Just when I didn't think things could get worse financially....my usb ports go down on my computer! 2 Hours of trying to get the damn things back up trying everything under the sun and nothing works.....Ever have one of those days with your computer that you want to see it fly! Unfortunately I have done some searching and found out that this is a common problem for this kind of computer and the whole mother board has to be replaced since it is all one piece. A 300 part! Plus labor...better off to buy a new computer!
We become so accustomed to using our digital technology. We have wii's, playstations, xbox's, tv remotes, computers, wireless remotes-mice-printers. Everything in our lives revolve around technology.
I remember when I was younger and we actually had to get up and turn the tv channel on the tv...there was nothing digital about it...you had 2 knobs...One for 1-13...then the bottom knob for the ufv channels. Now if we lose the remote we will spend hours looking for the remote rather than walk up to the tv and just change the channel...not because we cant we just want the remote! Cable was a luxury and usually we couldn't afford it. We got maybe 1 local channel that you had to move the rabbit ears around to get somewhat clear picture. And when I say somewhat clear it meant that there was snow on the screen and you might be able to make out the faces on the screen. You would also get the educational channel and wouldn't you know it, it was as clear as a bell!
Computers were HUGE!!! And they weren't in color...well I guess they were in color if you consider the green lines that would run down the screen as you were trying to type. There was no Internet. If you wanted to find something out you opened the paper. Or bought a tv guide. Or you went to the library and opened 1,000 Page ENCYCLOPEDIA!!!! And that was only one volume...there were atleast 20 volumes.
Home computers were something that everyone thought were a futurist tv star trek thing. Never would happen. They really didn't gain their popularity til the early 90's. That's when they made DIAL UP Internet. Don't ever complain because you DSL wireless router is slow. This is rabbit speed compared to what we had......Dial up took forever you could literally cook a 5 course meal in the time it took for 1 page to boot up....and you paid by the minute! The wires would run all over the place...and if anyone called while you were on your computer on the Internet it would shut off your dial up!
We didn't have mp3's or ipods. We had Walkmans...they played tapes. They were about the size of a small book....they did come with a clip to clip them to your pants. But with the weight of them your pants would fall down. You carried around as many tapes as you could...Madonna was my fav.
We didn't have CD's. We had record players......my favorite song was by Don Henley...All she wants to do is dance. The record players were great and they came in 2 different sizes....33 1/2 or 45's...I still this day have a big box of 45's. Grease is the word..it is the word...sorry just had to sing it since its one of the records in my box. Anywho....they were played on a turntable with a tiny little needle. If your needle broke...which they were known to do and you didn't have a replacement...you were screwed. And done playing records.
The other great thing that came out in the 80's probably around 82' they came out with 2 different kinds of movie players...NO dvd's haven't always been around. You had Beta (which had a very short stint....maybe a year) then you had VHS. These were tapes. You would pop those bad boys in the Player and watch to your hearts content.....or until the movie was finally over...the covers didn't give much information so you usually ended up renting the dumbest damn movies on the rack! Oh and lets not forget that when you rented a movie back then...there was a nice little sticker on the outside of the tape saying "PLEASE BE KIND AND REWIND" and if you didn't you got charged because the store would have to do it for you...that was usually a nice fee of a $1. Which back then could add up and be your hourly wage....(wage in the 80's was $3.10-3.35 an hour) So renting a movie could cost you an hourly wage....And if you weren't one of those families that was lucky enough to own a VHS player you could rent them for $5 a NIGHT! They came in a big wooden box with padding around the player...
Cell phones didn't show up til around the late 80's....and they weren't really mobile...well they were. If you count the fact that the only place you could use them was in your car because they were bag phones...they had to stay plugged into your cigarette lighter (yes cigarette lighters in cars gaspp can you imagine?) And you didn't use them for casual conversations they were used for emergencies. Because the most minutes you could get back then was 250 and that was for a whopping 80 a month!
nite tag without our parents worrying about who was stalking us. We ran thru the sprinklers when we were little without anything on in the middle of our yards. We even played on slip and slides in the yard...usually run into the house bleeding out of one orfis or another, put a band aid on it and go back out for our next injury! Our means of transportation back then....was roller skates, skateboards or bikes...none of this electric scooters, or zip sticks. Or our parents running us anywhere....their philosophy was "god gave you legs for a reason use them". We played at the school, we fought, (no cops were called cuz no guns were involved) We pranked on the principal. We stayed home by ourselves at a very young age while our parents went out for the night. We babysat whoever needed us....it was an extra .50 cents an hour, that was hard to come by! Didn't matter how many kids those people had either.....there could be 10 and you'd still only get 50 cents an hour!
If you were really lucky someone would offer you to come over and help them clean....could take 2-10 hours but again that was an extra $5 you didn't have before! There was no going into walmart and asking for anything because the normal lecture before mom even shut off the car was....I don't have the money don't ask! And we didn't even have a walmart til 1987! We didn't have a McDonald's til the early 80's and back then you could get a happy meal for 1.19! Gas in the 80's was around 1.00 a gallon and that was only because of a huge gas shortage when the government thought we were going to run out! Then by the 90's it went down to around .70 a gallon. To us that was expensive! but with 5 friends everyone chipping in a buck a piece that made some good cruisin money.
Cars were boats on wheels....they were made of METAL! You could run into a building and hurt the building more than the car. They ran forever! Parts for those cars would cost less than 100 bucks and that was even including labor! Nothing in cars back then were digital..everything was on gauges. Insurance for a car back then for a 16 year old girl was about 30 bucks a month!
TV's were HUGEEEEEEEE!! Some even were set in wooden nice boxes on wheels....and those were for the rich families...we had one...but I think it was a hand me down. Waterbeds were the fad back in the 80's everyone had to have one....but you let your dog on it again you were SCREWED cuz now you have your own leaky pool in your bedroom.
Our idea of entertainment was roller skating races...night tag....football games...tractor pulls....rodeos'... and whatever else was free or cheap! Kids would gather at night to see how many lightening bugs we could catch so that we could plaster the bugs butts on our faces and run around with our faces glowing and act like CIA agents gone bad! Video recorders were hugeeee as well...you had to be a body builder to be able to hold the thing up on your shoulder and those took vhs tapes. And if you were lucky back then you had an atari! Or a Nintendo 64 in the late 80's but if your moms were like mine she would get flustered quickly and think it was the remote and tear it apart to find out why "it isn't working right". And the games were boxy...if your from the same era as me you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Over the years things have progressed and gotten smaller....I wouldn't give up my ipod or mp3 for anything...Things are compact...phones, tv's, remotes, cars, game systems. even our checking accounts...checks are almost obsolete.
And over the years we have become dependent on the technology that we use on a day to day basis....so when our computers don't work the way they are suppose to the shit will hit the fan. Yes laptops have become cheaper but minimum wage hasn't gotten much better since the 80's. Just meets the economical demands of paying our bills. So you cant just go out and drop 400 on a new computer like its nothing...today its a matter of saving up and waiting for the next best thing to come along.
No comments:
Post a Comment