My dad was in the FAA in the '70s. Sometimes he’d let me come to the FSS and play with the teletypes. You could ring a bell by typing CNTL-G. And with the bell and spaces, you could make a paper tape that made the teletype play Jingle Bells when you ran it back. Dad used to bring home the ends of teletype paper rolls. I used to lay out a length of paper on the floor, draw lines and numbers on them, and play with my Matchbox airplanes while I watched Sky Hawks cartoons. (It was on right after Hot Wheels.
Apparently Bankamericard became Visa in 1977. I still remember the Bankamericard commercials around Christmastime that used the tune of Jingle Bells with lyrics that ended in ‘Bank-a-mer-i-card!’
And Christmas was the time for the Miller’s Outpost cowboy commercials. Remember those?
When I started to drive, in the late-'70s, dad let me use his Arco credit card. I think I still have it around somewhere.