Why when I was a boy...
 

... of 16 years of age, I built my own computer from an electronics kit. It had a memory capacity of 64KB. I cannot remember the other specifications. The whole thing was built from scratch. That is, components were soldered onto a circuit board. The TV was the screen. The best it could do was to be a digital typewriter. If you had a Daisy-wheel printer, you could write letters, and the most popular game at that time was Dungeons and Dragons. This was before virtual Ping-Pong. The game was text driven - no graphics what so ever. Other electronic nerds, of similar ilk, would chat on the Citizen Band radios, discussing their latest adventures of Dungeons and Dragons. The funny thing was, we all had similar mental images of the game.
The reason for this post is that David’s posted thumbnail image reminded me of a circuit board.

...I would spend time in the kitchen talking to my mother, or grandmother, while peeling potatoes and pea-pods. I would eat the occasional pea when no-one was watching. Mother knew, but I never ate more than a few, even when I was hungry. Today, peas come in a tin.

...sending a love letter to the other side of the planet took ages.

Mostly because we had to wait for the ink to dry on the parchment..http://forum.psychlinks.ca/images/smilies/smile.png

Steve

You had parchment? You were lucky, mate. We had to sweep up all the dust from chipping the message into stone tablets.

You had brooms?

Well they weren't really brooms... we just tied the hides of deceased rodents onto a stick and called it a broom.

I miss the outernet. http://forum.psychlinks.ca/images/smilies/redface.png

...carpentry required more hand skills than today.

I think i was the last generation who came of age knowing the outernet. When I was in high school there were "mallrats", teens like me who hung out at the mall because it was the place to be. Until I was about 14-15 only nerds went "online" using dialup modems and connecting to bbs's. Then around grade ten people started talking of this worldwide web. I remember it took about five minutes to load one picture. So my high school days started in the age of the outernet and ended at the dawn of the internet age, or at least the beginning of when it really took off. There was no texting then however, and the only kids who had cellphones were either rich or involved in shady business.

I remember typing class in grade 9. We weren't allowed to use white out if we made a mistake, and our school didn't even have a computer yet. Our first home computer was a Commodore 64 when I was around grade 9 or 10. Sometimes it's hard to believe I'm *that* old, but I guess I am lol.

... Well, as a younger man during 1991. I was walking home along a footpath when I came across a disturbing scene. A lone man was walking towards me, speaking aloud and waving one of his hands. His other hand was against the side of his face. He looked clearly distressed. I was wondering what to do if he requested my assistance. As we got a few yards from each other, I realized he was on one of those new mobile phone units. I thought “what is this world coming to? What next, Dick Tracy watch-phones?” ---YEP!

I experienced the same feeling when bluetooth earpieces came out. I would see people seemingly having in-depth conversations with themselves. Not even a hand to the side of their head. It was only when they turned and I saw the earpiece that I realized they were having a phone conversation! http://forum.psychlinks.ca/images/smilies/rolleyes.png

I remember my first car phone. It was this monstrous thing that sat on the seat beside me and plugged into the cigarette lighter. It couldn't go much further cause it had a cord attached! I thought I was pretty hot stuff with my new car phone haha.

Can we expect the next step to include an embedded chip in our brain, that would enable continuous, and direct connectivity to one another?

That way, as I see it, we would be able to have those same conversations, but eliminating that annoying and tiresome step of vocal speech and communicating only with our thoughts to one another.

We are the borg. Prepare to be assimilated. Resistance is futile!

Steve. I don't know about thought transference, besides telepathy. Sounds a bit scary! My internal 'censor' works more consciously than subconsciously. I would hate to think what messages would leak-out, uncensored, the way I think sometimes. Actually, I can easily imagine the traffic jam of thoughts leaking out from everybody. I am sure I have over a thousand times as many thoughts than I have spoken.

... I would give flattened pennies to my girlfriends.

---------- Post Merged at 10:35 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 10:17 PM ----------

... I would also give daisy chains to my girlfriend.

Did you make those on a railroad track?

Steve