What's the first "Newest Technology" you remember?

[jcelect]

Dial phone

The first thing I thought of was also the dial phone. For much of my childhood, our home phone had no dial. You picked it up and told the operator what number you wanted to call. We had a cumbersome telephone situation at our house. We were one of the few houses in our neighborhood that even had a phone, and some surrounding neighbors would come over to use our phone if necessary. It was a poor neighborhood, and not many could afford to have a phone. Also we would get calls for them, and it was my job to run nextdoor or across the street to get a neighbor or to pass on a message. When we first got a dial phone, around the early to mid-1950s, we all thought it was the magical hi-tech wonder of the ages. Of course, dial phones had been around for many years in many places, but just not in our small-town area.

And then there was my very first computer, a Timex Sinclair 1000, sometime in the early 1980s. Remember those? Very primitive, but I learned the basics on one.

We were one of those neighbors without a phone! For me it was the rotatory dial phone on the wall that me and my wife paid for so my parents could talk to their grandchildren 500 miles away(1964)!
jcelect

 

[Stevens]

Television, portable transistor radios, and handheld digital calculators.
Steve W

 

[mbliss57]

Color TV, Microwaves and a TI calculator...

 

[URIT]

Thinking back to when I was maybe 4 y.o., our next-door neighbor and my babysitter on mom's workdays got the newest record player for her new LP records.

She gushed on and on about how they had more songs on them than the old ones did. I took her word for it. She was excited. What did I know anyway? I was four and not in school yet.

My mom wanted a B&W TV and dad wanted a Polaroid. The family would wait a couple of years to get the TV. Dad never got his camera.

 

[Camster]

We were one of those neighbors without a phone! For me it was the rotatory dial phone on the wall that me and my wife paid for so my parents could talk to their grandchildren 500 miles away(1964)!
jcelect

Four years ago, we had a young aide for our bedridden mother.
One day, while we were in the kitchen, she asked to use the phone, so I told her to use the kitchen phone. She was perplexed, didn't know what to do.She had never seen a rotary phone before.
I thought it equally strange that as a young single mom on assistance, she was provided with a pretty nice I-phone, free of charge. The kind of thing that me, as a well heeled old guy, would think twice about getting.In fact, I still operate without any kind of cell phone. No real need and I don't want the expense.

 

[oldbrownhat]

...One day, while we were in the kitchen, she asked to use the phone, so I told her to use the kitchen phone. She was perplexed, didn't know what to do.She had never seen a rotary phone before....

My gf & I were in one of our fav. second hand stores a couple of years ago and I overheard a little girl ask her mum, "What's that?", looking at a typewriter. And not one of the really ancient ones they had, but a relatively recent Corona or such from the '80s. To my astonishment, her mom said, "I'm not sure." The mom might have been 30-35 y.o.

OK, she might not have actually ever used one, but surely her parents had had one. And it has a QWERTY keyboard just like a....... ??

In retrospect, maybe mom was just tired of being asked 1,000 questions that day and decided to feign ignorance.

That shop recently had a couple of IBM Selectric II's on the shelf. Those things were the cream of the crop back in the day and despite their price, were the mainstay of many offices. Many people still really like their keys, too. I'm typing this on a MacBook Air but I also have a Lenovo (ex-IBM) T410 with the famous IBM keyboard and it's darned good.

 

[Camster]

My gf & I were in one of our fav. second hand stores a couple of years ago and I overheard a little girl ask her mum, "What's that?", looking at a typewriter. And not one of the really ancient ones they had, but a relatively recent Corona or such from the '80s. To my astonishment, her mom said, "I'm not sure." The mom might have been 30-35 y.o.

OK, she might not have actually ever used one, but surely her parents had had one. And it has a QWERTY keyboard just like a....... ??

In retrospect, maybe mom was just tired of being asked 1,000 questions that day and decided to feign ignorance.

That shop recently had a couple of IBM Selectric II's on the shelf. Those things were the cream of the crop back in the day and despite their price, were the mainstay of many offices. Many people still really like their keys, too. I'm typing this on a MacBook Air but I also have a Lenovo (ex-IBM) T410 with the famous IBM keyboard and it's darned good.

My business niche for the last 45 years, has been electro-mechanical cash registers, mostly the tall NCR chrome bar registers.Every once in a while, a customer has a new employee who is perplexed by the keyboard, and by the fact that they have to figure change in their head.

 

[DWalt]

That shop recently had a couple of IBM Selectric II's on the shelf. Those things were the cream of the crop back in the day and despite their price, were the mainstay of many offices.

Back around 1984 (pretty much in the infancy of word processors), we got some new IBM Selectrics in the office, the type that had a small screen that would display two or three lines, and you could make corrections on that display, and review what had been typed before printing it. I guess you could call it sort of a semi-word processor. At the time I had a clerk who was not the sharpest knife in the rack, and she could just not learn how to use it, and got so frustrated she would break into tears. I think it could be set to turn that screen feature off and use it like a regular Selectric, and that was what we had to do for her. Never forgot that gal - her name was Frankie and she weighed about 300 pounds, a lot of woman. Not too long after, we got a dedicated word processor which was complicated to use. I had to send one typist out for training to learn how to use it, and it took her quite a while to gain much proficiency. It used floppy discs for storage, but great big ones, about 8" in diameter. The printer was the impact type, and it sounded like a very loud machine gun. In fact it had to be housed in a soundproofed cabinet inside a closet because it made so much noise. You can't realize how much technology has advanced if you didn't go through such experiences back then.

 

[kmyers]

I remember as a kid when Pong came out. Bring back Pong! LOL

 

[oldbrownhat]

I remember as a kid when Pong came out. Bring back Pong! LOL

Had to look that up. "After my time" (as a kid.) As long as it wasn't ping-pong! (Invented c.1860 in the UK; US patent by Parker Bros. in the 1920s)

 

[DWalt]

I remember as a kid when Pong came out. Bring back Pong! LOL

It never went away. You can still get it, among a number of other vintage video games from the 80s and 90s, to play on your computer.

 

[Golddollar]

Years ago at the title insurance company I worked with a single mother who was another underwriter in the company. One day she asked me if I could locate a rotary phone for her. She wanted one to make sure if there was ever a power outage at her house she would be able to make a phone call out to the power company. She said that she figured that if anybody could locate a rotary phone it would be me. And would you believe it, when I was in Omaha for the World Championship Chili Cookoff, I went into a second hand shop and I found a rotary phone for her. I wonder what the airline people thought when they saw an old rotary phone in my baggage.

 

[NYlakesider]

Years ago at the title insurance company I worked with a single mother who was another underwriter in the company. One day she asked me if I could locate a rotary phone for her. She wanted one to make sure if there was ever a power outage at her house she would be able to make a phone call out to the power company. She said that she figured that if anybody could locate a rotary phone it would be me. And would you believe it, when I was in Omaha for the World Championship Chili Cookoff, I went into a second hand shop and I found a rotary phone for her. I wonder what the airline people thought when they saw an old rotary phone in my baggage.

When I first moved to the lake I did the same thing.
Found mine at a antique store! This was before I put in a standby generator. No power, that bell still rung and you could always dial out.

I now have the phone hooked up and mounted in my garage as a convenience. If I do not have a cordless with me I can still answer or initiate a call. (no cell service in my area!)

Had a furnace inspection done a few years ago and the tech asked to use a phone. I pointed to the one on the wall and he (about age 21) just looked at it. He picked it up and exclaimed hey this thing has a dial tone. He was fascinated by it and I showed him how to dial out and he made his call with it.

 

[DWalt]

Anyone remember the "Princess" phone? Back in the early sixties my then-steady girlfriend had one, and they were all the fashion rage among women. They were very small and the dial glowed if you wanted to dial in the dark, but it required connection to a little transformer that plugged in. I think they were later made with touch tone buttons. I understand they are highly collectible today.

 

[Gamecock]

My mother's life was changed in the late 1930s because she knew how to TYPE. A rare and valued skill at the time.

 

[Pop's2]

In the late 40's I was fascinated by the demo at the downtown Woolworths and bought my mother one for Christmas

 

[soFlaNative]

In the late 40's I was fascinated by the demo at the downtown Woolworths and bought my mother one for Christmas

Mom asked me once or twice to chop walnuts but stopped after I handed back a jar full of walnut dust.

 

[AZ2VET]

Definitely the Pong console with all of 6 games. Mom would have to make us go outside and play. Not sure if it was in the house when we had the fire but I have an old Atari 2600 and a bunch of games in storage.

 

[29aholic]

In the late 40's I was fascinated by the demo at the downtown Woolworths and bought my mother one for Christmas

I just bought one of those almost exactly like that at a garage sale. Mine has measurements on it like a measuring cup.

Back when I was big into skeet shooting I dug out an old Pong game to exercise my hand eye coordination.

On the note of this thread but fast forward to yesterday, I just upgraded my smart phone and my new one has face recognition technology built in. Must have a bullet proof screen too, because when I look at it, it unlocks immediately without cracking

 

[DWalt]

My mother's life was changed in the late 1930s because she knew how to TYPE. A rare and valued skill at the time.

I once had a boss who had taken typing in high school and had become pretty good at it. He was drafted during the Korean War, and it later turned out that the Army needed soldiers who knew how to type. So he spent the whole war pounding a keyboard as a stateside Army clerk/typist. He always attributed that high school typing course with saving his life. Strangely, I also had an employee back in the early 80s who had almost exactly the same experience, except he was in the Navy, and became a Navy Yeoman in Cleveland during WWII. He said it was the greatest time in his life, having an office full of gorgeous women to work with (and on).