# Without saying your age, what's something from your childhood that a younger person wouldn't understand? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 25, 2021, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138 "2021-10-25T01:08:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 16
**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:** [October 27, 2021, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/302 "2021-10-27T17:52:51Z")
When I was very young, to make a phone call you picked up the handset and waited for an operator to come on, then asked for the three digit number you wanted to call. Long distance calls from Alaska were a big deal, difficult to make, and the connection ifffy at best. In the early days of Anchorage, you had to go down to the federal building to make long-distance calls. Our first TV was B&W and we had one channel. In Anchorage, we had the luxury of three channels. All good radio was on AM. FM was relegated to classical music. Cars only had AM radio. Our music at home came from a giant piece of furniture called a console, which had a radio and a record player inside. Stereo was not yet affordable for home use, so most all records were either monaural or “high fidelity”. The first TV I bought after getting married was a 13" color Webcor. It weighed about as much as my car. ---
**Author:** ![ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chockfullofheadygoodness/32/511_2.png) [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2021, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/303 "2021-10-27T17:57:10Z")
Scrambled over-the-air pay TV channels. A common electronics project was building your own decoder box so you could watch for fee. Or, as I discovered in college, if you had an older TV with an analog UHF dial, if you tuned just below the specified channel, you could get the luma signal clearly, but not the chroma or the audio. So, a clear black-and-white picture with no sound, which was perfectly fine for sports and the sort of… um, entertainment… they broadcast late at night. ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2021, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/304 "2021-10-27T18:21:28Z")
Some early telephone answering machines had a little remote which you used to collect your messages while away from home. You’d play specific tones down the phone line using buttons on the remote, which would activate your machine at home to play your messages. Phone phreaks who happened to have perfect pitch could do this without the remote, by singing or whistling. Cecil mentioned it here: > **[The Straight Dope - Chicago Reader](https://chicagoreader.com/news-politics/the-straight-dope-784/)** > > Since she was a child, my mother has had something my family calls “perfect pitch”: give her the name of a note–E flat, for instance–and she can hum it perfectly every time. Though the women in our family (for six generations!) have had a definite... ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2021, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/305 "2021-10-27T18:27:19Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > and I use my car’s built-in nav system for a zoomed-out view of the whole route, How big is the display? ---
**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:** [October 27, 2021, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/306 "2021-10-27T19:33:20Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > It was a rite of passage for us in Southern California. When you got your first car, your parents gave you a Thomas Guide. Los Angeles & Orange Counties combined of course. Of course! I had a slim one for San Diego County, too, but I rarely used it. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2021, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/307 "2021-10-27T19:35:36Z")
Consumer Cellular has a commercial titled _Lifestyles of the Smart and Savvy_ with a voiceover from a Robin Leach soundalike. Their target audience of older people will recognize it as a spoof of _Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous_. Younger viewers wouldn’t have a clue. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2021, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/308 "2021-10-27T20:06:59Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Where did you live that you were listening to OK City and Chicago stations? > [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Those were [“clear-channel” stations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear-channel_station), which cranked up their wattage at night (while other AM stations on their frequency had to sign off at sunset), and could often be picked up many hundreds of miles away, depending on atmospheric conditions. In the mid-Eighties, we had a couple of receivers that could pick up WGN from the New Orleans ‘burbs. I liked to listen to Cubs’ night games. WLS tended to get drowned out by WWL. Both were all-news by then, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2021, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/309 "2021-10-27T20:19:15Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Their target audience of older people will recognize it as a spoof of _Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous_ . Younger viewers wouldn’t have a clue. LOTS of commercials - and movies and tv shows - do that! They make a connection of whatever kind in hopes of attracting the viewer, but so very often I really gotta wonder which demographic they’re marketing to. I can’t count how often I’ve seen Fred Astaire in a commercial! I just finished watching the movie “Avengers: Age of Ultron” (2015), in which the robot Ultron mocks the humans, calling them puppets on strings. To underscore his point of view, the soundtrack plays “I’ve Got No Strings”, from Walt Disney’s “Pinocchio” (1940!) Seriously, how many people would hear that and make the connection? [(Watch and listen here.)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmeOjFno6Do) ---
**Author:** ![gnarator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gnarator/32/8266_2.png) [@gnarator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnarator)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2021, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/310 "2021-10-27T20:21:22Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Consumer Cellular has a commercial titled _Lifestyles of the Smart and Savvy_ with a voiceover from a Robin Leach soundalike. “I’M SHOUTING AND I DON’T KNOW WHY!” ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2021, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/311 "2021-10-27T20:32:24Z")
They were durable too. I once dropped a 20 inch CRT TV down a flight of stairs and it worked fine after I plugged it in. My brother in law had a 32 inch console TV fall out of the back of his pickup when moving and it worked fine too. (A piece of the wood frame broke off but the screen and electronics still worked fine.) In contrast I once dropped a 32 inch LCD tv 3 feet to the floor and it was damaged beyond repair. (Well at least it would have been cheaper to replace it than repair it.) ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2021, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/313 "2021-10-27T20:52:27Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > I liked to listen to Cubs’ night games. Which reminds me–for most of my childhood, the Cubs didn’t play night games unless they were on the road. Wrigley Field didn’t get lights until 1988. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2021, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/314 "2021-10-27T21:04:34Z")
TVs with round screens. Our first TV, in the early 50s, was a Zenith with a 12" B&W screen. There was a toggle on it, to change the aspect ratio of the image. Whenever Kate Smith was on, we kids switched the toggle to make her fatter than she already was. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2021, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/315 "2021-10-28T00:32:23Z")
> [@XT](#): > > […] So, perhaps another thing that younger people won’t understand is ‘reverse polish’ logic from an HP calculator. […] RPN calculators are still a thing! I have an HP 35S right in front of me, my everyday work calculator, and it’s still sold new on Amazon. And there were a bunch of others that came up when I searched for “rpn calculator”. It’s also called “postfix notation”, and is the way stack oriented math systems (such as in FORTH programming) naturally work. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2021, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/316 "2021-10-28T01:33:35Z")
That reminds me of my grandparent’s first TV. As I recall, their screen was ~1mm x 1mm, but it had a thick magnifying screen attached to the front, which expanded the view to ~1-inch x 1-inch. It was hard to distinguish on-air talent from ants. ---
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2021, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/317 "2021-10-28T09:46:17Z")
> [@Napier](#): > > RPN calculators are still a thing! I have an HP 35S right in front of me, my everyday work calculator, and it’s still sold new on Amazon. And there were a bunch of others that came up when I searched for “rpn calculator”. It’s also called “postfix notation”, and is the way stack oriented math systems (such as in FORTH programming) naturally work. RPN calculators are great, once you are used to them An HP29C took me through college. Now there are a large number of them available as tablet/computer/cellphone apps, and I recommend the Free42 because there are many “skins” available. I remember when TV’s were designed as furniture, built into faux hardwood cabinets. You could order a “colonial” model, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Author\_Balk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Author\_Balk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Author_Balk)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2021, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/318 "2021-10-28T12:53:32Z")
> [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](#): > > Scrambled over-the-air pay TV channels. Last night I saw an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond. One of the jokes would not make sense unless you knew what scrambled nudity was like. I thought of this thread. It looks like this was posted just before I saw the episode. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2021, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/319 "2021-10-28T18:41:09Z")
> [@Napier](#): > > RPN calculators are still a thing! I have an HP 35S right in front of me, my everyday work calculator, and it’s still sold new on Amazon. And there were a bunch of others that came up when I searched for “rpn calculator”. It’s also called “postfix notation”, and is the way stack oriented math systems (such as in FORTH programming) naturally work. I have a downloaded RPN calculator on my laptop and it is great. Although I can of course use a standard calculator, I find RPN much more natural and easier to use. To make a complicated calculation on an RPN calculator, you just do it the way you think it; for a standard calculator, I have to write it down and get the parens correct. The only really large program I ever wrote (it was a partial TeX interpreter) was in FORTH. I cannot imagine doing it in any other language. Anyone here ever seen a magic eye tuner on a radio? We had one in the 40s when I was a kid. It was a free-standing console, maybe 2’ high. One rotation of the tuning dial got you only from, say, 600–700 Kh and then a new number tray emerged that went from 700–800 and so on. Another switch turned the tuning dial at relatively high speed, in case you wanted to change from WFIL at 600 to WCAU at 1240. It was, of course, AM only. ---
**Author:** ![phs3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8491ac/32.png) [@phs3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phs3)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/320 "2021-10-29T06:17:11Z")
The phone ringing would also do it sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/321 "2021-10-29T10:10:54Z")
I don’t think anyone mentioned this one yet: sugar cubes ---
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/322 "2021-10-29T11:09:41Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Anyone here ever seen a magic eye tuner on a radio? We had one in the 40s when I was a kid. It was a free-standing console, maybe 2’ high. I’ve seen a magic-eye tuner on a television, for the UHF stations. Two green lights as bars that indicated the signal strength. When the station was at peak strength, the two bars merged. As mentioned elsewhere, UHF stations were often tuned in by turning a knob that did not have detents. It was like tuning a radio via a knob. So the magic-eye indicated when the station was locked in. Although - something similar exists on radios. My radio has an LED that illuminates when the station’s signal strength reaches a certain threshold. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138.md?page=15) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138.md?page=17)