Tech And Slackerdom Before The Internet

Most of you whippersnappers reading this have lived almost your whole lives in a world where the internet has existed. Old timers like me grew into young adulthood without the benefit of a global network, and the world used to be a much different place.

Technology and entertainment were different animals pre-internet, and the things that seemed like incredible technological advances back then are almost comical now in their antiquity. In celebration of that amusement here are some of the things that seemed like a Big Deal back then. Here’s a glimpse at pre-internet technology from someone who was born in 1966:

• Pong Forget Space Invaders, Pong was THE revolution. If we ignore Space War, everything that preceded Pong was either a pinball table or some gun game. There is no describing how modern and new Pong seemed at the time, you just had to be there. My first game console was a Magnavox Odyssey II.
• Remote Control The introduction of television remote controls seemed like something out of Star Trek. In fact, my family’s first remote control television, a Quasar, had a remote that looked, well, remotely like a phaser. These original remotes were not infra red, they were sonic. They had little tuning fork looking deals inside, and made a loud click. One for volume, one for channel change. My mom had a plastic and metal belt that would occasionally turn the channel because I guess it made a similar sound when the metal bits hit each other just right.
• LED and LCD LED and LCD both appeared when I was a kid, followed by a million primitive devices that utilized them. Mostly calculators and wristwatches. The personal calculator was a big deal and just look up slide rule if you want to see why. Analog wristwatches and gauges still rule btw.
  

  The calculator circa 1972

• Apple II The computer that began mainstream adoption. Never mind that your parents never owned one. You knew someone whose parents had one. Playing old text-based adventure games on an Apple II seemed like the coolest thing ever.
• Cable Television Cable television was nothing new. Areas like Colorado, where the mountains play havoc with reception had used cable television for a while. In the late 70s and early 80s the rest of the country got it. It was 79 or 80 when my parents got cable, and I thought it was the coolest thing since Pong. Movies with boobs, sports, movies with boobs, music videos, movies with boobs. Cable television opened up whole new vistas of slackerdom.
• Mattel Football Mattel Football was the original handheld gaming system. Since we didn’t have Gameboys back then it seemed pretty darn cool. Granted, it had a limited library of titles (Football), but it wasn’t long before Mattel followed their success with a baseball version, and eventually an LCD handheld that used cartridges and played more than one game. I spent a happy month playing Mattel Football in study hall until the school district figured out what this new menace was and banned them.
  

  The original handheld gaming system

• Microwave While it wasn’t as cool as a spontaneous matter generator, it was a least a step in that direction. Prior to the microwave people had to wait for 5 minutes of pre-heat time and 10 minutes of cooking time to enjoy piping hot pizza rolls. While it still isn’t good for anything but cooking hot pockets, warming up leftovers and melting butter, it seemed pretty futuristic back then.
• Sony Walkman We would not have the iPod without the Sony Walkman. Sure, boomboxes preceded the Walkman, but those of you old enough to remember will recall just how much luggage it was to have to carry around a gigantic boom box and a suitcase full of audio cassettes. The Walkman represented a truly personal-sized music player, and the use stuck even if the device didn’t.
• Laser Disc A record-sized two sided disc that contained an entire analog encoded movie. Are you kidding me? Beam me up Scotty! No one had one, too expensive. My girlfriend’s dad had one at one of his places in Vail, and we used to spend a lot of time up there partying and enjoying the Rockies. Let me tell you something, watching The Warriors on laser disc was just about the coolest thing. Ever.
  

  That thing is as big as a suitcase!

• VCR When I was a kid I was hooked on Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, a precursor to Fangoria. The last few pages were ad-heavy, and I used to dream about owning a Super 8 projector, because you could own your very own copies of Planet of The Apes and Godzilla movies. Just imagine! By the time I was getting out of high school and entering college the VCR had receded to consumer price levels, and mom and pop video rental places were popping up on every corner. I can’t tell you how many movies I watched the first couple of years of owning a VCR. People had never had that kind of unlimited access to entertainment before. Now we’re used to it and we cry because between digital cable or satellite, Netflix and on demand we still can’t find anything to watch.
• Compact Disc The compact disc fell squarely in the Star Trek category. I mean, look at that thing. It’s only 5 inches, it’s shiny, and it’s read by a LASER for God’s sake. I bought my first CD player in 1987 and made a big mistake. The first CD I bought was Sister by Sonic Youth, an album that I had owned for a couple of years or so. I heard sonic details listening to that CD that I had never heard on the vinyl, and I sold my entire vinyl collection, some of which are now nearly priceless. Oh well, live and learn. Incidentally, it turns out that records reproduce a larger frequency spectrum than CDs do. Never mind that 80% of that spectrum is beyond human hearing, the experts say it makes a difference in how we perceive sound. Vinyl has been making a big resurgence the last few years, but the CD is here to stay until portable digital media finally drives a stake through its heart.

You know, some of this stuff seems pretty funny now in 2009, and some of it represents the birth of ideas we use everyday. A lifetime goes by in the blink of an eye, and I remember all of these entries like it was yesterday. The rate at which new technologies are created and implemented is blazingly fast in 2009, and we have a lot of cool, new stuff to look forward to. I’m equally sure that in 20 years we’ll laugh about some of these things heading our way in another Connected Internet article.

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