# Ubiquitous items from relatively recently youngsters may not recognise **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 19, 2023, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362 "2023-03-19T15:27:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/261 "2023-03-26T05:07:02Z")
^^ Thanks!! ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/262 "2023-03-26T09:53:27Z")
I’m fairly sure that anyone who came of age after the '90s would have absolutely no idea what to make of this; [![](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AsUas89TZX0/TVIJNhVnf-I/AAAAAAAAA8I/5yVfGu8asWA/s320/spicechannelunscrambled.jpg) ](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AsUas89TZX0/TVIJNhVnf-I/AAAAAAAAA8I/5yVfGu8asWA/s320/spicechannelunscrambled.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/263 "2023-03-26T10:40:04Z")
I came of age well before that, but have no idea what that image is. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/264 "2023-03-26T11:08:11Z")
Clearly you never changed the cable box to channel 99 at midnight after you were pretty sure your parents were asleep. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/265 "2023-03-26T11:14:04Z")
A vintage tech youtuber I watch made the observation that almost every reasonably popular obsolete technology has an nostalgia powered enthusiast community behind it that obsessively collects, documents and discusses the minute details of that tech but one that really doesn’t is ball mice. There’s absolutely no love for those things, nobody is collecting them, nobody is talking about them, the collective world was pretty unanimous in breathing a sigh of relief as soon as we could move on from them and there’s seemingly no desire from a single person to look back fondly upon them. So I think it’s a good candidate for a technology that probably upwards of a billion people interacted with as recently as 20 years ago and yet almost everyone who grew up after that age would be totally ignorant of. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/266 "2023-03-26T11:17:59Z")
Cable? What is this cable of which you speak? Maybe I’m too old to remember that. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/267 "2023-03-26T11:29:48Z")
That photo is what it looked like in the days of analog cable when you tried to tune in on a premium channel you hadn’t paid for - be it HBO, Cinemax, pay-per-view, or certain other channels that came on late at night and featured the kind of programming that they used to hide behind a beaded curtain at the video store. The video feed would be discolored and scrambled and mostly incomprehensible aside from when you could occasionally catch a brief glimpse of a shimmering green and purple nipple, but the audio was untouched. If nothing else, you could at least hear what was happening at Wrestlemania if your parents refused to drop $40 for it. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_was_in_Saudi)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/268 "2023-03-26T11:44:20Z")
Remember when soda cans had a little tab that came fully off? Those things were everywhere, but not really mentioned in print. In a thousand years people might well puzzle over all those curled little Fritos of aluminum. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/269 "2023-03-26T11:45:44Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > That photo is what it looked like in the days of analog cable when you tried to tune in on a premium channel you hadn’t paid for - be it HBO, Cinemax, pay-per-view, or certain other channels that came on late at night and featured the kind of programming that they used to hide behind a beaded curtain at the video store. Not just cable, but any subscription TV - most of NYC did not have cable until at least 1988 but it was possible to get services like HBO and WHT that transmitted a scrambled signal over a UHF station. If you didn’t have the descrambler box, you got a picture like the one in the photo. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/270 "2023-03-26T11:46:40Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Cable? What is this cable of which you speak? Maybe I’m too old to remember that. Yeah, I went straight from antenna to satellite dish. Never had cable. Can’t get it where I currently live. ---
**Author:** ![Reeses\_Monkey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reeses_monkey/32/2885_2.png) [@Reeses\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeses_Monkey)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/271 "2023-03-26T12:34:34Z")
Blew out my flip-flop/Stepped on a pop top/Cut my heel/Had to cruise on back home ---
**Author:** ![Die\_Capacitrix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/die_capacitrix/32/9_2.png) [@Die\_Capacitrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Die_Capacitrix)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/272 "2023-03-26T13:24:44Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > I dunno about ubiquitous, but how about a manual _drafting_ pencil sharpener? My former boss (born in 1970) had one of those. I don’t remember seeing one before, and I’m older than him (not by much). As he grew up in Switzerland, he started using computers much later than me and never had a chance to use CAD software before he started working. I first used CAD software in my freshman year of college. I even had a desktop in my dorm room, using a token ring network. Speaking of which, who knows what a IBM hermaphroditic connector with locking clip looks like? > [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > They are on my car as we speak, I have a set of snow tyres mounted on steel wheels and swap them over with the normal alloys, on continental Europe that is very common indeed. Might be, but both our summer tires and winter tires are alloy wheels s and have the stick-on weights. My friend’s parents’ van had an 8-track player, but I don’t think they had any cassettes for it. There are some older restaurants and shops which have ashtrays in the restroom stalls. Not just in the restroom, but in the stalls themselves. Hard to believe indoor smoking only got (mostly) banned in 2010. When we first moved here, many apartments wtill had a [Reichle](https://www.distrelec.ch/en/telephone-socket-surface-mounted-a6-reichle-de-massari-r10111-06-wst/p/11060856) socket for the telephone. Most apartments have changed over to newer technology, but if you’re unlucky, it’s still possible to buy an adapter. As it’s only in Switzerland, there’s limited information, and it’s mostly German, French and Italian. > **[Reichle-Stecker](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichle-Stecker)** > > Reichle-Stecker ist die umgangssprachliche Bezeichnung für die ehemaligen sechspoligen Schweizer Telefonstecker vom Typ TT87 und TT89 (auch T+T87 und T+T89). TT89 bezeichnet dabei den Winkelstecker, bei dem die Adern eines Flachband-Telefonkabels per Schneidklemmtechnik ohne Werkzeug angepresst werden können, während TT87 der gerade Stecker ist, bei dem die Kontaktstifte mittels eines speziellen Werkzeuges befestigt werden müssen. TT87 kommt vor allem an konfektioniert verkauften Kabeln vor. Die ... ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_was_in_Saudi)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/273 "2023-03-26T14:51:07Z")
> [@Reeses\_Monkey](#): > > Blew out my flip-flop/Stepped on a pop top/Cut my heel/Had to cruise on back home This seems to be a reference to a bottle top. The little tab things do not seem to have a name. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/274 "2023-03-26T14:57:03Z")
> [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](#): > > This seems to be a reference to a bottle top. The little tab things do not seem to have a name. Per [dictionary.com:](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/pop-top) pop-top: (of a can) having a top with a tab or ring that when pulled up or off exposes a precut hole or peels off the entire lid. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_was_in_Saudi)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/275 "2023-03-26T14:58:19Z")
Hey! **[Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)!** It is good to see you again, and I take your posts very seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/276 "2023-03-26T14:59:25Z")
> [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](#): > > I take your posts very seriously. Good to be seen, and pop tops are serious subjects that deserve proper attention and respect, for certain. 😜 ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_was_in_Saudi)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/277 "2023-03-26T15:18:22Z")
Obviously. I am chastened. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/278 "2023-03-26T15:22:07Z")
> [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](#): > > I am chastened. But why??? Pop tops have been subject to serious debate and concern over the decades, and are certainly not trivial! Take of the chastenity belt! ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/279 "2023-03-26T15:34:48Z")
The scourge of metal detectorists everywhere. I’m familiar with most everything in this thread, sad to say. 8-tracks? Oh yeah, although that was the one format that I skipped, as I hated the song interruptions. I had a reel-to-reel, cassettes, and most other formats though. I’ll add Beta tapes, if it hasn’t already been mentioned. They were a precursor to VHS and lasted about as long as the 8-tracks did. There was also the Videodisc, which looked like an LP. I also had floppy discs and most of the other formats of computer storage. My first computer was a Tandy 10000 with an 8088 processor that boasted 256KB of memory. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/280 "2023-03-26T15:52:55Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > I’ll add Beta tapes, if it hasn’t already been mentioned. They were a precursor to VHS and lasted about as long as the 8-tracks did. There even was a third competitive video tape standard, Video 2000, developed by the German company Grundig. It never made it out of Europe and soon lost to VHS like Betamax. > **[Video 2000](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_2000)** > > Video 2000 (also known as V2000, with the tape standard Video Compact Cassette, or VCC) is a consumer videocassette system and analogue recording standard developed by Philips and Grundig to compete with JVC's VHS and Sony's Betamax video technologies. It was designed for the PAL color television standard, but some models additionally handled SECAM. Distribution of Video 2000 products began in 1979 exclusively in Europe, South Africa and Argentina and ended in 1988. > Although some initial models ... [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362.md?page=15)