redrose66 / June 14, 2015 / Life Happens
Do you remember when your kids were little and the phone was a rotary? You had to put your finger in the little designated holes on the center of the face of the phone with numbers under each cut out finger slot, and you had to rotate clockwise till you hit the metal bar? And that was only the first digit in the phone number, and you still had six more digits to dial (unless you were calling long distance in which you had to dial 1+area code + seven the digit number)?
Tabletop Wall Mounted
Do you remember when we use to get excited to hear the vinyl records playing on the record player? All the crackles and pops and scratches that made the needle get stuck so you heard the same line over and over until you lifted the needle and skipped past it only to find another? Wasn’t that glorious?
Portable with 45 displayed Equalizer installed with 33 displayed
Do you remember Reel-to-Reel’s? Some of you are probably thinking, what the heck is that? Well, my parents had one and we used it all the time to record ourselves as a family singing while my parents played their instruments, my father and his electric guitar and mom with her acoustic guitar. So many memories we had back then.
This was what our Reel-to-Reel looked like back when I was a kid.
1965 Ralston Electric Guitar Martin Acoustic Guitar
These look exactly like the guitars my parents had back when I was a peewee in the late 60’s early 70’s.
We also had a console television that I was confused about because it always showed a lot of brown, green, grey and black n white. I didn’t understand since the world had so much color, but
I was only 3 years old.
This is what our RCA Color Console Television looked like in 1969-1970.
My mother use to like to write songs. Oh, how I wish I had those now. But anyways, she used a typewriter to type them up because computers were no where in sight. This is what one of the typewriters she had looked like (she had many):
This was a newer version to hers though.
We also had a camera. It was a Polaroid Camera that would hold a cartridge of 8 pictures and after taking a picture it would immediately come out of the bottom front portion of the camera instantly. But it took like 2 minutes before the picture could be seen because it was a slow process.
Polaroid Instant Camera Polaroid Pictures
My parents had an 8 track player in the house and one in the station wagon. These played 8 different songs and they were on tapes similar to the reel to reel tapes but these were in encased cartridges. These are what they looked like:
8 Track Player at home 8 track Player for car
Isn’t it amazing how music has changed? Think about it for a minute.
The Phonograph was invented by Thomas Edison on August 12, 1877.
Then in 1948 the LP records were a hit and moved on to better things. For instance music went from reel-to-reel in the 60’s to 8 tracks in the 70’s. Now let’s check out the 80’s.
My mom and step-father bought us girls each a walkman. It used cassettes. It was awesome and we thought we were so cool!
Sony Walkman Cassettes
And we move on to the late 80’s early 90’s where the music age starts changing more drastically. This is where (CD)’s Compact Discs and MP3 players come into the picture. And movies can be played on (VCR)’s or Video Cassette Recorders. These were cartridges (VHS) Video Home System that you insert into a VCR that allows you to watch a movie on your TV. Here are some examples:
Walkman CD VCR Player VHS
Then we welcome the Millennium Age where digital and technology hits the high wire. This is the computer age and upgrades to music to a whole different level.
Did you know that computer was actually invented in 1822 by Charles Babbage? But commercially the first computer wasn’t marketed till 1939 when Hewlett Packard was founded and invented the HP 200A and then sold 8 HP 200B to Walt Disney Productions for sound effects for the 1940’s movie “Fantasia”.
David Packard & Bill Hewlett in Palo Alto, California Garage in 1939. 1st Personal PC 1954 IBM-600 by John Lentz
Since then computers have come a long way. Here are some pictures from different decades through the years up to today.
1960’s 1970’s 1980’s 1990’s
2000 2010 All in One 2015 Touch Screen All in One
Now there are computers installed and surrounding us everywhere we turn now. They’re in TV’s, video game systems, even in cars! Cars that park themselves or slow down within a safe breaking distance from another vehicle in order to prevent a potential accident from occurring.
There are drones, robots, and airplanes as well as the cell phones that have computers installed in them and can work on commands either by digital or voice commands that is.
Cameras have come a long way as well, for instance they are installed in cell phones. Would you ever have thought that would’ve been a possibility back in say, the 60”s or 70’s or even in the 80’s?
The world is changing and we’re forced to change with it in some ways. Hopefully it just keeps gets better; at least that’s the hope.
Well I hope you enjoyed this blast from the past and maybe it made you remember when something exciting happened in your life or brought back some great memory that possibly you would like to share.
Copyright © 2015 by Josephine Rojas. All rights reserved.
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