[freeringsf]

The black kid knew how to scratch?

[secondmortgages]

I wonder what they would think of a mood ring?

[SingleMan]

Reminds me of that scene in Back to the Future II where the kids are like "You need to use your hands to play this game"?

[steevytraunse]

The other day a kid asked me what a floppy disk was. I felt really old then, which is weird because I'm NOT. Kinda surprised he didn't know what they were.

Other anachronisms I've had to explain to underclassmen (a lot of these are a bit before my time):
1. Where "punching in numbers" comes from (punchcards, right?)
2. "Dialing" a telephone
3. Which came first, spam the canned food or spam the junk emails? (this one is my favorite)
4. Why floppy disks are called "floppy" disks
5. Why they are called "screensavers"
6. Why the command to display text in many programming languages is "print"

[Cuccuccaltefe]

1. Where "punching in numbers" comes from (punchcards, right?) I don't think so. I believe, historically, this phrase has its roots in adding machines, precursor of both the computer and the electronic calculator.



And yes, I'm old enough to remember them. My dad had one.

[10traistintarry]

The other day a kid asked me what a floppy disk was. I felt really old then, which is weird because I'm NOT. Kinda surprised he didn't know what they were.

Other anachronisms I've had to explain to underclassmen (a lot of these are a bit before my time):
1. Where "punching in numbers" comes from (punchcards, right?)
2. "Dialing" a telephone
3. Which came first, spam the canned food or spam the junk emails? (this one is my favorite)
4. Why floppy disks are called "floppy" disks
5. Why they are called "screensavers"
6. Why the command to display text in many programming languages is "print"

The other day, a teenage girl asked me "what did you do when you wanted a girl's phone number before mobile phones"?

Umh, get the home number.

Ancient times.

[DurryVony]

The other day, a teenage girl asked me "what did you do when you wanted a girl's phone number before mobile phones"?

Umh, get the home number.

Ancient times.

Maybe she meant... "like what? You mean you would write it down? Who carries around a pen and paper?"

[Idonnaink]

You know, I actually remember using payphones a few times. Hard to imagine anyone using those anymore. I even made a collect call once!

I've taken a call at a pay phone before. They used to have their own numbers that people could "dial".

[singleGirl]

Maybe she meant... "like what? You mean you would write it down? Who carries around a pen and paper?"

Nah. The idea of giving out the home number hadn't occurred to her.

Youngsters these days.

[Grainiary]

When was the last time you had trouble adding 0 to something?

I mean 0 as a placeholder... you know like how 24303898 has a 0 in there and without the 0 it's a whole different number?

I really have no idea how that number adding machine would even work to be honest.

[Mimsykzr]

What kind of math did you learn? What's the point of having a number there if there isn't anything in it? God, math these days is so stupid.

Oh you mean like how the median isn't the same as the 50th percentile?

[Mello]

When was the last time you had trouble adding 0 to something?

You can do that with a modern computer. Here is how I did it on my computer.

11
0
11

[etdgxcnc]

Dude, if you didn't punch a number in a given column, the machine treated it as a zero.
The world was analog. Machines were precise and 100% accurate -- unlike today's world, where computer chip makers routinely sacrifice computational accuracy for energy efficiency, lower cost, etc.

Are you seriously trying to suggest that machine is better than a computer, Jrabbit?

Wait so the 8 numbers are like the 8-digits on a calculator and if I wanted to type in 345,959, I would skip 2 columns, then type the numbers one in each column?

[Nautilus]

Are you seriously trying to suggest that machine is better than a computer, Jrabbit? No I'm not suggesting that at all.
All it could do was add.

Reading is a skill.

The typical use of this machine was to total up money. That's why keys in the right-hand column are black. The ones, tens and hundreds columns are white. The thousands, 10Ks and 100Ks are black. Simple visual interface.

So at the end of a business day, the cash register is emptied and counted out. Each denomination of bills would be entered separately (X dollars in singles, $Y in fives, etc). No one wanted to punch in all those zeroes, and the machine didn't need them in order to add "nothing" to a given column.

Got it now?

[herrdwq]

Actually I have seen it then in an old-timey cash register context.

[PrareeLor]

Wait, what? Do you know what you are talking about? I think there's about a dozen reasons that doesn't make any sense...

I have never claimed to be a computer guy, HC. It was an example, based on the media storm surrounding the original Pentium chip when it was revealed to be less than 100% accurate. Let me try again, and sorry if I offended your geek sensibilities.

I was just trying to illustrate that digital devices are dependent on their granularity (probably the wrong term) for accuracy. Example: 24-bit, 192 kHz digital audio sounds great, while 8-bit, 44.1 kHz falls apart in the upper frequencies. It's audibly inferior because it lacks the acuity needed for the job. (In the 90s, this was a huge issue, both on the production side and for audiophiles. Today, most people listen to .mp3 files through crappy earbuds, so the issue has virtually disappeared.)

A properly designed analog system, on the other hand, captures the nuances that are lost in the quantization process inherent in a digital approach. Similar examples exist in fields like video.

Today's digital systems have the speed and processing power to overcome a lot of the problem, but it's important IMHO to realize that digital media is at best an approximation of the original source material. A really good approximation.

[CindyLavender]

Although why do the digitally remastered versions of analog recordings sound so much better? Is it just because it seems like that because of loudness?

[Buhoutsoupfap]

Well yeah with music... but calculating numbers is different, I think. Not really. To use a really simple example:

A fraction like 1/3 is precise. One in every three. Exactly.

Digital results express this differently. Enter it into a calculator; it comes up as 0.3(repeating), the accuracy of which gets closer to, but never equals, the precision of the original number, as you include more significant digits:
0.3
0.33
0.333
0.3333
0.33333
0.333333
0.3333333
etc.
Each is a successively closer approximation of 1/3, but none actually equals it exactly.

[ligaliaCods]

Clueless kids. I'm appalled.