Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for February 15, 2015

I know that feel bro. I bet the main exhibit is the “Dial-up” net connection…

Newspapers, vinyl records, 8-tracks, VCRs, …

But we could see a movie for 50 cents (the movie was actually good), fill up our tank for 3 bucks (and get a free steak knife) and the rock stars were popular for a reason.

I’d especially like to see the return of phone booths; people might get back into the habit of not forcing the rest of the room to hear their conversation.:Maybe a soundproofed booth with a charging station to power up your cell phone while you talk. What do you think?

Sorry, guys, I can’t stay up to comment on this PBS. I gotta go to bed, ‘cause I am suddenly feeling so frickin’ OLD!

And cameras used to contain something called film that had to be developed.

History has a way of repeating itself……….Those who do not learn from the past will relive it …….good or bad……

Well back in my day(early 60’s) in my neck of the woods in NB, Canada(that’s right east of Maine for you geographically challenged Mercans), we had just 2 channels that got fuzzy in bad weather.

Well that explains a lot…

I am not sure most artists make much money selling music – I believe they make more on their shows. The record labels on the other hand make a fortune from selling music.

When I was in school we had tablets, the ones we used chalk on. That that really date me eh? Next up scrolls, foldable screens, any buyers?

I got an electric typewriter as my HS graduation gift. Cutting edge stuff.

Back in 50’s we had just BBC in glorious black and white then came ITV then came BBC2, big distinction was whether or not your receiver could accept 625 lines (picture ratio) because TVs would only accept 409 lines. Now we have 1000’s of channels of pure garbage. I still have OTA receiver TV. Yup, here in Central FL

Unless the Musicians can get some money out it, Music won’t be free forever if the Musicians stop making the music.

I was wondering who that group of folks was filing through my house yesterday.

A local power company employee was showing some school kids his equipment. They were amazed at the crank windows in his truck. Some of them took pictures to show their family and friends.

Growing up in the ‘50s we had a floor model Dumont (I guess the screen was about 15”) with a built-in record player. You could stack several albums on a spindle and play music for hours. Of course the sound was low fidelity monophonic.

The channels were tuned in by turning a knob, slowly and carefully to get the best reception. The set went from channel 2 through 13, although in between 6 and 7 one could tune in FM radio stations. There was only the three commercial networks, plus the PBS channel. Manually switching to another dial brought one to the AM stations. There was no UHF reception, which wasn’t needed as there were no UHF TV stations.

My idiot brother took the set from our basement to his apartment when he was in residency in the ‘70s, gutted the insides and turned it into a planter.

I recently had to explain to someone who is about 35 about radio vacuum tubes and the testing units for them which were commonly found in supermarkets.

Steph just got on ASCAP’s $#!+ list with that last panel.

I ‘like’ PBS. :) Peace.

Sadly, all true.

The following is a plug for a website, the Baby Boomer Emuseum at www.bbemuseum.com. It is not a commercial site. It is grand fun, both for the BB museum and for the trivia. Over a thousand questions from “our” era. Check it out, and tell ’em packratjohn sent you.

You could play a skip out of an LP, but with a CD, you’d have to throw it away and buy a new one. I miss the low-tech days!!!

A wonderful strip and true to life.

xxx

Next on the tour: video tapes, VCRs, Block Buster video stores, walkmans, CD players, dial-up internet, large PCs, cell phones that were just phones, SEGA Game Gears and movies that no one knew they were ever made.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention above that the Dumont took about three minutes to warm up to a point you could get a picture. I also use to write programs (not “apps”) on punch cards in the ‘70s. After 5 minutes to 5 hours of compiling, depending on the mainframe’s traffic and your priority, you might get back a message that your comma was in the wrong place, so you would have to search through the cards, re-punch one, and hope it compiled this time. Nope, don’t want to go back to those days. BUT, I do keep an old Bell of PA rotary phone handy. When the power goes out and the cordless and cell phones don’t work, dialing works fine.

Music is free – performances are not.If you do not want to pay for music, sing it yourself.

I carried around a little transistor radio that got the AM stations; that was high tech. Without the invention of the transistor, we would have none of these devices.

When you think about it, this technological change didn’t happen that long ago, somewhere around the mid-2000s.I wish it didn’t. I’m depressed now.

Remember when, if you went on vacation, there was no possible way your boss could get in touch with you?

There has been no change to technology in my lifetime, only in our ability to make use of it. :)

The record labels and the RIAA are the ones making the money (pretty much always have). Only the fortunate few artists who have “recouped” make any money off of record sales. That has not changed.

me no ned buks cuz me got texts and info wars to teech me

This is SOOO unrealistic,

They’d use Reddit, not Facebook!