# What became ubiquitous then went away in your lifetime? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 10, 2026, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180 "2026-04-10T22:01:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 45
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2026, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/881 "2026-09-25T09:33:53Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](#): > > Al Jaffee did a whole piece in Mad Magazine about inventions to deal with all the dog poop. There was also a poem, “Ordure of the Day”, written by someone named Ronnie Nathan and illustrated by Paul Coker in his inimitable style. It appeared in Mad #143 (June 1971). That predates Al Jaffee’s piece ( Mad #172, January 1975), although, unlike Al’s, it didn’t offer any practical solutions (Al Jaffee’s inventions always looked absurd, but some of them showed up in real life. Including some from this article.) ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2026, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/882 "2026-09-25T12:38:02Z")
Oh, lawd, don’t wanna hijack, but “Mad” and dog hockey reminded me of a panel where I first saw the word ‘glitch.’ I suspect someone stepped in some and it made the sound effect ‘glitch,’ which was commonly used, but I could be wrong. Anyway. . . That got me started on looking up when ‘glitch’ entered the lexicon, and it seems to be early 1950s in the TV age. “Glitch” was originally the word used to describe “the horizontal bar interferences seen on the screen, such as from an AC power line.” By the 1960s, it had evolved to mean any kind of electronic hiccup. However. . . it also meant something else, although I’ve never heard of it. An article from 1954 has the columnist writing that a young lady doesn’t want her date to be a ‘clunge’ or a ‘glitch’ and then wonders what those words mean since they’re not in a dictionary. He speculates that: “A ‘clunge’ is probably really supposed to be a ‘clunch,’ and ‘obsolete dialectic word derived from Danish and Middle English meaning an awkward, loutish, boorish fellow.’” While looking this word up, I found that it’s rather vulgar slang in the UK. Don’t know if that was the case in 1950s USA. And as for ‘glitch’, the writer continues: “A ‘glitch’ still eludes me. However I have in my mind’s eye the picture of a glib young man with an itch to save the world, a garrulous young man whose head is full of strange philosophy, a sort of egghead, junior grade.” ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2026, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/883 "2026-09-25T14:49:51Z")
I am fairly sure I have seen, e.g., snot out of someone’s nose described as “glitch” in _Mad._ “Clunge” seems rather vulgar; where are you reading that? In Mad? Any slang enjoys waves of popularity, in any case. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2026, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/884 "2026-09-25T15:15:39Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > “Clunge” seems rather vulgar; where are you reading that? Atlanta Journal Constitution. Oct. 10, 1954. P. 71. Column by Harold Martin. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2026, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/885 "2026-09-25T22:45:25Z")
There’s a new-ish hobby shop in Willow Glen…instead of a slot car track it has an indoor RC drift track: _“the perfect place for RC drift enthusiasts to practice, compete, and enjoy the thrill of precise control. Designed for smooth, controlled slides and realistic racing lines, our track offers the right surface, layout, and environment to help drivers of all skill levels improve their drifting techniques”._ [![](https://s3-media0.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/UQ-8U6ErYzMnuSjivM82pw/o.jpg) ](https://s3-media0.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/UQ-8U6ErYzMnuSjivM82pw/o.jpg) ---
**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:** [September 25, 2026, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/886 "2026-09-25T23:38:15Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > I am fairly sure I have seen, e.g., snot out of someone’s nose described as “glitch” in _Mad._ Don Martin says it’s when you stomp on something squishy. [![](https://preview.redd.it/don-martin-sound-effects-v0-05ku111nv9af1.jpeg?auto=webp&s=abc3611582b95ced1f2bc0c7421ee85f0c5f0186) ](https://preview.redd.it/don-martin-sound-effects-v0-05ku111nv9af1.jpeg?auto=webp&s=abc3611582b95ced1f2bc0c7421ee85f0c5f0186) ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2026, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/887 "2026-09-28T18:44:09Z")
I was at an amateur radio festival this weekend, a great place for obsolete electronic tech sightings. One such consumer item I hadn’t thought about in a while is the **electronic spelling dictionary**. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/888 "2026-09-29T01:22:59Z")
That is a good one! Here in Japan they had a lot of English to Japanese and vice versa, as well as other languages. I tossed mine a long time ago. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/889 "2026-09-29T15:30:11Z")
Among other non-ham stuff you’ll find at the hamfest is old telco gear from ebonite handsets from wooden box crankers to caller ID blockers to backhaul horn transmitters. But a consumer device feature that would take some explaining is a telephone’s **tone/pulse switch**. We had a phone with one as a kid but it was decades later before I learned why it exisited: to replicate the tick-pulses of a rotary dial. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/890 "2026-09-29T15:38:54Z")
> [@jnglmassiv](#): > > But a consumer device feature that would take some explaining is a telephone’s **tone/pulse switch**. We had a phone with one as a kid but it was decades later before I learned why it exisited: to replicate the tick-pulses of a rotary dial. My father had a related device: it was a handheld device, about 3" x 3" x 1", with an acoustic cup on one of the sides, and touch-tone buttons on the other side. He got it when he started working for the University of Wisconsin-Extension in 1983, and was assigned a voicemail account for the university; at that time, rotary phones were still fairly widespread in Wisconsin, because touch-tone had only been introduced by Wisconsin Telephone in the late ‘70s, and my parents’ home still had rotary phones. He needed the touch-tone box to be able to log into and use his voicemail from his home phone, or other rotary phones. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/891 "2026-09-29T16:09:15Z")
Radio Shack had a series of tone dialers like that. I had what was called a Red Box in the early 90s, a memory tone dialer with a faster crystal mod and used for nefarious purposes. Mine was like this, they had quite a few types. [https://www.ebay.com/itm/397350037258](https://www.ebay.com/itm/397350037258) ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/892 "2026-09-29T16:12:54Z")
> [@jnglmassiv](#): > > Mine was like this, they had quite a few types. Looking at eBay auctions, this is, more or less, the one which my father had: [![](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/2i0AAeSwZoJqfjJE/s-l1600.jpg) ](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/2i0AAeSwZoJqfjJE/s-l1600.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/893 "2026-09-29T17:42:19Z")
Makes sense, my tone dialer was more advanced/newer than that one, it had some extra buttons and could store a few number sequences. The models later than our brown ones seem to have gone to a contemporary ivory, timeless! Another one popped into my head: **eraseable ballpoint pens.** They were banned from my grammar school’s classrooms, teachers seemed to really dislike them. It seemed to be for no reason other than ‘you’re too old for pencils now and that also means no erasers.’ ---
**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:** [September 29, 2026, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/894 "2026-09-29T17:51:33Z")
> [@jnglmassiv](#): > > Another one popped into my head: **eraseable ballpoint pens.** They were banned from my grammar school’s classrooms, teachers seemed to really dislike them. It seemed to be for no reason other than ‘you’re too old for pencils now and that also means no erasers.’ I think the most likely reasons are: (1) They tend to smear easily and get ink on your fingers when handling the paper. (2) If it’s a graded exercise (like a test or quiz), you don’t want students changing their answers after it’s been returned to them and claiming you (the teacher) made an error while grading it. ---
**Author:** ![JohnGalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johngalt/32/184_2.png) [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2026, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/895 "2026-09-30T02:16:26Z")
> [@jnglmassiv](#): > > I was at an amateur radio festival this weekend, a great place for obsolete electronic tech sightings. One such consumer item I hadn’t thought about in a while is the **electronic spelling dictionary**. There was a whole bunch of portable electronic devices that aren’t around much anymore: “travel” electronic games like Tetris, poker, soduko, Scrabble, etc. They made good stocking stuffers and kid’s gifts, easy to find at Target et al, and relatively inexpensive. Thanks to cell phone apps and Nintendo handheld devices, they’re gone. They were so fun! ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2026, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/896 "2026-09-30T02:24:47Z")
> [@jnglmassiv](#): > > Another one popped into my head: **eraseable ballpoint pens.** If you do crossword puzzles in pen, as I do, those were great! ---
**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:** [September 30, 2026, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/897 "2026-09-30T03:06:58Z")
Oh yeah. Has anyone mentioned Game and Watch handheld LCD games? I guess that comes sort of close to Tamagotchi craze, which I didn’t think fit the thread, but maybe they do. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2026, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/898 "2026-09-30T11:28:42Z")
I thought of the game and watch thing as a very brief fad in the early 1980s but apparently they were a longer lived product. I was a young teen in Pakistan when they came out and for a middle class kid they were very expensive toys. I was at university at age 15, so maybe I was out of that world anyway. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2026, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/899 "2026-09-30T17:44:41Z")
Here is one I don’t think has been mentioned yet: The “true” popup ad. For maybe 10 years from the 90s through the 00s ads would often open a completely new browser window to display their content. These were the bane of web use. Then browsers added builtin popup blockers, as well as tabbed browsing, and mobile browsing, so the true popups almost completely went away. Now we have overlays, or whatever they should be called. It isn’t a real new window on your desktop, just a part of the webpage that covers other parts of the webpage. Scammier ones can even be decorated to look like a normal desktop window, but they’re still just part of that webpage. How do people use the web without an ad blocker? ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2026, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/900 "2026-09-30T18:19:05Z")
There are new improved erasable ball points out now, my kids use them regularly. The ink is much better and erases more cleanly, not the old smeary sticky ink. [Amazon Link](https://www.amazon.com/PILOT-FriXion-Clicker-Assorted-15-Pack/dp/B07D9Z7GYL?crid=2TVBZXVVATBN5&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.cUJFGoPU7_aegLdpL1p8ZSVv5k3xj-26DeSVGVe4SD6UB9Je2rdshfbsgwy8HVNh0FKYJRmgdyvNWCgYDfvVyAIfb57OUF3RWx7UJ7jO7d4vlpaBTvssRSR8_51VRpijPVWn_tr8gua7O1qYV6SQXSrQBApraxCSxjdjw8gU4eSDX7YltUYgE4QgMxVQ7Ch-1b4KnaCRmTTIegsyLzTd60diWQccGO5GU--CZn2DWDw-8a1odpDnJF1OfgmTwC9-oZjYYDtsLrkdW7jEuNVjPiOB3Y0Mw08IKKk71wBRPDM.NmDNfz-HKbRMDhBQ37sU7XdZ2Kyx9KDHMDr7JxxfxoI&dib_tag=se&keywords=erasable%2Bball%2Bpoint&qid=1790792162&sprefix=erasable%2Bball%2B%2Caps%2C909&sr=8-9&th=1) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180.md?page=44) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180.md?page=46)