Born before 1986?

momofmany

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Originally Posted by rapunzel47

I'll go you one better
I was born in 1947, and we didn't HAVE TV until I was ten -- B&W of course.

The first computer I ever saw was a humongous ol' mainframe (anyone else remember those?) that took up a room larger than my house that had special air conditioning and took its data from little punch cards. My brother was the "console operator" and the year was 1965.
Our first TV was black and white - we got it after I was born.

The first computer I ever used in 1973 had to be fed by ticker tape or punch cards. When I started as a programmer in 1979, we used punch cards because they didn't have terminals. I saw the first terminal that I used in 1980 in the Smithsonian and just laughed! The mainframe that the terminal was hooked up to was huge! A big ol IBM 3070.
 

lookingglass

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Perhaps I am an odd child, but my parents bought their first home computer in 1986 (it was an Apple 2E). And I also grew up with video games; we had an Atari 2600, and a Coleco vision. For thoes of you who don't know that a coleco vision is The Cabbage Patch Kids game came out for it. I can remember playing that when I had the Chicken Pocks. My father also had one of the very first cell phones; it was a second briefcase that he had to carry around with him. I remember distinctly him taking it to work with him. We were also one of the first families to ever have cable, I can remember when ESPN was only rodeos and strong man competitions from Australia.

I was born in 1978. My parents are tech junkies. What can I say?
 

lookingglass

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Oh, and we were the first family on our block to have the internet. I can remember my Father posting on bulletin boards trying to get help with his research. Our first modem looked like the one from War Games, where you had to put the receiver of the phone into a holder. I can also remember Usenet… and CompuServe. Some of my worst fears as a kid were hiding my AOL usage from my parents, because they use to charge by the minute.

One last edit... I swear... in 1996 my Mom bought some of her text books online from this little known website called amazon.com.
 

lionessrampant

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While I technically am in this club, I can't say I necessarily remember Reagan being president or the Berlin Wall coming down, although I was around for both...I do remember being really scared when the first Gulf War happened.

We got the Nintendo NES when I was 7 or 8 and got our first CD player (it was a 5-CD changer) shortly thereafter. We didn't have cable until I was well into elementary school and then, it only had maybe 50 channels. When we got our first family "car phone" the thing was bigger and more cumbersome than the one in the house...I was in elementary school when that happened, but I was in maybe 7th grade when the first motorola flip phones came out. We DID have a computer when I was a kid, but ran DOS and like 3 other programs and the printer was the size of a 5,000BTU Air Conditioner and printed in pixels. We had this "Disney Print Shop" And when you printed out the cards or whatever, you had to color them by hand. I wasn't required to start typing things until high school and AOL came out when I was in 5th grade. Our modem went 2400bps (I think...it was SLOW)

So while I'm not very old (I was born in 1985...and if you want to feel old, just remember that those of us born in 1985 can now legally purchase and consume liquor), it's fun to give that spiel to the kids I babysit for, when they're not being sedentary bumps that lay in front of their comcast digital 2345656 channel cable all day.
 

sanctie

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That's awesome, I love it. I don't know however kids survive these days, lol. I remember most this stuff, especially back when kids played outside all day long, and if you ran in and out you got yelled at for 'letting the air conditioning' out. I would get threatened that if I came in one more time I was staying in, EEK!! I would stay gone till dusk! Lol.
 

katl8e

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On a cross-country trip in 1963, my father took the backseat out of our 1956 Buick Special and replaced it with a twin-sized mattress. My brother and I rode and slept there, half in the trunk.

Seat belts? WE didn't need no stinkin' seat belts!
 

emrldsky

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Wow, that is all so true. I was born in 1982! The thing about AIDS is true as well. Scared the hell out of my parents when they saw a news report stating that anyone who had had a blood transfusion prior to '86 was at risk. I had had two transfusions when I was an infant: first one was when I was a week old, the second was when I was a month old. My parents trotted me to the Dr. to get a test..luckily it was negative.

It's amazing what medical advances there are now. There are procedures that an AIDs infected mother can go through to lessen the chance that her child is born infected.
 

xangelicxnekox

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I was born in '87.....BUT I still did alot of thoes things that kids back then did.
I even wore diapers that didn't change colors or temperatures when I peed in them. Thoes were the days.
 

mamacat

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Originally Posted by rapunzel47

The first computer I ever saw was a humongous ol' mainframe (anyone else remember those?) that took up a room larger than my house that had special air conditioning and took its data from little punch cards. My brother was the "console operator" and the year was 1965.
I owe my existence to one of those giant computers--my father was a programmer and my mother was a keypunch operator. That's how they met.
(I was born in 1974.)
 

telynn

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Did anyone else have a black shadow of a line burned into their TV screens from Pong?
 

Moz

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Originally Posted by OllyExtra05

I was born in 1980, and most definitely NEVER wore a helmet while riding my bike (which, yes, had flourescent spokey-dokes on it). We got computers at school around 3rd or 4th grade and I played Oregon Trail over and over again, yet died of dysentary everytime.
I was born after 1986 but I still did a lot of stuff on that list. I used to have an orange bike with monkey handlebars and a banana seat, complete with spokey-dokes. I think I was in grade two when we got computers and I loved playing Scorched Earth and Oregon Trail. We also had an Atari!
 

Moz

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Originally Posted by XangelicxnekoX

I even wore diapers that didn't change colors or temperatures when I peed in them. Thoes were the days.
I had cloth diapers!
 

kaleetha

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*whew* I made it.... I was born in 1983... I do remember reading about the fall of the Berlin Wall (it was in National Geographic) and when Regan was president.

We didn't have a computer till I was a junior in high school and I've never had cable.... I remember playing Oregon Trail once at a friends house... and I thought Tetris was the coolest thing ever when I played it in 1995. (Sad, I know)

And I still don't wear a helmet... although I know I'm supposed to....
 
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