Back when I was responsible for a card catalogue, I did drop a drawer with the rod out. It’s no as bad as yo might think to put the cards back in order, because they generally stay in clumps, and you just have to get the clumps back in order, not re-file the individual cards.
I used to make part of my living by doing calligraphy. Now everyone with a computer can do the same fonts I did with ink and pen but faster and without fear of smearing.
I also used to make part of my living banging on typewriters, either transcribing hand written stuff or dictation. Now everyone types, and computers have voice-to-text.
Sounds like the day I dropped a 35mm movie print on the projection booth floor while moving it. Movies are wound in one giant pancake on a platter about a meter wide, and when you transfer a movie from theater 1 to theater 2 you can put special clamps on the film to keep the coils together as you move it, or you can do like I did and slide it off the platter while flipping it vertical. I was so good at it that I never bothered with the clamps, always fearing the day that I would drop a print.
And it happened one day.
As I flipped the film off the platter I watched in horror as thousands of coils of film cascaded out of the center and the whole thing went limp in my hands. Two miles of 35mm film in a tangled mess on the floor.
Surprisingly, by cutting and splicing in a dozen or so spots I was able to work in chunks and rebuild the whole print in about an hour. I ran the film cleaner on it a few times afterward.
The movie was “Backdraft”
I remember keypunch cards, and seeing there was a line drawn diagonally across the top of the cards. I asked what that was for, and was told it was to help you put the cards back in order if it was dropped. I remember using card catalogs in the library, but I don’t believe I ever noticed a diagonal line written across the top of the cards. Who knows, they might have been drawn on the bottom?
At one time, if you wanted a file transferred to another computer and none of them shared the same disk format, you used a software program like XMODEM. This is in the 1980s and mostly with CP/M system. DOS for PCs is a direct rip-off of CP/M.
You then created a null modem cable and connected the two computers together through the RS-232 serial connection. You then brought up the XMODEM program on each system and this established a way to transfer files that did error checking (checksums).
You might ask, how did you get XMODEM on the other system? Well, in those days if it wasn’t available on a disk format already for that system, they were a bootstap XMODEM program you could enter by hand using the line editor on the target system. Then after you got this simpler version of XMODEM working, the first order of business was to transfer over the full version of XMODEM to the new system. From there you would start to populate the new system with data files and software that wasn’t yet available for that system.
I was “the guy” to get this done at work for clients and co-workers. In those days the floppy disks were 5 1/4 and from what I recall every manufacturer had their own disk format. So you couldn’t simply take the floppy disk from one system and put it in another and read it.
Using XMODEM was a big deal, because if the file transferred without error you had a very high degree of probability that what arrived was a perfect copy of the original file. This wasn’t just used for computer to computer transfers through a cable, but was used over the phone lines with modems running at speeds like 300 and 1200 BAUD.
I did the same. I still think that there is a place for hand-lettered work–sadly, the rest of the world does not agree.
Not really; you’re still faster than spell check and more accurate than autocorrect. And nothing will ever replace doing math in your head in real life.
This, and the use of a RS 232 junction box to jump cts to rts and dsr to dtr to get the F’n transfer to start. They were all different, and …oh, well…it is now an obsolete skill. Thanks for the memories though.
Right, every device needed a different cable configuration it seemed. Printers required hardware handshaking too. In some situations there was the printer-end of the cable and the computer end of the cable and if you got them turned around, things wouldn’t work.
If I remember correctly, pin 2, 3 and 7 were used. Pin 2 was input, pin 3 was output and pin 7 was ground. You had to tag the null modem cable, otherwise someone would try to use it for something else and it wouldn’t work.
One trick I discovered after cable was pulled and no one had tagged where the cables were going, was to jumper pins 1 and 2 at one end. Then connect a dumb terminal at the other end and if you typed on the screen and it echoed back, that means you got the right terminal. Because input was being sent to output. I know there was test equipment to help with this, but on-site I didn’t have any and used this method.
For those that don’t know, USB successfully replaced the need for all these different serial cables. As for transferring files, FTP replaced having to use programs such as XMODEM and KERMIT.
Only a few short years ago, I was a whiz at Adobe Flash. 
I loved that program…
I was the serial comms wizard. I have a box that shows all the data going both directions, and also has a full 25 pin patch panel with indicator LEDs on all the lines. About a dozen times I used this to fix communication problems after others had given up. The box is pretty cool, it has a sony watchman CRT with the off axis electron gun: http://www.guenthoer.de/bilder/sony-flat.jpg
Obsolete flying tech that does not exist anymore, work arounds for using partially damaged flight instruments, single handing sailing tricks on small boats, sextant usage, etc.
Old two hose SCUBA gear.
Bunch of the same stuff about cars, mental math and map use.
Same here for setting points, timing, general tune-up stuff. I too used spirit duplicators (Ditto machines- not to be confused with mimeograph machines). I was the best in the school at combining Ditto machines and computers by making the masters with dot-matrix printers. It worked great. The only problem with going to all xerographic copies was waiting one’s turn since the school system couldn’t afford as many Xerox machines as they could Ditto machines.
Newspaper copy paste-up. I still have my original X-acto knife and pica stick.
Operating a telex machine. I was fabulous at it, including being able to edit tapes, and keeping the enormous rolls of punched paper tape from tangling. I used that skill for only a few years before we went to fax machines and then email.
Hand drafting – I was #1 in my class. I never even used the skill outside of class – it became obsolete almost immediately.
I used to be able to install and configure BOS as well as program in MicroCobol. I remember the day we first got a machine with a megabyte of memory. I defined three-quarters of it as a RAMdisc and assigned the compiler work files to it. Compilation times dropped fantastically. It was more a toy than anything else but it was fun making this happen.
Someone once deleted an entire disc partition, about a megabyte’s worth of program source files. I figured out how to assign the whole partition as a Basic Direct file and wrote a program to scan through it looking for file headers, then copy the file a text-line at a time until it either became nonsense or we found the end of a source file. Recovered tons of work that day.
sigh. BOS? What’s that nowadays?
I once won a clout shoot, a type of archery contest that involves shooting in a high arc to drop the arrow into a distant area of ground. A skill that was last practical at the Battle of Flodden in 1513.
Somewhat closer to the spirit of the thread, I’ve set type by hand and used wax process cut-and-paste.
If you ever need to have a bunch of phone books delivered, I’m your guy. Ship me 100,000 of the things and a 2-week deadline and I’ll get them on door steps all across the city, on time and under budget.
I also used to be the guy who, if I didn’t know something, I would know where to find the information. Tin output of Albania in 1986? No problem. What was the #23 song on the Billboard charts for the week ending 2/5/1967? Uh… give me a sec, I got that right here. So, F*** you, Google. 
Well, you can’t leave us hanging - what happened in 1514 to render the skill obsolete?
Buzz. Does not qualify. That is still a useful skill, as no one has time to go through all 63 billion google results.
1989:
“What’s the tin output of Albania 3 years ago?”
“Fuck if I know. Where would you even find such a fact?”
2015:
“What’s the tin output of Albania in 1986?”
“Fuck if I know. Google it and find out.”
Naw, I disagree. It definitely qualifies.
I was in the last group of people to learn to use a slide rule. Not that I was ever proficient, mind you, but I did learn.
I also learned how to rebuild brake master cylinders & carburetors in auto shop. Good times.