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Old 7th Mar 2014, 11:04 am   #101
threeseven
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Yes, this has become a trend in the media now, they think they are SO clever!
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Old 7th Mar 2014, 11:11 am   #102
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Would it be deemed totally off-topic to suggest food-related skills such as Setting a snare, tickling for trout, skinning/gutting a rabbit, catching pheasants using raisins and fishing-line...

Or preserving eggs using Water-glass(sodium silicate solution) ?? All of these I've done in the last year.

[I can also talk authoritatively on historic techniques for banishing Moles].
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Old 7th Mar 2014, 11:23 am   #103
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Originally Posted by AC/HL View Post
... and when I left school, the thought of owning a car didn't cross my mind...
Still hasn't crossed mine, so I guess it probably won't.

I'll be having coal fires again once the radio dispersal that's (as usual) just around the corner really gets under way and the Dynatron Berkeley radiogram that's blocking the path to the fireplace can shuffle off to somewhere else in the household: meanwhile I've at least a solid fuel Rayburn to tend, not only through the winter but whenever we want hot water on tap

I wonder how many under 30s, say, will have adjusted horizontal and vertical hold controls, or would recognise the symptoms calling for their adjustment. Perhaps about the same proportion of under 70s will have driven a TRF with adjustable reaction...

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Originally Posted by Okto1984 View Post
I was puzzled when my step sister asked for help to use the phone. She actually had no idea you spin the dial to the little metal stop and let it spin back. I guess, when I forget I know this, it is a kind of odd thing.
Reminds me of my 'Catweazle moment' some years ago now, the first time (and so far the last) when I was handed a mobile 'phone to use, and realised to my alarm that I didn't know where to hold it... should the speaking part be to my ear or the other end to my mouth, as it hadn't much length and wouldn't stretch. Must have looked a right Charlie with my compromise solution of holding the thing to my cheek, until a couple of seconds into the call I discovered that if I didn't move it in the direction of my ear I wasn't going to hear much.

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Old 7th Mar 2014, 11:26 am   #104
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The interesting thing I'm finding about this thread is how many of these things I actually do on a regular basis...
I remember going to the Elsecar Heritage Centre with a mate a few years ago and going 'round the museum saying: "Got one of those... Got one of those... I was USING one of those last week."
We went to Lord Nuffield's (of Morris Motors fame) a few months ago. In one room, they had miscellaneous artefacts of the era from which the house was in use (1930s-1960s) which could be touched, tried-out, and played with.

The youngish chap doing the demonstrating insisted on telling my parents (who are in their seventies) what all the things would have been used for "in the old days". My mother lost no time in telling him that she had most of the things in his display at home and used a few of them (e.g. hand whisk, manual typewriter) on a daily basis

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Old 7th Mar 2014, 11:49 am   #105
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I find this thread fascinating, there are tasks like replacing a light bulb or a fuse that in the past would have been considered by most people to be a normal activity. Now many people consider it is something that needs a specialist. The current concern about safety must inhibit many from even thinking about it.

Regarding the surprise the young generation shows to things from the past. I had just repaired a portable radio/ recorder/TV, my granddaughter was amazed that it produced pictures in black and white. She thought it needed clever electronics to produce black and white pictures when she had seen them at home on their TV.

I must admit I think I have shown the same symptoms myself. The first time I had a terminal installed in my office I could not get anything at all. When I asked the IT help how to get started they said "easy type in the startup command and my password". It took me quite a while to get them to realise I didn't know where the ON/OFF switch was located.

I suppose things evolve and there are many things that the man in the street can no longer do because it is no longer needed. What is a bit sad is that there are some things where there are no specialist craftsmen, or even the necessary tools available to do them.
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Old 7th Mar 2014, 12:31 pm   #106
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I don't know if this has already been mentioned, but getting off your backside to adjust the volume or change one of the three channels of the TV.
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Old 7th Mar 2014, 1:07 pm   #107
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when I left school, the thought of owning a car didn't cross my mind.
Practically the only teenagers that owned cars in the 50's were TV engineers.

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Old 7th Mar 2014, 1:13 pm   #108
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How about using a slide rule? Mind you although I've got one (somewhere in the house) I never really got the hang of it. I used log tables instead!!

The computing department at university had a glass case containing a slide rule with the caption "In case of emergency break glass"

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V24/RS232 interface.
I read in a computing book once that if you find an RS232 cable that works you should keep it and guard it with your life.

And another computing related one.

Who uses floppy discs these days?

Keith
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Old 7th Mar 2014, 1:19 pm   #109
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I've got a slide rule next to my bed and still back really important things up onto floppies.

- Joe
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Old 7th Mar 2014, 1:24 pm   #110
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I get the impression that some novelists use the term "with slide rule accuracy" to imply the ultimate in precision.
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Old 7th Mar 2014, 1:51 pm   #111
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An engineer is someone who can use a slide rule to multiply 2 by 2 and get the answer approximately 4.

Keith
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Old 7th Mar 2014, 2:00 pm   #112
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Hmmmm. You might get 4 figures from one of the posh spiral scale ones, otherwise about 1% if you're lucky. I haven't used one in anger since Casio brought out one of the first LCD Scientific calculators with a plausible battery life.


An engineer knows that the answer is approximate, though, and probably also whether it's close enough for the job in hand......
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Old 7th Mar 2014, 2:25 pm   #113
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Some have been mentioned before but here is my list.
Faulting down to component level for electronic and mechanical devices.
Changing a delta gun CRT and all the setting up that was required on colour TV's.
Repair and set up of audio cassette, turntables and VCR decks.
Making your own compilation cassette, or recording top40 off air and changing the cassette over at the right moment.
Lighting a coal fire,
Keeping a solid fuel boiler running all winter without it going out.
Using a slide rule and log tables pre calculator days.
I know there is more but cannot think of any more at the moment.
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Old 7th Mar 2014, 2:46 pm   #114
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Hello,

Aiming a lump of concrete from a height onto a CRT.

Michael
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Old 7th Mar 2014, 2:47 pm   #115
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An engineer knows that the answer is approximate, though, and probably also whether it's close enough for the job in hand......
And equally, an engineer recognises that the result of a calculation is off by a power-of-ten _before_ the thing-in-question gets signed-off for production.
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Old 7th Mar 2014, 3:10 pm   #116
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I still have a slide rule and know how to use it, although to be honest it is so long since I did that I am not sure exactly where it is. People who have never used a slide rule or log tables are baffled when dB are introduced - they can't imagine why someone might think that adding is easier than multiplying as both are equally easy with a calculator and equally impossible without.

I wish I had a fiver for every 2nd year EE student who needed explaining to him what the signficance of -3dB is, and then needed a calculator to determine what this meant in voltage terms.
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Old 7th Mar 2014, 3:31 pm   #117
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I actually used a slide rule the other day. I was aligning a multi band radio and for some reason wanted to convert wavelength to frequency several times. I just set it once and all the answers were there. No need to key in the new wavelength even. Some of the old things are better.
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Old 7th Mar 2014, 3:43 pm   #118
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Especially when they work without power or batteries!
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Old 7th Mar 2014, 4:21 pm   #119
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Aiming a lump of concrete from a height onto a CRT.
And knowing how far to stand away from it to avoid the schrapnel.

Keith
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Old 7th Mar 2014, 4:57 pm   #120
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Knowing that Shrapnel is NOT miscellaneous flying debris.

- Joe
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