Back in my day...

[AllenGregoryIV]

Back in my day
- We had large rotating police lights on our robots
- Bumpers were an obscure rule that no one dreamed of implementing
- We programmed in PBASIC (The emulator was a lot better back than, thanks to rbayer)
- Autonomous mode was brand new, and very unexpected
- Only 4 robots were on the field at a time
- The van door motor was awesome
- The battery counted as part of your weight

This thread made me way to nostalgic. I want to play stack attack again.

Also looking back it's nice to see most of the issues Dr. Joe outlined here have been solved

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Radio Shack had the best RC cars around, and actually sold radio equipment...

Radio Shack never had the best RC cars

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by IndySam

Radio Shack never had the best RC cars

Ok, best toy-grade RC cars. And there were brick-and-morter small-town hobby shops with the best RC cars.

[Wayne Doenges]

Back in my day:
Computer programs were written using key punch cards.
Bumpers on cars could take a 10 mph hit and not total the car.
Full service gas stations had actual people come out to check the fluids and tires on your car.
We actually went outside to play.
The motto was "Spare the rod, spoil the child"
Halloweening was all night.
We had to walk to the bus stop for school. Not get picked up at our door.
Draftingwas done a board using a 'T' Square and a pencil.

[Taylor]

There was a commercial featuring Jerry Seinfeld (an up-and-coming comic with a brand new TV show on Thursdays on NBC) at a gas station. He filled his tank for $20.00 - "the perfect pump." Then he did the unthinkable: He pumped more gas, raising the cost by a single penny.
See, there was this great new technology in which if a person has a VISA card, such as Mr. Seinfeld, you could pay for your gasoline without having to go in to the station. Truly a watershed moment in American culture.

[Phalanx]

Back in my day...

The first professional computer I worked on filled a room that was an entire NYC block long, Required Water Cooling, Room Temperature Controlled to 68 degrees, had a whooping 16K of RAM, and took 12 hours to compile.

We used the punch outs from punch cards as a confetti at football games.

The Transistor was the new HOT technology.

You WALKED to/from School if you lived 3 miles or less away.

A TI Scientific Calculator was over $100. So most of us used a Slide Rule instead.

Muscle Cars, actually HAD muscle. 10-12 second quarter miles were common.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

- Bumpers were an obscure rule that no one dreamed of implementing

Gotta call you on that. At least one team did, and the next year the standard design came out. IIRC, there was some sort of weight-transfer system inside.

Most other teams used a wedge instead.

Oh, right:

Back in my day, robots were built to flop down onto their drivetrain from vertical!
Back in my day, there was no limit to a robot's expansion!
Back in my day, drill motors were the drivetrain motor of choice!
You kiddies don't even know how good you have it. Back in my day, the Kitbot was about 3 aluminum beams, some drill motors, and pray you had the smarts to put it together! (The kickoff video one year included "look-ins" at a group of about 3 "average joes" putting it together. Only problem? That's 3 average joes with PhDs.)
Back in my day, there was a large obstacle in the middle of the field.

[Taylor]

Back in my day, the Unofficial Caption Contest was actually scored over the weekend

[MrForbes]

...robots were something we saw on Star Trek and Lost in Space

[Warren Boudreau]

Engineers used slide rules to design airplanes that could do Mach 3+.

Computers were the imagination of science fiction authors.

[ebarker]

Originally Posted by squirrel

...something we saw on Star Trek

They had the little devices that they flipped open called communicators.

Today we call them "flip phones with speakerphone".

Back in the day the 'communicator' was sheer fantasy. Today they are ubiquitous.

[Peyton Yeung]

Back in my day every high school student was on a FIRST Robotics team.....ps I'm from the future

[Molten]

Originally Posted by Taylor

Back in my day, the Unofficial Caption Contest was actually scored over the weekend

Sounds like someone is going to score -infinity.

On topic though...

Back in my day:
Cartoons had a moral to the story.
The violence was outlandish and plentiful.
The video games were 2-D.
School vending machines had candy in them and no raisins.
Rosie O'Donnell did a talk show.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Taylor

Back in my day, the Unofficial Caption Contest was actually scored over the weekend

Burn FTW!

Back in my day, if you were out and had to make a phone call, you got a dime and went to a public pay phone. If you were lucky, there was a dime already in the coin return.

[ebarker]

When I was a kid I had to call my aunt in a town 54 miles away. I had to pick up the phone and "rotary dial' a zero, an OPERATOR answered and I'd say "I like 'such and so' and the OPERATOR would say 'Please Hold' - and she would get an operator in the next town to finish the other end of the connection.

Another day I was digging around in an old drawer and found an old ticket, to ride the steam train to the next town, 17 miles away, for 15 cents. The ticket had been redeemed so it wasn't like they lost the fare.

A few years ago I was rummaging around an antique shop in Minnesota and bought myself a B-Battery Voltage Meter. They had no clue what it was and why it was on the plains of Minnesota.

Back in the day - if you wanted to listen to the radio in the evening you needed an A battery, a B battery, a C battery to run the radio. If you want to learn more about the technology go research an early edition of "Elements of Radio" by Marcus and Marcus. To learn more about the culture listen to the references from Garrison Keillor on Prairie Home Companion.