People Born Before 1990, What Skill Do You Have That No One Uses Anymore? Folks Responded. What are yours?

[lightbright]

Using the Dewey Decimal System
Record tape from radio
develop film in a dark room
Only reason I know my own number is from giving it out....

Older Adults Are Revealing The Pre-'90 Habits They Knew How To Do By Heart That Have Essentially Become Obsolete Now​

Aside from perhaps the industrial revolution, I don’t think the world has changed so much so quickly as it has in the lifetime of someone born in 1980. Technology has evolved like mad and we’ve all just kept up, because what choice do we have?

This also means that we’ve developed a lot of different skills in our lifetime, and also that a good number of those skills are as obsolete as the technology that required them.

These Millennials are full of amazing skills that absolutely no one needs anymore.

• I can wire two VCRs together to pirate movies onto blank video tapes.
• I can load slides into a projector for a presentation.
• I can also prepare transparent sheets (acetates/overheads) for a different type of presentation.
• Nick at Nite started when I was about ten, and I would stay up until 1 or 2 in the morning watching old reruns.

• I commune with the mysteries of the rotary dial phone.
• 
  
• I once won a radio contest as the 10th caller using a rotary phone. I’m still proud of that.

• I can develop and print black and white film.. That smell makes me think of college, because that’s the last time I developed film and made prints manually. I was of the generation that still got taught those techniques, but never really used them in practice. I still think it was valuable to have that knowledge and gain that insight into analog photography, I hope design schools still have students make pinhole cameras and such. Just not have it taught like it’s a skill you’ll be using in a production context.
• Use a pencil to fix my tape of MC Hammer, h**e it when it gets eaten up by the tape recorder. Also put scotch tape over the holes on the top of the cassette to record over the existing recording?
• Lifting the other phone in the house up silently and breathing quietly and not laughing, to be able to listen in on your families phone conversations. I learned if you unplugged the phone from the wall, then picked up the receiver, then plugged it back in no one would know you are listening in
• Start and drive away in a car with a choke. The truck I drove when I first got my license had a choke like that. It was an 85 F-150 with a 4-speed manual. At a private school in the mid 2000’s I didn’t even take the key out of the ignition because I knew no one else would know how to drive it.

CONTINUED

People Born Before 1990, What Skill Do You Have That No One Uses Anymore? Folks Responded.

“I can wire two VCRs together to pirate movies onto blank video tapes.”

twistedsifter.com

Older Adults Are Revealing The Pre-'90 Habits They Knew How To Do By Heart That Have Essentially Become Obsolete Now

"I can refold a map correctly and unknot curly telephone wire to get all the curls facing the right way."

finance.yahoo.com

 

[tallblacknyc]

Common sense

 

[tallblacknyc]

Make a bean shooter with a balloon and a cut up juice / milk container container( basically an upgraded slingshot)… these were great weapons when you put rocks in them

 

[kdogg3270]

i used to do the 2 VCR thing. had a huge collection back in the day.

i'll add cursive writing. I've met kids that have no idea what that is.

 

[Muttley]

Knowing how to count change, tell time using an analog watch, having real social skills to meet/greet people in public without social media

 

[Da Backshot Champ]

Fuck bitches and not care about them.

 

[Coldchi]

i used to do the 2 VCR thing. had a huge collection back in the day.

i'll add cursive writing. I've met kids that have no idea what that is.

Some of these kids be making up their own alphabet in their research papers. Replacing the "E's" wit "3's"....using a "1" instead of a lowercase "L".
Saw one paper and the shit looked like cuneiform.

 

[34real]

-I can look shit up in a phonebook without touching a computer or a phone
-I can write in cursive
-I know how to sign my name.....tell that to a motherfucker now and they print their name
-I can fix a bike's flat tire
-I can sit down for more than an hour and not get up....no adhd baby here
-I can play tic-tac-toe,checkers,connect 4 and chess
-I can iron,sew a hem and shine shoes
-I could get into a car without breaking a window.....maybe not now I don't know.
-I can go out on the town and not have to go live,show my location or snap one picture with my cellphone at all,not one time.

 

[SIDESHOW]

no comment on the Dewey decimal system, or the card catalog for that mater..

how many people out there can operate a vehicle with a manual transmission or pop the clutch if need be?

 

[Aww Skeet Skeet!]

Write cursive
Long division
Tell time using an analog clock face
Read/navigate a map without GPS

 

[tallblacknyc]

Calculate shit in my head no calculators needed or fingers

 

[tallblacknyc]

Take advantage of free shit and discounts… smart shop

 

[tallblacknyc]

Make a chick cum using my hands or my dick



Low blow to fluffer nation

 

[Texas_C]

Wiring up my neighbors cable line so that we share it.
Loading magnetic tapes on a mainframe.
Fixing a broken cassette tape.
Riding a bike with 3 people.
Patience from dealing with 300 baud modems.

 

[Dr. Truth]

I eat ass like :

 

[DixonBawls]

Remembering Phone Numbers ( today mobile devices)
Right to privacy ( today people expose all of their business)
Changing a headlight ( today you have to remove the bumper and go into the electronic system)
Social Skills ( today people don't know how to interact)

 

[DixonBawls]

Use a physical map
Used the TV Guide Book

 

[lightbright]

i used to do the 2 VCR thing. had a huge collection back in the day.

i'll add cursive writing. I've met kids that have no idea what that is.

They removed cursive handwriting from Common Core teaching standards in 2010...

.
.

 

[mrcmd187]

My daddy made me a tech monster at a early age.

1. Copy Atari 2600 games
2. Modded VCR so I could bootlegging XXX movies and early Anime movies Fist of The Northstar was a big seller.
3. Modding early cable boxes all cable channels and ppv .

4. Wired up my Votech school with these NICs before anyone even knew these thing would change the world.

 

[lightbright]

Knowing how to count change, tell time using an analog watch, having real social skills to meet/greet people in public without social media

Jimmy Kimmel had a couple of women on the street that couldn't tell the time on the analog clock outside of his studios..... wanna fuck a McDonald's cashier up? Get an order for $6.43.... and give them $7.03 cause you don't want the pennies

.

 

[lightbright]

-I can look shit up in a phonebook without touching a computer or a phone
-I can write in cursive
-I know how to sign my name.....tell that to a motherfucker now and they print their name
-I can fix a bike's flat tire
-I can sit down for more than an hour and not get up....no adhd baby here
-I can play tic-tac-toe,checkers,connect 4 and chess
-I can iron,sew a hem and shine shoes
-I could get into a car without breaking a window.....maybe not now I don't know.
-I can go out on the town and not have to go live,show my location or snap one picture with my cellphone at all,not one time.

I still got a brand new $700 (at the time) Singer sewing machine.... got it for like around $200 when Consumers went out of business 27 years ago....1996... I figured my girlfriend then might make use of it.... never did.... a lot of fucking cleaners don't even do minor tailoring anymore, a lot just send the shit out to a main spot.... I still repair ripped seams and used to do holes in jeans, but that's fashionable now... "distressed"

.

 

[woodchuck]

Use microfiche.

 

[DC_Dude]

Use a map to get around
Use a compass
Ride a bike lol

 

[yardy]

Cursive writing
was a master of fixing cassettes
the 2 vcrs bootleg was too easy,
drive a manual
use an analog clock

Eat a damn meal without taking a picture of it first

 

[Curtwalk]

Shaking Popcorn on the stove
Making homemade ice cream
Fixing big ass sandwiches in a toaster oven
The sky hook

 

[lightbright]

Shaking Popcorn on the stove
Making homemade ice cream
Fixing big ass sandwiches in a toaster oven
The sky hook

 

[Heavenlywings77]

Chivalry

 

[Helico-pterFunk]

i'll add cursive writing. I've met kids that have no idea what that is.

Agreed. The amount of hours they made us practice this in grade school. Only for a handful of years later wanting everything done on the computer, lol.

 

[blackbull1970]

I was born in 1970

- I still write checks and balance a check book
- I still receive paper bill and bank statements
- I still purchase postage stamps
- I still read the Sunday newspaper (a actual newspaper)
- I have a landline phone at home
- I own a fax machine and still send faxes

 

[geechiedan]

i know how to change a 16mm film camera

 

[tallblacknyc]

Pay with cash

 

[tallblacknyc]

Jimmy Kimmel had a couple of women on the street that couldn't tell the time on the analog clock outside of his studios..... wanna fuck a McDonald's cashier up? Get an order for $6.43.... and give them $7.03 cause you don't want the pennies

.

Lot of bizz make extra money off of customers cause people don’t calculate what they bought. Go grocery shopping, clothes shopping, etc u’ll be surprised how many times the machine can be off and overcharge you. From not including the sale price, from the cashier accidentally clicking your item twice, people get overcharged more than they think. I usually calculate every item I buy in my head b4 I get to the register so when that price come out wrong I stay pointed it out and making them get the key or type in their mistake to correct it.. calculating shit in your head aka math is such an important thing it’s crazy to me how people take it for granted

 

[Bury1]

• Assemble anything
• Work with wood
• Do basic maintenance on a car
• Know how to use basic hand tools
• Travel anywhere and everywhere alone
• Talk to people like I have some sense and hold up my end of the conversation.
• Walk away from ignorance rather than escalate
• Read a map, plot, and navigate the earth with a compass (360 degrees equal 6400 Mils)
• Ask for help!!

 

[lightbright]

Lot of bizz make extra money off of customers cause people don’t calculate what they bought. Go grocery shopping, clothes shopping, etc u’ll be surprised how many times the machine can be off and overcharge you. From not including the sale price, from the cashier accidentally clicking your item twice, people get overcharged more than they think. I usually calculate every item I buy in my head b4 I get to the register so when that price come out wrong I stay pointed it out and making them get the key or type in their mistake to correct it.. calculating shit in your head aka math is such an important thing it’s crazy to me how people take it for granted

Spanish chick in line in front of me had one of those assistance cards..... natuarally didn't have enough on it to pay for the shit shit got.... had to leave some stuf.... didn't have the presence of mind to keep track of the dollar amounts of what she was getting.... my mom used to have this counter with push buttons on top of it.... way before calculators became the thing


.

 

[Llano]

I know how to fix damn near everything in or around a home even though I'm lazy to do it usually.

I can repair a lot of simple electric devices like remote controllers & small electric toys.

I can assemble a lot of things without using the manual.

I can can do a lot of repairs on a cars except serious engine type repairs or body work.

I get women to swallow the babies without hesitation.