Old technology you have to explain to kids

Trying explaining what CC and BCC means to kids. It leads to explaining a mimeograph.

Lots of kids have no clue how to mail a letter (addressing it, where to put the stamp)

 

I keep one of my old cell phones around so I can look up which letters to dial for companies like Comcast. Assholes changed their number to 1-800-XFINITY, but don't put the corresponding numbers on the bill. My smartphone (and probably most smartphones) doesn't have the traditional keypad.

 

My wife and I found an actual telephone booth in our wanderings recently. It was fun watching the kids play in it and see an actual working phone. We had to explain to them that at one point in history, people actually had to use these contraptions to make telephone calls. They couldn't do them instantly.

 

Every so often, I see one of these around a gas station or convenience store. Not sure if it still works, but it's there.




Batman, my smartphone has the letters underneath the numbers on the touchscreen.

 

How about standing at the TV and holding the rabbit ears a certain way to get a good picture. Heck, how about an actual TV console.

 

I still have to move my "antenna" around to try and pick up a better signal for the basic channels I get.

 

I know what they mean, but what do they have to do with a mimeograph?

 

Maybe that, since the number of sheets of carbon paper and onionskin you could stuff into a typewriter was finite, if you needed more copies, you had to resort to mimeograph.

I wonder if that's why people copy everyone on everything now. It's just so easy.

 

I've never seen a mimeograph used.

 

You could get high on the smell. The ink was impossible to wash off.

 

and thus, children of today do not get why this class is sniffing the paper in "Fast Times at Ridgemonet High