# 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:** 15
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/281 "2023-03-26T15:54:49Z")
Betamax was far from Ubiquitous. But apparently 8-Tracks were less common than I thought. ---
**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, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/282 "2023-03-26T15:57:26Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > 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. My sister still had her Betamax player as recently as the first decade of this century. Hell, it was probably part of the estate after she and her husband were both gone. That’s some stubborn shit right there. ---
**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, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/283 "2023-03-26T16:00:37Z")
I don’t know about the US, but in the eighties I’ve never seen a video store that carried other formats than VHS, and I think that was one of the death knells for both Betamax and Video 2000. Yeah, and porn on VHS, lots of porn, of course… ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/284 "2023-03-26T16:19:48Z")
In the 80s video stores here had overwhelmingly VHS but some of the better stores had [LaserDisc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaserDisc). [![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/LDDVDComparison-mod.png/220px-LDDVDComparison-mod.png) ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/LDDVDComparison-mod.png/220px-LDDVDComparison-mod.png) ---
**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, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/285 "2023-03-26T16:23:32Z")
As noted above, it was originally released as Videodisc by RCA. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/286 "2023-03-26T17:23:38Z")
Considering how popular gaming is Today I wonder how many youngin’s would recognize what a video game _cartridge_ is (You know like the Atari 2600 and Super Nintendo used.) ---
**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, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/287 "2023-03-26T18:21:51Z")
Clears throat… Lead sharpener. Had a few. Started my career as a draftsman. Pencil, ink whatever. We where (rightly so) very particular about our tools of the trade. Here is another type - > **[Amazon.com: Alvin, Versatile Sandpaper Lead Pointer, Sharpening Tool for...](https://www.amazon.com/Alvin-Co-Sandpaper-Lead-Pointer/dp/B000HF4RPC)** > > Buy Alvin, Versatile Sandpaper Lead Pointer, Sharpening Tool for Drawing, Planning, and Design, Great for Students and Professionals: Everything Else - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/288 "2023-03-26T18:42:54Z")
So, when I went over to visit my mom today, she told me “Oh, and I found an old physics toy lying around, too. Take it home with you.” Sure enough, an old hand boiler. To correct a previous post, though, the fluid doesn’t actually boil from the warmth of your hand. The “boiling” comes when the bottom reservoir is almost empty, and so the increased pressure in the bottom starts driving bubbles up the tube. ---
**Author:** ![TheTooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/919ad9/32.png) [@TheTooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheTooth)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/289 "2023-03-26T18:52:26Z")
RCA Videodisc was CED technology, a clever idea that was pretty much obsolete upon release. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Krupe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ebca7d/32.png) [@Leo\_Krupe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Krupe)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/290 "2023-03-26T19:01:21Z")
I’m 61 and the only things I wasn’t familiar with are the hand boilers and the drafting sharpener. I had an 8-track player in my car, as well as a combo turntable 8-track player stereo from Radio Shack (later I installed an auto-reverse cassette player in my car) Before the auto-reverse function, 8-track was great for its continuous play capability. It lost points because a song would fade out, a click loud enough to be heard by the neighbors would sound, then the song would fade back in. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/291 "2023-03-26T19:22:34Z")
> [@Leo\_Krupe](#): > > I’m 61 and the only things I wasn’t familiar with are the hand boilers and the drafting sharpener. Kinda me, too. I’ve seen those hand boilers in the past, but I never knew anyone who actually owned one. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/292 "2023-03-26T20:33:19Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > 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. Well… I don’t miss them, per se, but what I do miss is taking them apart and cleaning the little wheels inside, especially when they had a nice layer of grime on them to peel off. Maybe it was an OCD thing, but I’d do that with every mouse I got my hands on. I bet I cleaned the inside of every mouse in my college library at least once. There was something cathartic about it, you know? ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/293 "2023-03-26T21:37:21Z")
Me too. Back in the day when computers cost as much as a new (compact) auto I was taking a class at San Jose State and the computer lab had a dozen MacIntosh IIs with ball mice. Being community property they were never, ever cleaned so would skip like mad. I got into the habit of bringing a single-ended wooden swab from work and first thing in sitting down was to pop the bottom off the mouse and knock the crud off with the plain end of the swab. I made a point of sitting at a different computer each time but I hadn’t quite done them all before the class wa over. [![](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/W/IMAGERENDERING_521856-T1/images/I/61RCEBUOJwL.jpg) ](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/W/IMAGERENDERING_521856-T1/images/I/61RCEBUOJwL.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2023, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/294 "2023-03-26T21:48:04Z")
Man, the first time I ever cleaned my ball mouse, I was convinced I must have broken something. Because there was SO MUCH of that grunk on the rollers, surely, that must have actually been a part of the design that was deliberately put on there, right? And with it scraped off, surely it wouldn’t work at all any more? ---
**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, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/295 "2023-03-26T22:02:53Z")
First laser mouse I used was for a UNIX machine. It had a special mouse pad. Nothing else would work. But it wasn’t as if you where going to cart the thing around, so not much of a problem. First ‘mouse’ I used was on a digitizing table, with another flat tablet that you could pick up certain commands with. And another that would pick up commands for certain projects. 1988. The mouse (called a cursor) had 12 buttons on it, and a cross hair in glass on the front. It was freaking magic (at the time) ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2023, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/296 "2023-03-28T03:14:43Z")
I remember until win 3.0/1 some computer companies were going to dump the mouse … ---
**Author:** ![actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e79b87/32.png) [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/actualliberalnotoneofthose)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2023, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/297 "2023-03-28T03:52:50Z")
I’m 44. I think I was the only one of my friends who did NOT have a pager in the late '90s. I did get my first cell phone (other than borrowing my mom’s Zach Morris phone) around that time (still the same number), though. Then for a brief period “2 way pagers” were all the rage and I’m sure live on in some hit songs of that era. I sold all these things at my job, too. Around 2000-2002ish teens and some credit-challenged (it was somewhat difficult to get approved for a subsidized wireless phone without a deposit) young adult were still buying them but it was mostly done by then. As for some other things mentioned: I had an 8track player in my stereo system that was passed down from my uncle or a yard sale or wherever it came from and a nice collection of 1980ish tapes. My kids had ipods so surely youngsters would remember those. So I thought, until I realized my youngest will be 16 this year. I work in the warehouse of a large company everyone know. I actually handled a large number of replacement telephone cords in the inventory last week. So either people are still buying or at least someone is still trying to sell them. I don’t remember the last time I handled a VHS, though it was definitely in the last 3 years. ---
**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 28, 2023, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/298 "2023-03-28T04:02:38Z")
I just paid an electrician to repair some phone wires in my house. ---
**Author:** ![WhyKickAMooCow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9fc29f/32.png) [@WhyKickAMooCow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyKickAMooCow)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2023, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/299 "2023-03-28T09:10:31Z")
Here in the UK, Kinder Eggs (children’s confectionery) used to have a yellow plastic sphere in the middle that contained the toy. Our company went through a process of replacing ball mice with optical mice and as techies we kept all the balls. We soon found out that they fit inside a Kinder sphere perfectly and immediately created giant jumping beans. As Kinder Eggs were something of a techie currency at the time (used as a bribe for IT favours) we ended up with hundreds of the things all jumping whenever a nearby drawer was opened. ---
**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 28, 2023, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362/300 "2023-03-28T09:20:23Z")
TV Guide. A magazine that told you what was going to be on TV that week, so you could plan out your viewing accordingly? Ridiculous in an age where all you have to do is press a button on your remote to find out what’s on. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ubiquitous-items-from-relatively-recently-youngsters-may-not-recognise/981362.md?page=16)