Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!pacbell.com!ucsd!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: cowan%snark@uunet.uu.net Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: The Year Was 1960 (was Allied Radio / Radio Shack) Message-ID: Date: 16 Feb 91 20:25:30 GMT Sender: news@casbah.acns.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 25 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 123, Message 10 of 10 In <16813@accuvax.nwu.edu> Our Esteemed Moderator writes: > I had fun too! Do I wish it was 1960 again, or what? :) PAT] What, 1960? No cellular phones? No cordless phones? No VCRs? No PCs? No ATMs? Arrgh. :-) [Moderator's Note: Not only no PC's, but relatively few computers. No handheld calculators. No international direct dialed calls. We were just starting to have direct dialed domestic long distance calls. Lots and lots of communities in the USA still had manual telephone systems. (The last COs in Chicago to go dial were cut in 1951.) No modems, no color television. Very few answering machines. No digital clocks, but lots of Western Union clocks in every office, school and other public building. I graduated from high school in 1960. My final year in high school and for awhile afterward I worked for the University of Chicago ion the old phone room, operating the telex machine and the switchboard, which was a 19-position ringdown style cord board. All that summer I worked the overnight shift by myself. Typewriters were mechanical and operated by the force of your fingers on the keys. Chicago was a very lovely city, as was New York when I flew there for shows and shopping a couple times each year. Yes, I'd go back to 1960 anytime, provided I could take my 1990's knowledge with me! :) PAT]