I was born before ...

[Silverbreeze]

I was born before the Coronation of the Queen after the coldest winter recorded in England. Our milk was delivered by a horse drawn cart and I had a clothing and a sweet ration card as a kid which by big brother used to 'borrow'. No telephone, just a payphone on the street corner. We ran wild as children and played cowboys and Indians on bomb sites in London. Health and Safety was unknown, instead we had 'common sense', climbed trees and all the other things forbidden to kids today. I see I am not the only one born in 1947.

I am younger then you by some decades (1976) but It was not yet illegal for a child to be outside alone/without adults. Parks here in the USA still had kids around. And teenagers were allowed to hang out in the commons of shopping malls. I remember touchtone phones being the new thing!!! And monitors being neon colors

[pengeezer]

GPS: I remember using paper maps for traveling. Remember the glove compartment stuffed with maps that wouldn't fold up nicely? All I can say...thank good for gps. I hated maps.

I love maps. I can sit a just 'read' an Ordnance Survey Explorer map or an atlas, or even an A - Z. Maps are beautiful things.

I have some silk WW2 maps that I collected for a while. Very interesting to look at as well as hold.



John

[pengeezer]

Our family was such that my sister and I had to go to a nearby nursery school after elementary
school. From there we would walk home and sometimes wait for our mother and grandmother
to get home. We were latchkey kids before the term was coined(even though we didn't have
a key to get in).



John

[RNHC]

Wow, I thought I was an old fogey. I know some of you lived through some turbulent and tough times. Nothing but respect and good will to you all. I was born right around when people stopped wearing flowers in their hair.

[DaveT]

I was born well before the VHS - Betamax war, and Pioneer laser discs. And when my children saw an LP they commented that it was a very large CD.

Be home before dinner was my one rule during the summer and my parents were not concerned for my well being.

[jar]

I was born before it was dangerous to eat raw dough, uncooked hamburger, food that fell on the floor, it was wrong for little kids to go off with their friends, even to cross streets, before icicles were not winter Popsicles, there were helmets for riding bikes, pads for knees, before it was unusual to find a boy or girl over eight that did not have a knife with them at school or even Sunday school.

[bluesea]

I was born before increased siltation from rain runoff due to construction, development, and increased population just about killed the coral reefs in front of Waikiki and adjoining shorelines.

[VertOlive]

I was born before ball point pens
Automatic transmissions on cars
Television
Computers - the first computer I worked on used vacuum tubes
Air conditioning - electric fans were a luxury
Dial phones - Our phone number was 44W. Wait for the operator to ask "Number Please"

No Credit cards - cash or merchants' credit
Gas was less than 25 cents per gallon.
The iceman (home delivery) purposely chipped off large chips of ice for us in summer - free.
9 cent Saturday matinee movies (Hopalong Cassidy, Lone Ranger, Gene Autry, Tarzan
5 cent popcorn at the movie
Sawmill whistle blew promptly at 12 noon. You could set your clock by it.
No health insurance, but for $3 the doctor came to your house and left some foul-tasting medicine.

Those may have been simpler times, but they were not the good old days.

This is interesting. When were ballpoint pens invented? How were they received? Were they "the next big thing" that everyone wanted or did they just quietly seep into the culture?

[cwent2]

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The first patent for a ballpoint pen[6] was issued on 30 October 1888, to John J. Loud,[7] who was attempting to make a writing instrument that would be able to write "on rough surfaces-such as wood, coarse wrapping-paper, and other articles"[8] which then-common fountain pens could not. Loud's pen had a small rotating steel ball, held in place by a socket. Although it could be used to mark rough surfaces such as leather, as Loud intended, it proved to be too coarse for letter-writing. With no commercial viability, its potential went unexploited[1] and the patent eventually lapsed.[9] The manufacture of economical, reliable ballpoint pens as we know them arose from experimentation, modern chemistry, and precision manufacturing capabilities of the early 20th century.[3] Patents filed worldwide during early development are testaments to failed attempts at making the pens commercially viable and widely available.[10] Early ballpoints did not deliver the ink evenly; overflow and clogging were among the obstacles inventors faced toward developing reliable ballpoint pens.[4] If the ball socket were too tight, or the ink too thick, it would not reach the paper. If the socket were too loose, or the ink too thin, the pen would leak or the ink would smear.[4] Ink reservoirs pressurized by piston, spring, capillary action, and gravity would all serve as solutions to ink-delivery and flow problems.[11][12]
Ballpoint pen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Ball Pen" redirects here. For the 2012 Indian film, see Ball Pen (film).
Ballpoint pen
Parts of a retractable ballpoint pen
A retractable ballpoint pen assemblage.
Invented by
John Loud László Bíró (patents)
Launch year 1888
Company Multiple brands
Availability Worldwide mass-production
Notes
Ubiquitous writing instrument
A ballpoint pen, also known as a "biro",[1] "ball pen", or "dot pen" (in Indian English) is a pen that dispenses ink over a metal ball at its point, i.e. over a "ball point". The metal commonly used is steel, brass, or tungsten carbide.[2] It was conceived and developed as a cleaner and more reliable alternative to quill and fountain pens, and it is now the world's most-used writing instrument:[3] millions are manufactured and sold daily.[4] As a result, it has influenced art and graphic design and spawned an artwork genre.

Pen manufacturers produce designer ballpoint pens for the high-end and collectors' markets.

The Bic Cristal is a popular disposable type of ballpoint pen whose design is recognised by its place in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.[5]

[Brilliant Bill]

Born prior to...

Transistor

Integrated Circuit

All devices using the transistor and IC


U.S. participation in:

Berlin Airlift

Korean War

Lebanon War (1958)

Bay of Pigs Invasion

Cuban Missile Crisis

Congo Rebellion (1964)

Dominican Republic War

Vietnam War (participant on the losing side)

Zaire War (1978)

Lebanon War (1982-84)

Grenada Invasion

Persian Gulf War (1987-88)

Panama Invasion

Gulf War (1990-91)

Somali Civil War (1992-95)

Haiti War (1994-95)

Bosnian War

Serbian War

Afghanistan War (2001-14)

Iraq War (2003-11)

Northwest Pakistan War (2004-now)

Libya War 2011

ISIL War

Afghanistan War (2015 onward)


Racial integration of major league baseball in U.S.

Brown vs Board of Education -- and all the progress that engendered

Legal abortion

End of "Blue Laws" allowing commercial retail activities on Sunday

Birth of Barack Obama

Human-produced satellites circling planet Earth

Genetically modified foods

Mapping the human genome

"Suburbs" became a reality

Interstate highway system in U.S.

Shopping malls

"Running shoes"

Pantyhose

Playboy magazine

Unleaded gasoline

Verrazano Narrows Bridge

Modern Single Lens Reflex (SLR) camera

McDonald's Corporation -- and "fast food" in general

Hula hoop

Rock & Roll music

End of the "Golden Age" of radio

Tobacco & alcohol products advertising prohibitions

Men stopped wearing hats (real hats)

Lycra/Spandex

"New Math"

Hospice care

Gas lines, fuel shortages (U.S. 1970s -- 80s)

Diet soda

Barbie/Mr. Potato Head

Bar code

Zip code

Super Glue

Silly Putty

The "Comics Code"

Anyway, that's a start. I was born in the first half of the last Century!

[mrcharlie]

This is interesting. When were ballpoint pens invented? How were they received? Were they "the next big thing" that everyone wanted or did they just quietly seep into the culture?

In practice the modern ballpoint was invented in the late 1930s by Biro, but didn't really take off until his advancement of his own technology in the early 1940s, which is when Biro started production. He also started licensing the patents to others almost immediately, BiC licensing it in 1945. The BiC Crystal started production in 1950 and reached the US in 1959. The BiC Crystal was the first ballpoint to a) work really well and b) cost very little, and is widely credited as the tipping point for ballpoints taking over the pen market.

I'm not old enough to know the cultural answers to the final two questions.

I have read that American Pilots aircrews flying out of England during WW2 used RAF contracted ballpoints made using the Biro patent (starting in 1943) as they worked reliably without leakage at altitude in non-pressurized bombers unlike FPs.

[southpaw52]

I was born before;

The internet
Watergate
JFK assassinated
Moon Landing
Cell Phones
Computer
door to door salesman stopped coming to the door
they stopped milk delivery to the back door
cable/satellite TV
multiplex theaters
McDonald's
shopping malls
man landed on the moon

I'm sure there are more that all that comes to mind.

[oldstoat]

GPS: I remember using paper maps for traveling. Remember the glove compartment stuffed with maps that wouldn't fold up nicely? All I can say...thank good for gps. I hated maps.

I love maps. I can sit a just 'read' an Ordnance Survey Explorer map or an atlas, or even an A - Z. Maps are beautiful things.

I have some silk WW2 maps that I collected for a while. Very interesting to look at as well as hold.



John

As an aside, silk maps were often issued to aircrew flying over enemy territory during World War II- they were light, took up no space and could be easily concealed.

[bluesea]

I was born before Narcissism (viewed as a personality disorder), became an admired trait in famous personalties, and indeed an acceptable and viable option for ones own behavior.

[snowbear]

I'll play.

I was born before:
The Parker 45
Routine sonic booms from aircraft were prohibited in the US
Cell phones; heck, owning your phone
The Jeep Wrangler and the Range Rover
Hybrid cars
A practical integrated circuit (AKA computer chip)
Computers smaller than refrigerators
The Internet and a great deal of the technology associated with it (packet-switching, HTML, HTTP, TCP-IP, Java, Javascript, ...)
Stereo broadcast radio
Self-serve gas stations
The proliferation of cable television into mainstream consumerism
Quidditch

[pengeezer]

GPS: I remember using paper maps for traveling. Remember the glove compartment stuffed with maps that wouldn't fold up nicely? All I can say...thank good for gps. I hated maps.

I love maps. I can sit a just 'read' an Ordnance Survey Explorer map or an atlas, or even an A - Z. Maps are beautiful things.

I have some silk WW2 maps that I collected for a while. Very interesting to look at as well as hold.



John

As an aside, silk maps were often issued to aircrew flying over enemy territory during World War II- they were light, took up no space and could be easily concealed.

Aside pt. 2--

They also worked better than paper maps when you had to ditch into the water.

As to another historical point,wasn't Reynolds the 1st to mass produce the ballpoint(1948) though they were horrible writers?



John

[bluesea]

I'll play.

I was born before:

...The Jeep Wrangler and the Range Rover

Here, here. '86 CJ-7, late year production (Dana 44 rear, stock)


Tree Planting Rd facing Mauna Kea, approaching the 1984 Mauna Loa lava flow.

[Wile E Coyote]

I guess it's my turn

I was born before;

Ford Mustang
Computers were smaller than rooms
Basic
Moog Synthesizer
Plasma and LCD Displays
8 Track Cartridges
The Wizard of ID
The Warren Report
Underdog
Satellite broadcasting TV
Adams Family
Munsters
Gilligan's Island
Bewitched
Flipper
GI Joe
State Lottery
CO2 Lasers
Jackson 5
Lucky Charms
Houston Astros