View Full Version : Popular everyday stuff that didn't exist when you were a kid!
Just got out the shower and had an odd thought - people didn't have showers when I was a kid. People only had baths! But that means shower gel didn't really exist then either!
So what other stuff didn't exist when you were a kid?
Other things for me are computers. People started having them in their homes when I was a teenager and the internet only really became common after I had moved out. Mobile phones. No-one really had them until I was in my 20's, you used to go and use a phone box. I remember when someone I knew had a mobile that could receive text messages but not compose or send them, she received one in error and we were way excited to see one for the first time :D
Showers still don't exist in this house :p :(
Think I must have been a young teenager when I had my first shower! And didn't 'own' one till I was living at Uni and that was only for a year.
Mobile phones weren't really on the scene till I was at college and then only a few people I knew had them as there wasn't really much point when you were 16-17 and saw your friends every day anyway.
Edit: To answer your question, I'm most amused by my young cousins seeing ciabatta and sun dried tomatoes (to name just two) as every day items. I've no memory of being a young child and knowing anything about either! My 10 year old cousin a few weeks ago was disappointed that they'd run out of smoked salmon and ciabatta :shocked:
Knipples
06-08-2010, 19:16
MP3's - Being able to listen to loads of albums, without having to lug hundreds of tapes and/or CD's about with you.
Pausing live tv when you need to pop to the loo, 10 years ago people would have laughed at that.
CD's. It were all tapes when I were a lad. Sticking two "wogboxes" face to face to copy tapes ;D
I remember when CD's first came out, my sisters boyfriend had one and I thought it was awesome. I can still remember asking him if you could leave the disc in the player or if you had to take it out and put it back in it's case each time.
The personal computer.
Someone talked about them in 1968, but excluding self-build kits, the first commercial computer that might be called personal came in 1972.
I remember having one of the first commercially available 17" CRTs when I borrowed money off my dad and paid him back over a number of months for the computer system I wanted from my job at Sainsburys. The entire cost of the system was £1600. I remember going to a couple of friends houses for some network gaming (BNC, natch) and being the only one with a 17". I was awesome. :cool:
Mobile phones are definitely the biggest thing that have just exploded in the shortest space of time. Didn't get one until my first year of uni in 1999 and thinking back it's just amazing how I went everywhere and met up with people without one.
Stan_Lite
06-08-2010, 20:19
All of the above and a bit more besides :(
It's not so much things that didn't exist when I was a kid but things that may as well not have existed living in a remote place like Shetland. When I was a kid, we only had 2 boats a week to bring foodstuffs etc so most of our food was local. Until a few years ago, when we started getting a boat every day and freight boats 4 times a week, I thought things like lemons and limes or asparagus and runner beans were exotic fruits and vegetables. Pineapples and peaches came in a tin - you simply didn't get fresh ones in the shops.
Also, colour telly. We only got colour telly in 1975 - along with ITV. Up until then, we had only BBC1 and BBC2 in black and white. We didn't own a telly until I was about 7 years old.
Also, colour telly. We only got colour telly in 1975 - along with ITV. Up until then, we had only BBC1 and BBC2 in black and white. We didn't own a telly until I was about 7 years old.
More than 3 TV channels, and ones which go on for 24 hrs. When I was a nipper, TV was on in the moring for the news, "Schools" programmes on during the morning, then "Pages from ceefax", lunchtime news and "Pebble Mill at one", childrens TV, news, "Nationwide" grown up stuff and then the National Anthem followed by a beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
I remember C4 starting (1982?) and ITV doing through the night TV, and the Sky vs BSB squarial satellite battle.
ITV doing through the night TV.
'Night-time' with the deep blue sky & the cat prowling along the wall. Did stuff like 'Formula Eins' at 3am (europop type thing with a young John Leslie fronting it) and a mock chat show thing ...called Frontline or something like that. It was awful.
BBC2 used to only come on at around 10, show school progs until 1 and then go off and start again at 4/5ish. Unless the snooker was on, which went on all day.
^^ That. I remember "Mr Midnight", the smooth talking host of Night time, with his blonde, Lego hair.
I told Josh about the distinct lack of telly when I was a kid, he just couldn't grasp that fact there were only 3 channels. And they weren't on all the time.
Compact cameras with viewfinders/sending away films 2 get processed.
BB x
For me:
Phones , got one when I was 18 / 19 as they were starting to take off. Find it hard to conceive of living without one now. The phone I carry in my pocket is more powerful than a desktop computer from barely more than 8 years ago.
Computers, natch.
TV - Having more than 4 channels.
MP3s. I thought mini-discs were awesome because I could carry albums on something significantly smaller than a CD. Then the Creative Nomad came out and my mini-disk player died a few months later. Not looked back since. It stuns me that I have a bulky by todays standards Zen Vision:M that holds my entire album collection (350+ CDs).
Digital Cameras. Being able to take a photograph and instantly see how good/bad it is is such a revolution. It's causing such huge changer with amateur photographers getting instant feedback and being able to re-take and tweak their way to a better understanding of the art. No more "Shoot a reel and pray".
Radial tyres, unleaded petrol, disc brakes, air bags, ABS. Fuel injection, computers in cars. My first car stereo (factory option in the Oldsmobile) played 8 tracks and had a built in CB in it.
Microwave ovens, cordless phones for the landline. Plus all of the above.
I am still amazed how I can stuff my entire music collection (and then some) into something smaller than my keyring.
Dishwashers- i think my parents are the only household in the world not to have one! email - cant imagine how anything got done...i suppose they had memos & the phone, but still.
BB x
Dishwashers- i think my parents are the only household in the world not to have one!
We haven't got one either!
LeperousDust
08-08-2010, 14:24
I remember most of these technological advances even being slightly younger than you guys. I remember the day when we got analogue cable, and i could watch "millions" of channels, but to be fair sky had been out for forever then i guess, i'd just never seen it... ;D
Mobile phones, i still remember being given my first hand me down, which i truly loved, it was funny how little you could do with mobile phones when i first got mine. Lots of people didnt have them, there wasnt facebook for mobile, and we just spoke to each other if we were "playing out"! ;D
MP3 players, i remember my first Zen before the whole iPod charade, totally loved it, stuck with them untill iPod gen 5, when there wasn't really any large capacity players in competition anymore.
Digital cameras, i also remember the first time an older family friend brought round a camera that took pictures onto floppy diskettes, christ i thought that was clever, digital polaroids!
Those to name a few :) Bring back good memories!
Nice girls. I don't think they existed for any boy until a certain age is hit. :D
Blighter
08-08-2010, 22:25
DVDs and flat screen teles are about the only things I can think of :p
Oh, and Xbox 360 ;D
Blighter
08-08-2010, 22:27
Nice girls. I don't think they existed for any boy until a certain age is hit. :D
I haven't seen many "nice" girls around my age tbh, they're all tarts that like to wear as little as possible, get wasted every weekend, and seem to try and wear as little as possible.
However, I have lived in Gravesend for 99% of my life ;D
I haven't seen many "nice" girls around my age tbh, they're all tarts that like to wear as little as possible, get wasted every weekend, and seem to try and wear as little as possible.
Those *are* the nice ones! :evil:
I'm so glad Possibly-Future-Mrs-Goose can't read this! :D
Blighter
09-08-2010, 19:11
;D
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