The past

[jack]

In the past, if you didn't know the way somewhere, you had to find a map of the area in advance and bring it with you, or you'd be lost.

If you weren't able to plan to bring something to read while you waited, you didn't have anything to read.

If you arranged to meet someone somewhere and they weren't there, there was no way to find them.

In the past, if you wanted to talk to someone, you had to ring the building they were in and hope.

People routinely used synchronous voice communication for minor non-urgent communication, because there wasn't anything better.

Before 1989, and in 1999/2000, there were periods of time with no humans in space.

Radios, calculators, notebooks, stereos, spreadsheets, compasses, maps, spirit levels, plumb lines, rulers, protractors, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, flashlights, telephones, alarm clocks and calendars were distinct physical objects, not apps you could just download whenever you needed them.

Comments

[pseudomonas]

If you actually did want to get non-spoken text to someone you had to write it on dead tree and then pay someone to carry it to the other person. Or fax, but really no-one had one of those.

[rysmiel]

You're making me feel old, guys.

[pseudomonas]

OK, I realise when you were young there wasn't fax and it was papyrus rather than tree, but you take my point :P

[jack]

:)

I did live for quite a long time before email and mobile phones. It was university where email and mobiles were the norm rather than the exception. But in retrospect, I was just waiting for email to arrive :)

[rmc28]

My mum had a fax for her political work, and my friend's mum had a fax for her business, so we used to fax each other bits of homework and things :-)

[damerell]

Mind you, you could get half a dozen or more dead-tree deliveries a day.

[pseudomonas]

Not in North London in the early 80s.

On 13 November 2014 15:37, damerell - DW Comment dwnull@dreamwidth.org wrote:

[damerell]

Well, not in the 1780s, not in the 1980s, but...