Laundry equipment. Anyone but me ever do the wash in a washer which involved running the clothes through a manually operated wringer, then into the rinse water, then again through the wringer, then carry upstairs and out to the clothesline? I sure do not miss that.
I’m a periodicals librarian and I spend a lot of time in old microfilm of newspapers (unfortunately mostly looking for the most boring parts - obits) - we love Kotex ads. They’re so… obscure! A coworker and I spent a day researching the history of Kotex and similar brands one day - there are some fantastic resources online where you can read the booklets you could send away for to help your daughters understand their, er, flowering. Marjorie May, I think, is the protagonist. There’s a site where you can see each version of the booklet, from other countries and various decades - very impressive. I was really quite impressed also by “Marjorie May Learns About Life”, I think it was called, which was about the birds and the bees. It was surprisingly informative for being something you gave your daughter in the 30’s - explained eggs and sperm and all that.
Did you know they updated Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret? It’s a shame, because when I was a kid that was so puzzling - what was up with the belt thing? Granted, kids should get the right information, but that’s literally the only way I would have known about belts. It’s hidden history.
But there doesn’t have to be! There is zero reason why a formal code, with all the little details, can’t be displayed, but then followed by a generic description. Like “Error C2R402:19:2010:13:27:00…Cylinder 2 misfire” so at least the driver knows, in general, what went wrong, and knows if it’s serious or not. Then the mechanic can find out the exact nature of the “R4” aspect with the little computer thingy they hook up to it.
Even “PC load letter” is more descriptive than “check engine”, though.