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You know your middle aged when you're

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by gbrownlee

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Too young for elastic pants, too old for black leather.
Too young for assisted living, too old for living on the edge.
Too young for tired blood, but old enough to be just plain tired.
Too young to think about retirement, too old not to.
Too old to learn new tricks, yet too young for the same old thing.
Young enough for road rage, but too old for road lust.
Old enough to forget what you did during the sexual revolution, young enough to wish you could remember.
Living the wonder years, like I wonder where my car keys are.

Middle age, when attention deficit is no longer a disorder.
Middle age, those marvelous years before the onset of myopia and death.

A little humor to start the week with.
Have an ordinary day.

82 replies

by sanhan

You know you are middle aged when you tell the
youngsters about:
SLIDE RULES & no calculators
When there were no PC's
When you could only get one compile a day
When you had to cajole the department secretary
into typing your documentation so you
wouldn't have to print it in a data file on
greenbae
When you know what a card reader is and how it
works - let alone admitting that you have
used them
When you can tell stories of the state transmitting data at 200 BAUD to out state regions!!!

by maecuff

When you endure your son's (age 16) laughter when explaining an 8 track tape player. "No..really, it worked how??"

by guruofdos

You know you are middle aged when you have the electronics skills to REPAIR said 8-track player!

A friend of mine used to sign me in to an exclusive members-only club on a regular basis. After the pubs closed (11pm in the UK) and we'd had a bite to eat, we'd often fancy a beer or three and a bit of a boogie and meet young ladies (we were both young, free and single back then). He was a member of this particular club and used to sign me in as a guest, which used to cost ?5 ($8) a time. Membership of the club cost something like ?40 a year so we figured this would pay for itself in a couple of months.

I asked to join, and they asked my age..."18", I told them.

"Ah...you need to be twenty-one", they told me. So, for the next two and a half years, Mike kept signing me in as a guest. When I hit 21, I asked for a membership form.

"How old?", they asked. "21", I replied.

"Ah...we changed out age requirements...you have to be 25 to join now. We had a problem with 'younger members' behaviour!"

Ah well.....4 years later...

"Right! I'm twenty five now....can I join?"

"Oh yes sir...you are more than welcome. Membership costs ?75 a year with a one off joining fee of ?200."

"Hmmmm.....gone up a bit I see...."

"Ah, but as you are now 25, you can be signed in as a guest for free!".

That'll be a concession for 'seniors' then?!!!

Well, as a married man with a small baby in tow, I just don't have the energy or the inclination anymore, and pushing 40 means that the dancing trousers have long since been relegated to the back of the closet!!! Just as well because when you're in a bar and hear a song on the jukebox that gets the 'kids' going....I'm old enough to remember the original version!!!

by oz_media

I couldn't begin to name the number of cars I've restored and installed either a stock Delco AM radio or 8-TRack player. It's great driving around town and hearing 'CLUNK hisssssssssss', next track. THose BIG clunky push bittons to slide the heads up and down are so cool!

Kids these days just don't get it. (Now I am sounding old).

I can remember those hot nights cruising around English Bay in Vancouver in my '74 Cuda with a Deep Purple 8-track blaring out of the old 6X9's.
(deep who?)

by jardinier

It is the simplest and quickest way of calculating ratios.

I gained "A"s in Maths 1 and Maths 2 at high school, and my father was a Maths teacher. But PLEASE do not ask me what algebra or calculus was about .. I have trouble working out the change when I make a simple purchase at a store.

Oh, and yes: my girth is increasing as my height is decreasing.

However since my episode in hospital earlier this year which some of you know about, I feel 25 years old in my mind.

So a warning to all young maidens ... don't be deterred by my bulging middle and greying beard. Between my loins there is still a raging tiger!

by hal 9000

Do you?

While I still have my old British Thornton Slide Rule here the one that I used first at High School and then Uni I'm dammed if I can remember all but the simplest things to do like multiply and divide. But I can remember just how indispensable it was when I did use it as I did everything on it. Even when I first started working it was extensively used as it was one of the "Scientific" ones which had everything on it Like Sin, CoSin, SinTan, Tan and heaps more actually besides going a bit yellow it's still in good shape pity I can no longer remember exactly how I used to use the thing though.

Col

by thechas

Hi Julian,

I have a small collection of sliderules.

I bought my first one while I was in junior high.
We were learning how to use a slide rule in math class, and I decided I wanted one of my own.
(Yes, I still have it.)

In high school, I bought 2 Concise circular slide rules.
1 with the periodic table on the back, the other with a R, C, L nomograph on the back.
Both have a pull out center card with formulas and constants.

I bought my first calculator in my second year of college.
A TI SR-10. Compared to the other calculators of the day, it had a square root key, and scientific notation.

Glad to see that I am not the only one who appreciates a slide rule.

Chas

by hal 9000

To actually use the punch cards but would love to get your hands on one of those old machines just to have a play with.

Now does that make you "Middle Aged" or just mad?

Col

by maecuff

That just makes you nuts. I'd rather have a good book. But then again, we're all nuts in our own special ways, eh?

by hal 9000

The funny thing is that I prefer to play with the "Old Stuff" and get a lot more enjoyment out of it than what I do with brand new stuff perhaps it's because I work with the new gear every day and it just doesn't hold much interest for me.

Recently I went to Melbourne for a couple of hours and while there I visited the "Power House Museum" where they had Cirux on display. Now granted this massive unit that used to chug along a 1 KH and was a mass of vacuum tubes was only a static display but I'd love to get my hands dirty and have it up and running if only for the fun of it.

But I suppose you have to be pretty far gone when your hobby is working with Ancient Computer gear while your day job is working with all the new stuff. But I just find things like that far more interesting than I do with the new stuff so perhaps along with Microsoft calling me a "Certified Partner" I can finally get some rest in a padded cell with a nice white coat with extremely long sleeves that are so long that you have to have someone tie them up behind your back.

Col

by sanhan

First there was this huge console with a key board and a chute type device that routed the cards into the path of the punching process.

Step 2 - The stacker (self explanitory)which usually fed into the card reader and then another stacker on the other end. My Control Data tescher pulled a prank at graduation - dropped a huge deck all ove. A potetial nightmare- one line of code per card and we usually did not number the cards.

by jamesrl

I was part of the first generation at my University that didn't have to use punch cards, but the second years still did. We witnessed all kinds of pranks from taking one card out and bending it, then putting it back in, to putting one card out of order.

We sat there at our Decwriters(terminals with paper as opposed to CRTs), doing our "interactive" sessions and laughing at those poor slobs who went to the washroom and left their boxes of cards unattended.

For historical note, my mother went to work for IBM in the 50s as a key punch operator...... Amazing that the technology was still in use that many years later.

James

by tomsal

I'm glad I don't fit any of those criteria..of course I am only 30.....even though mathematically *middle* age would be about 36 years old if the "average" male has a life expectancy of 72 years old (and I think that women have a 77 year expectancy).

So I guess I have 6 more years to make fun of you guys.. lol.

;)

Thanks for the laughs this thread has been great. lol

Now I'm going to get back to playing with our servers and switches... (j/k).

by guruofdos

Logically for '3 score years and ten', 'middle age' is around the mid-30's but any 'thirty-something' will argue till the cows come home that they are actually in their prime and still consider themselves to be 'young'.

Here in the UK, middle-age is generally considered to be around 45 to about 60. I used to accuse my parents of being in their 'middle age' when I was a teenager and THEY were in their mid-'30s and they'd get very uppity about it stating "Your grandparents are middle aged, we're still young."

Sorry, but to any teenager, grandparents are 'OLD'. End of story!! It logically follows then, in teenage logic, that if teens are 'young' and grandparents are 'old', then parents must be somewhere in the middle. QED: Parents are middle aged - by definition, therefore YOU are YOUNG.

This is all well and good...until the odd grey hair starts to appear, YOUR children are going into double-digits and your parents downsize to a smaller house (you've lived away from home for the last 16 years....do we REALLY need to keep YOUR room?) and the 'old man' starts planning what to do with his pension payout.

Time I took stock and put things into perspective, right? Well (odd grey hair here and there not withstanding) I still have a full head of hair. The economy may be in recession but the hairline isn't! I still have some 'lead in the pencil' - GuruJr at only 8 months old is proof of that, so no worries in THAT department. Ok, so I don't go dancing so often anymore...well, I'm tired after work and have other things to do. I can still kick a ball around or play frisbee with my other kids, and still outrun them. I can still drink almost anyone under the table, but my days of working 120 hour weeks can't go on for ever.

Bits of me feel young, bits of me feel old, bits of me feel numb sometimes, but no bits have started dropping off yet. Am I middle aged?? Surely not...

I said to myself, 'the jury is still out on this one...'. Then I read YOUR post and at 30 years old, you are 'making fun of us guys'. Awwwww Jeeez!!! If you say 36 is middle aged and you have six years left, then I've been middle-aged for the last year and a half...

...only, nobody told me until now!!!

by tomsal

HA HA!!

Good one.

Hey the jokes on me then, you are older but my hairline has just started to recede already at 30, yet thanks to my Italian blood I have plenty of it um...more than just on my head..;) And you may find solace in the fact that I have a friend in her 20's and she calls me "old guy" on a routine basis.

My pencil has plenty of lead too....whew! thank god (since in 6 years I'm done...LOL).

But seriously, sounds like you are doing ok man...and congrats on your little one!

Later on....

old guy

by hal 9000

Is that you would in all probability think that the "Original" song was better anyway!

Now an I right?

Col

by maecuff

my kids notice 'my' music as commercials. I was listening to Iggy Pop the other day and my step daughter (18) said, "Hey, that's the cruise line commercial."

by oz_media

You are SO right, how funny. There's so many old tunes that have been redone over the years and attributed to snoop dog, or britney spears etc.

Commercials are actually a big focus of older band revenues, as well as video games are a great way to launch NEW band tracks.

by sanhan

I used to go down to see Iggy & the Stooges in the Bursley Hall dining room at the University of Michigan on Friday nights (at least a few times)in 1969-70- often aften a evening of studying chemistry, calc and German - I remember Iggy writing around and I felt the same way. Except I wasn't on whatever he was on!!! Amazing I thought I was the only IT person in the world who liked PUNK and Altenative

by maxwell edison

.

....you're older than your doctor.

.... your doctor keeps telling you to slow down instead of a police officer.

....it takes a second effort to get off the couch.

....your kids ask you about the olden days.

....your computer has more memory than you do.

....you remember that there are three signs of getting old, but you can't remember what they are.

....you (men) long for the "bad hair" days.

.....work is not as fun as it used to be.

and

....fun is more work than it used to be.

....you talk about kidney stones instead of Rolling Stones.

by oz_media

I used to run off flyers for the Scout Troop I lead on one of those (casten...?something machines).

Youd place the original in and crank a handle that would turn out copies? THey aren't REALLY that old but certainly not todays laser printers.

Anyone remember the name? It's completely slipped my memory (uh oh, alzheimers!).

by oz_media

Isn't ditto machine the slang or common name?

I am pretty sure it wasn't mimeograph but I think the suffix was 'ograph'. Casettiner or something maybe?

I dunno, a big drum that was hand craked to creat copies, pretty cool actually, should have hun onto that one, I don't know who has it now, that was some time ago, late 70's early 80's perhaps.

by guruofdos

A Gestetner machine!!

They were technically called 'duplicators' but as most of them were made by Gestetner in Germany (and a lesser number were made by Roneo and a small handful of other companies), they were often referred to as Gestetners...the same way vacuum cleaners are generically referred to as Hoovers, even though Hoover is a brand name (how many older people still refer to photocopying as Xeroxing!).

Ah yes....you'd type the original on a special film/paper sandwich and fill the machine with duplicator fluid...Wind the original onto a big drum, load up a hopper with paper, and start cranking.

If you were really priviledged, you owned a de luxe model which had a motorised drive and a counter to count copies. Real 'pros' had the ultimate Gestetner machine which had a presettable counter so you could set, say, 100 copies, start it running and it would count down to zero before stopping.

Even then, you still had to stand over it and watch because the copies (almost dark purple, rather than pure black) would fade out as the duplicating fluid evaporated or a sheet of paper would tear in the works and it would jam up

by guruofdos

Yes I still own one!!! Back in 1982, in my teens, I used to produce Church Youth Club newsletters on a Smith Corona electric typewriter using a Gestetner 'Kopiefolie' (copy film) which you placed a normal sheet of typing paper over the top of. Where the letters hit the page, the impression did domething or other to the sticky side of the film and when you peeled the backing away, it left a reversed image of your page. The duplicator fluid then transferred this image onto the paper as the drum rotated.

I used to get really brain-fried on the mix of ink, duplicator fluid (which was mostly alcohol)and the smell of the films in the air as I used to churn them out in my bedroom with all the doors and windows shut. The constant mechanical clanking of the Gestetner as I cranked the handle used to drive people scatty!!!

I only phased out this technology when, in August 1982, I got a Commodore Vic20 for my 15th birthday. I'd then type up the newsletters on this as ASCII files (editable!!) and save them to cassette. I'd take the cassettes into school where we had Commodore PET computers and IEEE/HPIB bus printers. PET's could read VIC tapes and I'd print out as many copies as I wanted on a daisywheel. The printer had an acoustic hood (remember them?!!) so noise wasn't so great a problem as at home.

But dig this...

Last Sunday, I went to a retirement celebration for the parish priest who ran the youth club back then...and around the social hall after the service were various displays of material from the four churches he served in during his ministry...and there on the wall representing his time at my local church, was a copy of the St. Peters Youth Club summer newsletter for June 1982.

Printed by me....on a Gestetner!! And best of all, purple-ish as the ink is, it is still as clear and readable as it was in 1982. And you could use any colour paper: light blue, light green, pink and yellow were as common as white for duplicated stuff (and cheaper than white paper!)

I have trouble reading thermal faxes that were sent to me only six month ago as they fade and turn yellow with age and get darker with exposure to heat. Not so a Gestetner'ed document!!!

by maxwell edison

.
I installed in my '62 Chevy Super Sport, and the 8-track had a reverb add-on. Tapes-o-the-day: The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who, Santana (Abraxas), Chicago Transit Authority (before Chicago) Crosby, Stills and Nash (before Young), and Them.

Them???? Them who? Who was Them?????

Anybody know (without looking it up)?

by maxwell edison

.
Crusin' down the road in the '62 with G-L-O-R-I-A blaring through the reverb......yep, I guess I qualify for middle aged.

Van Morrison - have you heard his new CD, "What's Wrong With This Picture"?

Best Van Morrison tunes:

Brown Eyed Girl
Into The Mystic
Wavelink
Moondance
Tupelo Honey
Crazy Love
Blue Money
Brand New Day
Once In A Blue Moon

by maecuff

is Joey Ramone.. my kids make fun of me for listening to out of date music.. The Clash, Ramones, Velvet Underground, New York Dolls.. etc.

by maecuff

heard the new Van Morrison. I've never been a huge fan, but I don't turn him off if he's playing on the radio.

by oz_media

You shoulda seen the kids down the road when I had it cranked on my porch last week. Sound travels a long way out here and these kids were cranking all kinds of crap to drown me out, I love playing their bass games, my Harman Kardon really kicks some butt as you know high current amps do so well and SO cleanly.

My older neighbour, he's a great guy (the one I woke up with th efire extinguisher on April fools) he ususally just comes over and joins me for a beer or two, he understands my life and accepts the fact that I like to make a LOT of noise sometimes. If it isn't tools and cars, it's music and parties, gotta love nice neighbours.

by oz_media

Eureka, mimeograph!

Yeah, what a mess that thing would make with all the exposed printers ink. It would run about 25 pages before reinking.

Cool Chas, thanks!

by jimhm

Ah - Life Like Roll of Toilet Paper - the closer to the end you get the faster it goes.

by guruofdos

Life is like a pubic hair, precariously balanced on the rim of the toilet...you can guarantee that sooner or later, someone is going to piss you off!

Middle age...when it takes you all night to do what you used to do all night.

Young men come home, see what's in the fridge, then go to bed. Middle aged men come home, see what's in the bed, then go to the fridge.

You know you're getting on when you light the candles on you birthday cake...and a neighbour calls out the fire department.

Middle age...when the little darlings you remember bouncing on your knee as if it were yesterday are old enough to legally buy you a beer ("..if you could lend me twenty, Dad?")

by guruofdos

To clarify the last point.

Middle age...your kids can legally buy you a beer, but need to scrounge money off you first.

Old age...your kids can legally buy you a beer, can afford it, and when you offer to get the next one in, they reply "No Dad/Mom...tonight is on me!"

At this point, you start to wonder if perhaps they are trying to 'soften you up' before they suggest putting you in a retirement home!!!

by hal 9000

Late one night when over here the ABC had their "music" program on called Rage I was walking past and heard the presenter raving on about a new band that he had discovered now bear in mind this was in the mid to late 90's and he was calling them "Slade." Well my first reaction was that someone else has started up and was using the old "Slade" name probably to get a bit of free publicity or something similar and then the music clip started and low and behold it was Slade from all those years ago but this guy had just "Discovered" them. I guess it only goes to show you how little these guys actually know about what they are talking about.

Or if you want to feel really past it think on this one, a teenage girl came up to me at a meeting somewhere and asked me if I knew that Paul Mc Cathy was in a band before he was in "Wings." Well I just looked a bit baffled until I realized she meant the Beatles. So I suppose its all in the way you look at things as I would never have considered putting it that way to me Mc Cathy was in Wings a long time after the Beatles broke up but to this young girl who obviously first heard of him when he was in Wings could only think that he must have been in a flee bit band prior to making himself famous with Wings.

Col

by hal 9000

Here we called them Ghestner Machines.

You used to have to cut a stencil and then place it into the clamps on the drum and then run off as many copies as required but all the time making sure that the thing had enough ink in it.

When you finished you had to remove the stencil and hang it up to dry or just toss it depending on what you wanted to do with it. In their last days I used to use a dot matrix printer to cut the stencils as that did a far better job than anything else that I had run across.

If your all that interested I still have one here under its cover and with a few hundred bottles of ink and God only knows how much paper as they used a fairly pourious paper which was generally a bit yellow or maybe its just so old that it has discolored now.

Col

by gbrownlee

That there are others frequenting TR that are ..ahem..a little longish in the tooth. From what I've gathered, some of you posess a lifetime of pc troubleshooting experience.

As for myself, I first laid hands on a pc three years ago. The operating system was ME. I taught myself how to use a pc using a rathering unforgiving OS.

Two years ago I had a rather nasty accident that has necessitated a career change. While convalesing, I started to tinker with my system and decided to pursue pc repair as a new vocation. Also, I identified a need for a honest, reliable, "competent" repair tech. in this area.

I recently received A+ certification and am at the point where I know I don't know enough. It would be really helpful to apprentice at an established shop, but commuting to the big city isn't really an option. Even here where oil and gas is produced, it is still more expensive than in the U.S.

I have started up my own small business, and to date it has been, at times, a frustrating learning experience.

Regards
Greg

by hal 9000

Most importing at least.

The more that you know the more you begin to understand just how little you actually know.

If you can keep to this it doesn't matter how frustrating any repair work is as it is always a "Learning Experience" and you gatter new and possibly important information from the problem repairs as you really learn nothing from the bread and butter work that while it puts food on the table isn't much of a learning experience.

There is only one other thing that you need to learn and that is when at the end of your rope you out of sheer desperation ring MS for help they are always going to act as if you are using their technical service as a first point of call before you've done anything else to try to fix the mess that you've ended up with.

Col

by jardinier

It is nice to know that I am not alone amongst these seasoned IT Pros.

My first computer (second-hand in 1991) was a Kaypro twin floppy drive running C/PM.

I would probably still be using it if it had not died.

My first Windows computer (purchased in 1995) was running 3.1

In just 4 years, with constant assistance from Patrick Li who owns a small computer business in my suburb, I am now a passable PC technician, and can also operate, upgrade and mend Macs.

As I purchase cheap PCs and upgrade them for sale to people would not otherwise be able to afford a computer, I am currently negotiating with Microsoft to become an authorised refurbisher, so that I can use their software at no charge.

by gbrownlee

I am so new, the ink is still wet on my A+ certificate.

I got my first pc three years ago. It was the first time that I had touched one. The OS was Win ME, an unforgiving bit of software. Within hours of three days later, my sweetheart had frozen it solid. This precipitated the first of many calls for paid tech help.

Last year I installed Win XP home (yay!!!!), and haven't missed ME one iota; except as a learning experience. Although, at one point, I was really turned off of the computer experience.

Last year I had an accident which necessitated a career change. I chose comp.repair tech. Sometimes, I think I should have gone in for repairing TVs. The reason for this is that the jobs that I am getting so far, are nothing like what are in text and troubleshooting books. I like the new learning experience, but would also like to see something as simple as, say, upgrading a driver, not be a new learning experince, as the last four times in a row have been. Can't help but want easy money once in a while.

regards
Greg

by maecuff

Men get distinguished...women get OLD. Thank god for good genes..because it sure has hell hasn't been clean living..

by guruofdos

You said yourself, you still look good. Not having seen the evidence, I can't agree or disagree , but I have a definite feeling that there are many much younger girls you could easily put to shame!

Women DO improve with age...mostly! When I was a teenager, I chased teenagers. In my twenties, my girlfriends were the same age. Around the time my friends and I hit our late twenties, some of them started chasing teenagers again, and so on and so forth.

Fools, all of them!! A Ferrari may be a fast car but it's damn uncomfortable to sit in for any lenth of time. My old Rover P5 may be older than I am, but it's leather seats and luxury deep pile carpets just ooze comfort and make driving a real pleasure.

Nope, 'comfort' is better than 'speed' any day, and a brand new car today is still going to be out of date in ten years time, but at least my 'classic' still looks and feels good and draws admiring glances and plenty of attention.

The same with women...if they are looked after, cherished and treated properly there is no reason why they shoudn't look as good (or better) at forty as they do at twenty, and it's not just looks.

Blonde big-titted young bimbos are all very well and good if you like that sort of thing, but I'd rather have a woman with a few wrinkles and the odd grey hair, who's experienced a little life, has developed a balanced view on the world, kept herself in shape and got a sense of humour to go with it. Like my car, it's the package, not the look that counts, but if you can still turn heads, that's a bonus!

Enjoy the prime of your life, and don't forget to remind Hubby that he promised to give you a full rub-down with a can of wax, vacuum your upholstery and give you a nice oil-change at the weekend :-)

by guruofdos

When you're scoring with a chick in a disco bar,
Take her home in your hairy little car,
Then you find you went to school with her ma and pa,
You're the oldest techhie in town.

When you won't look in the mirror in the light of day,
Swear you've dyed it when your hair turns grey,
When you zip up your trousers and your belly's in the way,
You're the oldest techhie in town.

Here you come and there you go,
White wheels, spots, and a stereo,
But the engine is shot and the driver is too,
You're the oldest techhie in town.

The barber takes a little less time each week,
The kids don't understand a word you speak,
When you walk into a disco and they offer you a seat,
You're the oldest techhie in town.

You prefer a pint of shandy to Bacardi and Coke,
The sounds are too loud, there's too much smoke,
You'd like another dance, but you're afraid you'll get a stroke,
You're the oldest techhie in town.

Here you come with your chest all bare,
A little gold ingot and a lot of gold hair,
Like the disco king meets Yogi Bear,
You're the oldest tecchie in town.

When you're feeling as stiff as a skinhead's boot,
Rub on Vick's where you used to splash Brut,
And the latest punk fashion is your wedding suit,
You're the oldest techhie in town.

When you have to go shopping for your sex appeal,
Travolta's shades and nine inch heels,
They say a man is just as old as the woman he feels,
You're the oldest techhie in town.

Here you come with your lips closed tight,
You never smile, you know it wouldn't look right,
Cause your dentures glow in ultraviolet light,
You're the oldest techhie in town.

And you look so mean,
Cause your pants is too tight,
You're the oldest techhie in town.

And it takes you all night,
To do what you used to do all night,
You're the oldest techhie in town.

by maecuff

My mother volunteers for 'Meals on Wheels' delivering food to elderly people who can't get out of the house. My son went with her on one occasion and saw the sorry state of one couple's home. My son told my mother, "Grandma, I would never let you live like that, I'd put you in a rest home first."

by dnftechsupt

Punk wasn't that around for like? 2 weeks back in the late 70's early eightees?
Guys with flower pots on their heads and such.
My youngest is now 4 and my oldest turns 35 in October so I definately relate.
My first music was on 78's then 45 then 33 (you know vynal) Then 8 track then cassette now finaly cd's and digital.
I was talking to my 25 year old wife the other day. We both like "oldies" from the 60's. I keep trying to explain to her that anyone that remembers the 60's probably was not realy there...
My first computer had vac in it's name and took up 4 city (new york) blocks.
All I remember where lots of switches and Tubes.
Anyone remember tubes???? You know; we used them in almost everything...

by hal 9000

Kept the rooms warn on cold winter nights as they all threw off so much heat on beasts like you described here.

Actually I must be getting really old as look back on those days fondly and it takes a lot of memory power to remember all the problems that those things had.

Col

by maecuff

I remember the Tubes. They were good in the 70's and had that crappy 'She's a Beauty' song in the 80's.

by hal 9000

When his youngest was born so he had to continue working well into his 80's to pay for her schooling. But my little sister is now in her 30's has three kids the oldest being somewhere around 6 -7 while the youngest under 12 months now. It was her eldest one who said "I want boiled baby for dinner" when he was asked what he wanted to eat then night.

So I must very defiantly be middle aged as I'm a lot older than her and there is one thing that I'm certain of and that is that I'll never be in such a position as my father was in with his youngest being born when he was reaching retiring age.

Actually my eldest is only a few years younger than my little sister and recently a one of my brothers funeral I was struck by the fact that his kids had an Auntie younger than them which of course no one believed 10 years ago when she went down there for a holiday. To all of their friends she was just some chick that they had picked up and where showing the town to I really think that most of their friends still fail to believe that she is actually their Auntie even now.

Col

by hal 9000

Photocopiers? They used a two step process where you first placed a film over the page you wanted copied and then once it had been scanned the film was placed over a sheet of paper {that was supplied with the copy material} and feed through the heating elements. I think that these things where the first "portable" photocopiers as they where fairly compact even though they where still bulky as hell at least they fitted on the top of a filling cabinet and didn't take up much space. You only got one copy per film and it was all thermal so they where even worse that the crop of thermal faxes and faded even quicker.

Col

by thechas

Yes Colin,

I can still use them.

It can take a few minutes for some of the lesser used scales.

I don't use mine as often as Julian does though.

The bigger problem I have is bouncing back and forth between my Hewlett Packard RPN calculators and standard algebraic mode calculators.

At least all slide rules follow the same math conventions.

Chas

by jardinier

I turned 40, and nothing happened.

I turned 50, and was inundated with women who wanted me. I wrote a science fiction novel.

I turned 60 and became a "born again" journalist, starting with articles and letters in the local free press, and subsequently starting my own website.

For me, life began at 60. I am in the most productive phase of my life, and having a raging cyber-relationship with a 47-year-old from New Jersey who picked me up on AOL's IM.

Life is altogether too short. If only I were Methusela!

A secretary whom I had as a journalist on the Daily Mirror suggested that "life begins at 40" because your kids are becoming self-sufficient, as a female you are approaching menopause, after which the world's your oyster!

And she practised what she preached. The antics which we got up to at work cannot be published on this website.

by jimhm

Age is simply Mind over Matter - If you Don't Mind their Age Don't Matter! Smile - stop and smell the roses!

For Life is but a short stay on this goofy planet -

by oz_media

You feel thin and able, you know you can race the kid back to the car from the ballpark. You start to run, take thelead and turn around to throw some trash talk at him as he stubmles along behind you, then the knee pops and you drop like a sack of....

Just had to share that, it just happened to a friend of mine.

by hal 9000

You know your middle aged when you can no longer laugh at your stuff-ups and begin to assign them more seriousness than they deserve.

You are more concerned about the cost rather than doing the job.

You no longer like the jobs that you once considered as the "Mongrel" jobs and you just continue to put them off until you can find someone else to do them.

You consider time spent watching TV as Productive.

You actually start making time to read all the technical manuals that you get instead of only referring to them as required.

Now have I forgotten anything?

Col

by oz_media

Now you're making ME sound old!
I still won't read the manual though, unless it is needed.

But I guess at 35, even I am old for the IT world these days. I go to conventions and seminars all the time and feel like the fuddy duddy and the young punk at the same time. I am too old to be a young eager (can I say 'naieve')IT Energized guys with visions of sugar plumbs, yet too young to be one of the frustrated, heavy-brow guys scratching their comb-over's while staring at network nomenclature.

by hal 9000

At these meetings? I'm nearing 50 and I see all the so called bright young ones attempting to make out that they are a lot better than what they actually are and talking about how they made their first million "what a crock of BS" but they dress the part and in all likely hood spend all their money on their clothes so that they have none left over for any technology so that they can actually get their hands dirty doing what they all claim they are so good at.

Col

by jardinier

Middle age is:

When you are mature enough to have worked out a satisfactory belief system for yourself:

When you finally learn that most people just don't change, and you have to accept them as they are:

When you feel you are too old to make a radical career change:

When your kids start addressing you by your first name, rather than "Mom" or "Pop."

When you can look back and live with the balls-ups you have made during your life:

When your kids are old enough to make the same bad choices as you did, but still too young to be told:

When your partner is a comforting friend, and no longer a passionate lover:

When you become a grandfather or grandmother:

When you can still remember and enjoy the music of Bill Haley, Buddy Holly, The Platters, Little Richard and so on:

When your mortgage is almost paid off:

When you start to wish you were young again and could appreciate the opportunities which you passed up: youth is MOST DEFINITELY wasted on the young:

When you can look back on the times when people used pen and paper to write their correspondence and other documents:

When you only think about sex 50 per cent of your waking hours instead of 100 per cent:

by gbrownlee

I think the middle, in age, should be moved to 65....maybe not, that is the age of compulsory retirement here. If re-elected, Paul Martin promises to abolish this bit of an acronism. He is sixtyfour.

I find that my mind is still reasonably "sound", its the "sounds" my body makes, that is the scary part.

ps. I didn't know you could use the S word here. This is how my daughter refered to the word sex, when she was a little tyke.

by jardinier

With liberal use of asterisks, you can get away with just about anything in these discussions, so that you could call someone a m****r-f*****g b*****d, whose head was so far up his a** that he couldn't see daylight.

by jardinier

The more you know, the more you realise how much you don't know.

I was fortunate in that my mentor, Patrick Li, loved challenges. And I had this innate ability to generate problems which he had never encountered before.

He would start to show signs of withdrawal if I didn't come up with a new problem at least every two weeks.

I paid for technical support twice from Microsoft. On the second occasion they billed my credit card even though they couldn't resolve the problem. The problem was happily resolved, at no charge, by Compaq.

I have instant, free technical support as close as my telephone. Even if I am working on a paying job, Patrick is always happy to advise me.

I also have instant email technical support from a certain member of Techrepublic who never fails to answer any question about Windows. He also knows Linux/Unix, but I am not into that.

I also have a friend, a former neighbour, who only uses Macs, and he is also willing to answer any enquiries.

by oz_media

"m****r-f*****g b*****d, whose head was so far up his a** that he couldn't see daylight"

I didn't have anything to do with the conversation, no need to drag me into it. ;-)

by otto_roth

and it is only 7pm!

Actually 4pm will do for me....

Shucks I lie! "already this late in the year"

Otto

by jardinier

When Bill Gates' software actually works:

When Linux/Unix has the lion's share of the market:

When you can remember that once upon a time PC stood for "Politically Correct:"

When you find out that the Greenhouse effect was not a myth, and you have had to move to higher ground:

When your next-door neighbour is an android:

The TechRepublic website actually gets it right!

by jimhm

Ouch - that last one hurt -

You mean they would finally figure out what to do with all these thousand and thousands of points.

and other things...

Ohhh

by jimhm

When I was in operations - we had high speed Univac card readers - if one of the programmers gave us a load of crap - the card readers holder would jam (a normal event) and cards would spit out of the shoot like water out of a fountain. The programmer would get back a deck of cards that would take a week to reorder - unless they knew the collector staff ...

Ah the joys of card decks... remember using the punch holes as confetti - and making Christmas stuff from them - ah yes the old Univac 1500 - 1180 - 1110 - Honeywell 6000's - IBM 125's - ah the old days...

by oz_media

Funny but the posers used to just be newbie stock brokers, then it trickled down to the bottom of the barrel SALESMEN, and nowdays, IT staff think they are the s**t.

When will people learn to find themselves and become who they really are?

These people areo not happy playing the game because the coach becomes a pumpkin when they go home, I got sick of the game several years ago almost 10 years now) so I can understand that others will follow, just don't buy into it and let them play alone.

You know first hand that you are much more successful, comfortable a=with who you are and established. Let them play away and believe whatever they want.

When I need help, I have lots of wannabe somebody's that I can turn to, I usually end up sending you the email though as I don't need to play games or stroke people I just need a solution, which you seem happy to provide.

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