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

[29aholic]

Not the newest but kinda cool. The same Mercedes 250C that had an 8-track in it also had a door lock feature on the driver's door where it had to be locked with a key if you were out of the car. Kept you from locking your keys in the car.

 

[Salty RI]

In 1970 I bought my wife a Plymouth Fury 3 and you had to use the key to lock the doors.

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[mr-mom]

I think the first technological advancement that amazed me was the dial telephone. No longer did we need to wait for an operator for a connection. The other thing I remember was my very first multi-band amateur radio, which I built from a Heathkit sometime in the early 50s. On a good night, with a long-wire antenna, I could listen to radio stations from all over the world. Now I can do that on my iPhone!
Dave KY0X
SWCA #2778

 

[Chubbo]

My family's first telephone. A magneto crank type.

My Dad took me to our town's telephone exchange, to watch, the two operators operate the telephone exchange. my aunt, Dad's sister, was one of the operators.

there were no private lines at that time, and the numbers were three digits. ours was W-97.

My Dad operated his own electrical contracting business, out of our home. Our party line, was shared with a family that had several girls that, gossiped for long periods of time. I remember Dad's first, few, polite, requests, for the use of the line, to make a business call, was totally ignored by those gossiping girls, My Dad used a unique method to acquire the line. He put the opening of the receiver unit, of our phone over the mouthpiece of our phone, which caused a deafening shriek, in the earpiece of the gossiping girl's phone. As I remember, it only took a few of those treatments to alleviate the problem.

Pardon my long winded story, of long ago.

 

[DWalt]

My family's first telephone. A magneto crank type.

My Dad took me to our town's telephone exchange, to watch, the two operators operate the telephone exchange. my aunt, Dad's sister, was one of the operators.

there were no private lines at that time, and the numbers were three digits. ours was W-97.

My Dad operated his own electrical contracting business, out of our home. Our party line, was shared with a family that had several girls that, gossiped for long periods of time. I remember Dad's first, few, polite, requests, for the use of the line, to make a business call, was totally ignored by those gossiping girls, My Dad used a unique method to acquire the line. He put the opening of the receiver unit, of our phone over the mouthpiece of our phone, which caused a deafening shriek, in the earpiece of the gossiping girl's phone. As I remember, it only took a few of those treatments to alleviate the problem.

Pardon my long winded story, of long ago.

Not much privacy on a party line. When I was a kid, our party line seemed to have 4 or 5 other users, It was not unusual for someone else to be talking on the line if you needed to make a call. I used to listen in on their conversations. Just something you expected then. Private lines were available at the time but they were very expensive. And at least in our neighborhood, most could not afford it. In fact, not that many living around us had a phone. Several of our neighbors didn't, and they usually came to our house and used our phone if they needed to make a call. Another thing back then unmentioned so far - the cost of making a long-distance call. You didn't call anyone long distance unless it was an emergency as it was so expensive. And even more expensive if you reversed the charges. Some people used long distance signalling. Let's say Dad was traveling and wanted to let Mom know he had arrived OK. He would call home from wherever he was and reverse the charges. The operator would then call Mom and announce that there was a call from Dad, and ask if she would accept the charge. Mom would reply "No." Message of safe arrival accomplished at no cost.

 

[delcrossv]

Back when I was a kid I remember wheels were just coming in, instead of those log rollers.

Seriously I remember programming with punch cards at my high school. First thing we did was slip a subroutine into the attendance stack:

It parsed out something like this-

IF stu# = XXXXX THEN DO present ALL

 

[29aholic]

When we moved to MO back in the very early 70's the first phone we had was a party line. I dont think it took long for Dad to change that.
When I met my former best friend we lived in the same town but lived far enough away that it made it a LONG walk so we would talk on the phone, sometimes for hours. He moved a few years later and although in the same area code it was a long distance call. I could only call him on the weekends when the rates were cheaper and Mom had a sand egg timer she would set in front of me. When the sand ran out I had to hang up.

 

[DWalt]

I could only call him on the weekends when the rates were cheaper and Mom had a sandd egg time she would set in front of me. When the sand ran out I had to hang up.

I remember the LD rates were cheaper on weekends and maybe even late at night on weekdays. Back when we were first married, my wife called her mother back in New York quite a bit. We always fought about how much it was costing us for her to have those lengthy conversations, finally decided that her calls would be only on Sunday evenings and limited to 15 minutes.

 

[rwsmith]

Denmark SC 1955....

For the first three years of my life, we lived in an old mill house in a small South Carolina town. The "bathroom" was an attached back porch that was enclosed for half its height for what I now believe were privacy reasons.

My Grandparent's house was a very odd shape because of the way it was added on. The old back porch was still screened (half, like yours) but had plastic to keep the wind out. It got COLD in there. Part of the porch had been made into an inside bathroom. My Mom told me about the times that there WASN'T a bathroom. Just a metal tub on the porch.

 

[Bozz10mm]

I forgot about this, but one of the first new technologies I remember is the ball point pen. Specifically the Bic ball point. It was an absolute convenience not having to refill an ink pen from a bottle. Later they had replaceable cartridges which were a step up, but didn't come close to the Bic pen.

 

[NYlakesider]

When we moved to MO back in the very early 70's the first phone we had was a party line. I dont think it took long for Dad to change that.
When I met my former best friend we lived in the same town but lived far enough away that it made it a LONG walk so we would talk on the phone, sometimes for hours. He moved a few years later and although in the same area code it was a long distance call. I could only call him on the weekends when the rates were cheaper and Mom had a sand egg timer she would set in front of me. When the sand ran out I had to hang up.

We bought our rural camp in 1985 and it had a party line. It worked out sort of OK as most times hardly any population up here except for the summer weekends. Only one time was I seriously PO about the old lady that always seemed to be on the phone. (we had 4 parties on our line)

In summer of 1990 my wife at the camp called me at noon at work and a message was left for me to call her before I came up the 60 miles to the lake. I tried and tried and line was always busy. I stopped at every pay station on the route up and tried, always busy.

Made it to the camp at 5PM & picked the phone up and yep it was that one woman. I was rather upset and read her the riot act and then kept picking up the phone and slamming it down till I had a open line. Then called the rather small phone company and made some serious complaints. I do not knew what happened but I never had any problem after that

Kept that line and number till 2004 when they forced us into a different line system but with my old number. Of course that tripled the price as the party line was only about $7 per month. Found out later that even thought I was charged as a party line the company had us on a private line.

 

[DWalt]

I forgot about this, but one of the first new technologies I remember is the ball point pen. Specifically the Bic ball point. It was an absolute convenience not having to refill an ink pen from a bottle. Later they had replaceable cartridges which were a step up, but didn't come close to the Bic pen.

I've read that the genesis of the ball point pen goes back to WWII. Back then, aircraft pilots and navigators had to write information in flight and most used an old-fashioned ink fountain pin, with ink in a little rubber bladder inside the pen body. Those pens didn't work at high altitudes (= low pressure) as the ink would run out onto the paper or leak inside your shirt pocket. No idea why they just didn't use a pencil instead. Anyway, the idea of a leakless pen was hatched, but it wasn't really perfected as the ball point pen until well after the war. I remember that back in the late 1950s, BP pens were very expensive, nothing like the throw away BP pens of today. I got a retractable Parker BP pen as a high school graduation gift, I remember it was called a "T-Ball Jotter" and I think my parents paid something like $20 for it, big money back then. Replacement ink cartridges were available if you ran out of ink and they were quite expensive also. I don't think it took too long for me to lose that pen. I normally carried around a cheap Scripto mechanical pencil all through college. I believe they were a dollar or less. I wonder if they are still made? I can't imagine anyone wanting to carry around an expensive ink pen like a Mont Blanc today, but I guess some do. With me, it would probably have vanished within two hours.

 

[Telecaster]

Color TV, the Saturn V rocket...

 

[BC38]

Indoor plumbing. Seriously.

Really?
I remember when my dad put the indoor plumbing and bathroom into my grandparents home.
BUT it most definitely wasn't new technology.
A lot of homes in the US have had indoor plumbing since the latter half of the 1800s.
You must be REALLY old if you remember when it was a new invention. Like Guinness Record old...

 

[ladder13]

Converse All Stars

 

[Rustyt1953]

Red Ball Jets.

PF Flyers (run faster jump higher)

 

[Salty RI]

Im still wearing my Buster Browns. [emoji1]

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[29aholic]

Dad worked for the Feds. In our house there was a never ending supply of ball point pens. They were black and marked in white on the side was "Property of the United State Government". Brand new you could get maybe one or two paragraphs before they would quit writing.

 

[Camster]

I suppose the thing that impressed me when I was young was a gadget on our 66 LeSabre.
On the speedometer there was a needle that was set at whatever speed you did not want to exceed.
If you set it at 70 mph and went over it made a high pitched squealing noise.
It was very irritating but I thought we had the fanciest car because of it.

I was impressed with that on a '75 Buick Century that I purchased from a neighbor. Not so impressed that for a mid size car, it was such a gas guzzler.

Still impressed with dimmer switches,especially after I had the brain storm of installing one for the bathroom light.So nice not to have a glaring light for a nocturnal visit.

 

[opoefc]

My family's new 1936 Nash had a button on the dash that when you pushed it a gage told you how many quarts of oil were left in the crank case.