which I I enjoyed! cheers to a great week! jink willis
ReplyDeleteI was wondering what was wrong with my magnifying glass.
ReplyDeleteAhem, I remember the glorious wonder of 8 track tapes putting clunky records and record players in the dust. Nobody had a computer in their homes (that I know of) when I graduated from high school. Ha, ha, not in the stone age, but we didn't have such high falutin' gadgets in my younger days. I enjoy what we have now, or at least what I can manage to understand. But it is nice to download all the high tech tweeting and googling and blogging for a while and take my dog for a simple walk.
ReplyDeleteAmusing post. My three year old knows her way around a tablet and gets confused when screens don't respond to her touch, too! Times really have changed. I'm in my early thirties, but I remember (shock horror) going to a library to do research for a high school essay; whereas now kids just download their essays from the internet! Well, not all kids... lol! Thankfully my daughter loves her imaginative toys even more than any tech we could introduce her too. All this technology is great, but I'm not sure much of it inspires the imagination.
ReplyDeleteLove your blog!! So excited to follow it!
ReplyDeleteSome of the words are no longer in our vocabulary. lol
ReplyDeleteFunny!
ReplyDeleteI still have my old music records-stored in the closet of course. (you know those hard round things with a small hole in the middle.)
Just tossed two VHS machines, an old stereo, the first DVD player I bought and my old paperbacks because they are now on Kindle. Hilarious.
ReplyDeleteCR Hiatt/McSwain&Beck
I'm laughing because I do remember all of that :)
ReplyDeleteHa ha. The times when we actually laughed, and we didn't know what emoticons meant. The first DVD I ever watched was called 'Lonely Wolf' or something similar and it was a thriller. Didn't sleep for several nights straight after that, probably dozed off in school, thinking about it. Yeah. Now I'm trying to convince my daughter to set up a website and she's saying 'Oh, mum, websites are useless, obsolete. I have tumblr and gmail." Hmm. That put me in my place. Where's all this gonna stop?
ReplyDeleteLOL! I love the shaking the magnifying glass!
ReplyDeleteIn this house we've kept every single Buffy the Vampire Slayer VHS tapes and one machine. Sad but true. They're a classic for a reason.
Great post, Derrick.
Tell the kids that if they shake the magnifying glass harder, the "picture" becomes clearer. I'd do that to my kids if they weren't smarter than me in some respects. The funny thing is that my kids know how to work a VCR. My mother in law has a DVD/VCR combo and they know how to work it better than me.
ReplyDeleteI still have the old school mix tapes I made as a teen. A month ago my oldest daughter, she's 8, brought one to me and asked how it worked. She thought I was so old fashioned, but then became fasinated with an old rotary phone we had in the attic. Her first reaction when she saw it was, "Why does it have a cord?" I told her it was primarily there to strangle teenagers for spending too much time on the phone. Her answer to that was, "Well it's a good thing they got rid of the cord then."
The changes are moving faster and faster. My 29-year-old daughter is considering buying a Kindle, so I gave her mine to look at. My Kindle is a couple of years of old. She held it and kept moving her fingers across the screen, asking in a bewildered voice, "how do I turn it on?" I guess the on/off switch is now "quaint."
ReplyDeleteYou say the Big 3-0 is approaching. Are you really only 29? What age were you when CDs came in? Three?
ReplyDeleteBut a nice piece. I made my first compilation tape onto a reel-to-reel tape recorder connected by crocodile clips to the the speaker of my record-player. Among the singers thus consigned to oblivion, Francoise Hardy.
Thanks for the notice. The current technology takes me all the way back into the 1950s/60s/70s etc. when believe it, we took statements in long hand, did surveillance recording with old wind-up movie cameras and super 8 film. Had to research records in person and know where to find them. Computer geeks are doing it now on their keyboard and missing out on all that up close and personal excitement. Have they resorted to interrogation via e-mail yet?
ReplyDeleteDoc at www.VeeGeeCreations.com
My grandmother will not believe that I can't do anything with her old polka records and 8-tracks. :)
ReplyDeleteNice blog Derrick, but you are so not an old fogy! I can remember when Walkmans didn't exist. I had to listen to tapes I'd made on my casette player in my bedroom only.
ReplyDeleteLove the magnifying glass part! Very amusing.
Hi Derrick. I remember mt sister and I had a wind-up gramaphone player with a horn when we were kids. Our first record was "And Felix Kept on Walking" by somebody.
ReplyDeleteTalking of technology, my next door neighbour once asked me how to start the motor in his steam iron!
Haha, I'm so glad you messaged me on Twitter about this because I can definitely relate to what you're talking about.
ReplyDeleteWhile I am about 6 years your junior, I remember all of these things. Listening to the radio for hours just so that I could record my favorite song (which inevitably played just as my mom told me it was time for bed.) Suavely showing my parents how to work our first VCR. My parents buying their first CD player because they won a CD at a house party and had no way to listen to it. Ahh, good times.
Hilarious story! And yes there have been a LOT of changes. I do feel old when you list them like this and I even remember what came before the cassettes...
ReplyDeleteGreat to think again how far we've come over relatively few years. I can remember typing my first short story on a smith-corona typewriter and Marion Zimmer Bradley sending it back to me saying it might have been a good story but I needed a new type writer ribbon and she wasn't going to strain her eyes trying to finish it.
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
Too true. My 3 year-old granddaughter came to me the other day with my husband's iPad and said, "I need Grandpa's password to download this game." You might like my post - similar reminising. http://emandyves.wordpress.com/2012/03/25/youve-come-a-long-way-baby/
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Derrick! What a nice trip back to the good 'ol days. I too remember making mix tapes only to have have a worn out cassette deck eat them after hours of compilation. I knew I should have backed up my work first! :-)
ReplyDeleteMy first VCR was about the size of Buick, weighed a ton, and even had a remote control (with a wire attached to the VCR). The remote had a 'Pause' and 'Record' switch. That's it! You still had to get up off your butt to push 'Play' or use any other function on the VCR, but this was technology at it's finest in the early 80s!
LOL--turning the magnifying glass "on" with a shake! I love it. Hehee. My brother used that bit of technology to burn a whole in his bedspread when we were young. Good times. ;o)
ReplyDeleteSo true! Who remembers the huge, record-sized laser disks that were ridiculously expensive? I remember being so glad when they came out with a cheaper, miniature version (the DVD!). :D
ReplyDeletePriceless!! OMG, it is such a different time. My son cannot understand the concept that I grew up without DVDs. He just crinkles his brow in amazement and stares at me in shock. Awesome post!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for starting my day with a smile. Now I understand why my magnifying glass isn't making things clearer to my old eyes...I haven't been shaking it!
ReplyDeleteAh, in my youth the only way one could see a movie was to beg one's parents to take them to a theater. Radio stations transmitted on the AM band. Oh, there were a few rogue underground FM outfits that sent the music of outlaw artists like Cat Stevens and Ted Nugent over the airways, but only in the dark of night. On Halloween, they sometimes aired Orson Wells' rendition of War of the Worlds.
Technology certainly serves a useful purpose. I'm not sure what I did before the advent of the PC, but I'm old enough to remember when a climate controlled room was required to house a computer. I did my first programming on punch cards. One mistake on one card and the entire program went belly up.
Ah, but the 'pads and 'pods and players sure do make it difficult to quiet one's mind. Too much stimulation and too much pressure to make every monent a productive one.
Great post, Derrick! Thanks for making me feel 0ld-- again, lol. I use my crummy little cell phone-- it does flip, touching the screen only produces smudges and I can't even watch TV on it. People offer me their change when I pull it out to answer a call.
ReplyDeleteI've learned to dread new technology. Hey, but I'm happy-- at least books are the one thing you can still hold in your hand...
I remember batteries that contained a zinc rod, a copper plate and an acid powering a valve radio. I made crystal radio sets with a 'cat's whisker'. I remember 78rpm records played with a needle that if you were lucky lasted 5 plays.
ReplyDeleteI remember black and white tv with one channel. Frequent service interruptions with a 'normal service will be resumed as soon as possible' card.
I remember the first computer of my own - a Sinclair ZX80. I wrote programs for it and saved them on cassette tapes. Tapes? I remember reel to reel recorders and a one which threw tape all over the room on rewind if you didn't fit a take-up reel.
I remember writing machine code for a BBC Model B computer and saving it on a 8½" floppy disk which held a massive 40Kb of data.
I remember 5¼" floppy disks which fit in the drive 8 different ways and were wiped if you stored them under a telephone (with a bell) and it rang.
I remember 12" laserdisks, 3" and 3½" disks and my first hard drive, the size of a VHS video recorder which held 10 Mb. (I thought I would never fill it).
CDs and DVDs - great idea. Blue Ray? It's already beginning to be obsolete as on-line storage takes over.
The future? None of our old physical storage devices will last. Maybe a credit card sized device holding the data currently on those Blue Ray diskc - and more will last for a while but the future is digital on-line storage and to heck with those poor souls who live miles from a decent Internet connection.
This is wonderful, and is a great help to me because it would seem I am not the only one who at times becomes lost in this 'new' world. I shouldn't admit this, but I am from the era of black and white TV, so you can imagine all the adjustments I've had to make.
ReplyDeleteMy grandchildren know how to work all the buttons on the TV remove, how to reset the PC when it runs slow, how to run anti-virus software, download everything, work the PlayStations (we have 1, 2, and 3), and if the power ever goes off--WHOA! The world stops turning.
Somehow, when I was young, I managed without all those things. Make no mistake, I appreciate them very much, but I still like to read an 'acual' book, and sit outside to relax. My grandchildren saw an old movie recently where one of the characters was playing 45's. The look on their faces was priceless. What in the world was that contraption and what were those black circles going round and round?
Oh my...
Makes you kinda wonder what's next. My 93 year old aunt emails.
ReplyDeleteFor sure. I loved making mix tapes. I loved making mixed CDs! I love my iPod beyond belief, but there's no more joy in making a mix! Yeah, making playlists is similar, but now the iPod mixes for you. Ahh, the days...
ReplyDeleteThank you all for your comments--it was fun to read the stories of how your life is fairing in these digital times!
ReplyDeleteTook the boy fishing at Lake Hamlin in Michigan. We're sitting there in a gently rocking boat, sunset rippling across the low hilly waves, and he says "You know, this lake has great graphics."
ReplyDeleteThis post is priceless. Haha. I am in my mid thirties and I remember being 9 years old (1985) and helping my mom babysit a bunch of kids. I would play an 8 track of Macho Man by the Village People and make the kids dance around this long coffee table (no sharp edges...I was very responsible). I would tire them out.
ReplyDeleteThis post is so cool, I intend to post multiple comments. lol