# How do you impress your time-traveling visitor from 1978? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 16, 2008, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-impress-your-time-traveling-visitor-from-1978/460278 "2008-08-16T23:43:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-impress-your-time-traveling-visitor-from-1978/460278/61 "2008-08-19T06:36:39Z")
I think I’d show them the freaking Starbucks on every freaking corner. They’d wonder when did overpriced coffee become the national religion. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-impress-your-time-traveling-visitor-from-1978/460278/62 "2008-08-19T07:28:17Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] By 1978 I had already used: Instant messaging Chat rooms Message boards Been to a semi-pornographic “website” - actually a Plato lesson. Played interactive games with people around the world. Been to a MUD. Used a plasma screen. [/QUOTE] I’m not taking you to the future, then. You’re no fun at all. ---
**Author:** ![Lobelia\_Overhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/54ee81/32.png) [@Lobelia\_Overhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobelia_Overhill)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-impress-your-time-traveling-visitor-from-1978/460278/63 "2008-08-19T10:00:07Z")
My first thought was show them **the Phantom Menace** _without_ mentioning anything about ESB or RotJ … DVDs would be pretty impressive, CDs not so much, cos you were used to music on discs in the 70s, but watching movies on a disc?! _Woah_ ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-impress-your-time-traveling-visitor-from-1978/460278/64 "2008-08-19T10:17:47Z")
[QUOTE=Lobelia Overhill] My first thought was show them **the Phantom Menace** _without_ mentioning anything about ESB or RotJ … DVDs would be pretty impressive, CDs not so much, cos you were used to music on discs in the 70s, but watching movies on a disc?! _Woah_ [/QUOTE] I seem to remember seeing a huge LP-sized laser video disk either in the late 70s or very early 80s. It was at a car dealership, and the machine to play it probably cost as much as one of the cars. ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-impress-your-time-traveling-visitor-from-1978/460278/65 "2008-08-19T11:52:58Z")
I would use my webcam and have a real-time “face-to-face” conversation with a friend in Tokyo. 'Cause that’s the shit I thought was “science fiction” when I was a kid in the 1970s. Likewise my cellphone that flips open like Captain Kirk’s communicator. ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-impress-your-time-traveling-visitor-from-1978/460278/66 "2008-08-19T12:08:09Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] But most people weren’t in the know. If you had a PC in your room in 1978 you were a very rare bird indeed. Personal computers were exceedingly unusual until the 80s, and it wasn’t commonplace to have one until much later. Using it for external communications was a rarity as well. [/QUOTE] I don’t think this is true. I was playing with TRS-80s in 1978 - I was living in the middle of nowhere in a small town, but our school system still had a few computers for the elementary school kids to play with. The Apple II came out in 1977, and they wasn’t uncommon by the late 70s to see them around. I’m not saying they were ubiquitous, but I don’t think they were “exceedingly unusual” either. I was begging my parents for a computer long before 1980 hit. And a modem, too. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-impress-your-time-traveling-visitor-from-1978/460278/67 "2008-08-19T12:41:51Z")
Personal computers were known of, but they were an incredibly expensive luxury. Affordability and accessibility came in the 80s, helped along by Commodore, Atari, and Sinclair et al, and that’s when things started to move. The point of surprising someone from the past isn’t to show them something _completely_ unknown, but to show them something so much cooler than they would have imagined, especially with such a short period of time having passed. ---
**Author:** ![Walkabout](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/46a35a/32.png) [@Walkabout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walkabout)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-impress-your-time-traveling-visitor-from-1978/460278/68 "2008-08-19T13:41:38Z")
I was in college in the early 80’s, and we were still using punch cards to analyze research data. We got an Apple II+ in about 1983 and felt like we were on the cutting edge of technology. PC’s were certainly not common in the 70’s, at least where I was, and connection to the internet didn’t become common until much later. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-impress-your-time-traveling-visitor-from-1978/460278/69 "2008-08-19T14:05:17Z")
My aunt had a story of working as a secretary/typist for a major Sydney law firm in the 1970s. They had bought themselves a newfangled “word processor” that could show ONE LINE of luminous type at a time. They used it for record keeping, but my aunt was obliged to re-type in paper everything she had entered into the word processor, because the firm’s partners didn’t trust it. ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-impress-your-time-traveling-visitor-from-1978/460278/70 "2008-08-19T14:26:52Z")
Someone in my age group? I’d show them Assassin’s Creed or Beautiful Katamari or something on the X-box 360. Because the graphics in Space Invaders were so awesome. Then I’d show them the iPod. Walkmans weren’t quite around yet back then, were they? I’d show them something on an HDTV (I think '78 might have been the year my family got a color TV? Later than that?). Then I’d have them pop back home for a minute and bring back 10 Millennium Falcon toys in the original box with the little gun pieces and we’d retire. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-impress-your-time-traveling-visitor-from-1978/460278/71 "2008-08-19T15:52:38Z")
[QUOTE=LSLGuy] I think we’re grossly misunderstanding how modern 1978 was from a tech perspective. …GPS was up & running for the military & had been for a couple years. Surveyors were starting to use it, although consumers hadn’t really. [/QUOTE] No, nobody was using GPS in 1978. While the first experimental GPS satellite was launched in 1978, the system was not operational until late **1993**. See here for a [timeline](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#Timeline). I know this is true, because I was in the Navy at the time, and was amazed when we got our first military receiver around this time. We’d been hearing about the system for 2-3 years at that point, though it was referred to by its official name, NAVSTAR. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-impress-your-time-traveling-visitor-from-1978/460278/72 "2008-08-19T16:07:29Z")
Show them who the frontrunners are in the US presidential race. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-impress-your-time-traveling-visitor-from-1978/460278/73 "2008-08-19T18:29:37Z")
[QUOTE=Swallowed My Cellphone] I would use my webcam and have a real-time “face-to-face” conversation with a friend in Tokyo. 'Cause that’s the shit I thought was “science fiction” when I was a kid in the 1970s. Likewise my cellphone that flips open like Captain Kirk’s communicator. [/QUOTE] Heh. AT&T showed off picturephones at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. I got to use one. They had flopped once already by 1978. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2008, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-impress-your-time-traveling-visitor-from-1978/460278/74 "2008-08-19T18:55:09Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] Been to a semi-pornographic “website” - actually a Plato lesson. Played interactive games with people around the world. [/QUOTE] Heh…wow. You know, before today, I’d never even HEARD of the [PLATO system](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLATO_%28computer_system%29). _That’s_ fairly impressive to me, in 2008, in it’s own charming way. Like a living slice of transistorpunk! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2008, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-impress-your-time-traveling-visitor-from-1978/460278/75 "2008-08-20T00:53:33Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] As a former denizen of 1978, my reaction would have been that 2007 really screwed up the porn. Back then we had Flesh Gordon, Debbie Does Dallas, Debbie Duz Dishes, and a whole host of well produced and almost amusing porn. Today we got …? Pirates, I suppose. [/QUOTE] Fine. Some like nookie & some like Wookie. To each his/her own. And Dammit Rockford, get a voicemail, will ya..!? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2008, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-impress-your-time-traveling-visitor-from-1978/460278/76 "2008-08-20T02:02:11Z")
[QUOTE=OtakuLoki] Would a visitor from 1978 even understand the modern definition of organic produce? I have vague memories of “pesticide free” produce, but I don’t recall organic until I was in HS. And it was a common complaint at my family’s dinner table because my parents both thought it was a stupid term. [/QUOTE] You know I love that organic cooking, I always ask for more. And they call me Mr. Natural, On down to the health food store. – _Junk Food Junkie_, released 1976 ---
**Author:** ![Lobelia\_Overhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/54ee81/32.png) [@Lobelia\_Overhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobelia_Overhill)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2008, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-impress-your-time-traveling-visitor-from-1978/460278/77 "2008-08-20T12:04:58Z")
[QUOTE=Musicat] Show them who the frontrunners are in the US presidential race. [/QUOTE] \Ronald Regan is president?!\ [QUOTE=Koxinga] I seem to remember seeing a huge LP-sized laser video disk either in the late 70s or very early 80s. It was at a car dealership, and the machine to play it probably cost as much as one of the cars. [/QUOTE] Oooo, not around here you wouldn’t have! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2008, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-impress-your-time-traveling-visitor-from-1978/460278/78 "2008-08-20T14:19:35Z")
[QUOTE=Lobelia Overhill] \Ronald Regan is president?!\ Oooo, not around here you wouldn’t have! 🙂 [/QUOTE] Well, I’m not going to get into the technology one-upmanship seen in the thread above, but I do see that [Laserdiscs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laserdisc) debuted in 1978, so I don’t think my memory is utterly faulty. ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-impress-your-time-traveling-visitor-from-1978/460278/79 "2008-08-21T19:43:26Z")
Has life expectancy increased significantly since 1978? ---
**Author:** ![middleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@middleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/middleman)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-impress-your-time-traveling-visitor-from-1978/460278/80 "2008-08-21T20:02:47Z")
I take them to a strip club. Not because they need to go, but because I WANT to go. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-impress-your-time-traveling-visitor-from-1978/460278.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-impress-your-time-traveling-visitor-from-1978/460278.md?page=5)