What are YOUR obsolete skills?
Feb. 28th, 2008 04:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Someone's started a wiki of obsolete skills. A few of the entries that jumped out at me for whatever reason:
- Adjusting rabbit ears on top of a TV
- AT commands for dial-up modems (I still remember those... ATDT*70,,,525xxxx [gotta disable call waiting and wait for the tone to return] and ATH0 *hhssssssssssssss*)
- Balancing the tonearm on a turntable
- Changing the ribbon on a typewriter
- Configuring Trumpet Winsock (Back in MY day...)
- Cranking up or down a car-window
- Operate a credit card imprinter (click-clack) (Ah, the thumb-smasher...)
- Filing cards in a library card catalog
- Getting off the couch to change channels on your TV set (Well, it IS more of a pain to shuttle through 70+ channels, than it was to go through 5-6.)
- Inserting a game cartridge at just the right angle to make it work
- Knowing what part of town someone lives in by their phone exchange (Er, I still do that...)
- Numbering your punch cards with a pencil, in case you drop your program
- Opening a can of beer or soda with a church key
- Operating an Overhead Projector (I can change bulbs, too.)
- Porn not from the Internet (What? There was pr0n before the internet? Dude!)
- Punching a hole in the shell of a single-sided 5.25" floppy disc to make it double-sided (Oh Lord, I remember doing that...)
- Setting the timer on a VCR
- Operating a Treadle Sewing Machine (I still know how to do that...)
- Winding up loose cassette tape with a pencil eraser before putting the cassette in the deck (Oh how many, many times... and splicing with a tiny bit of cello tape, a vital skill.)