Much like the 60s, if you remember the 70s, then you weren’t there…
-David
I have found my new hero!
Another theory on this is that it might have started from He-Man characters (remeber, the kids who started this grew up watching He-Man.) Alot of the evil characters were just obvious names with -or tacked onto them:
Skunk0r
Spik0r
Panth0r
Skelet0r
…etc
You get the picture. The first usage of this I heard was around 1995 or so when everyone online started calling each other a “fagg0r”.
I remember 1973 - I was 10 years old and I was a 133+ D00d -
I had a UNIX account a UCSB (no lie) then my dad (an electronics
engineer) showed me my first HaCh - Yup - our electricity bill came
in the form of an IBM punch card, he never got results complaining
by phone so he wrote his gripe on the card and covered some of the
holes with masking tape - when the mopes ran that batch of cards
through the machine, my dads ran half way down the line and jammed
the machine, some one had to physically open the machine - and
VOLLA read his complaint - I was very impressed how just a little
thing like that could bring a whole computer system to its knees!
i+s @LL B33N d0WN hill Ever $1nCE!
Are you sure this isn’t just a mangled memory? How clearly do you remember this happening? I’m not saying you’re lying, the only reason I even ask is because, IIRC, there was a song around that time describing that exact situation. I could very well be wrong though. Just wondering.
Very clearly: to the point that it struck me how the
color/shade of the masking tape was so close to
the color of the punch card (off white) - why not
scotch tape? - it couldn’t be written on as easily,
I further remember my mom arguing with him about
it, she thought it was only going to cause more
problems, she had a friend who worked at the
California Dept. Of motor vehicles, which used a
punch card system, and just KNEW the Govt. took
a dim view of jokers who horsed around like this.
I didn’t know there was a song about this, nor
do I know where my dad got the idea, I always
figured it was because of his line of work, maybe he
had herd the song (when did it come out?). Anyway
the utility company called a few days later and
stated that the problem had been brought to their
attention in a letter he sent - that was the only
letter he had ever sent them - so we can only assume
that it came to their attention in this way - though
I don’t recall him ever asking exactly how they came
to read it, for all I know some one noticed it before
popping it into the machine.
Ok, so it seems to boil down that teenagers (or young adults fresh out of school) with too much time think it’s cool?