Without saying your age, what's something from your childhood that a younger person wouldn't understand?

[CastletonSnob]

This seems to be a pretty popular little game on places like Twitter.

When I was a kid, if we wanted to get on the internet and someone was on the phone, we had to wait until they got off the phone.

 

[Dalisclock]

I Remember having to use floppy disks to play games. And I mean the kind where you put the disk in the drive, and then might have to take the disk out and flip it over and put it back in to read side B.

Yep, I'm old enough to have played games on 5.25 floppies when that was current technology. Cartridges felt like a massive step up.

NOW GET OFF MY LAWN! I'M TRYING TO WATCH MATLOCK!

 

[Worgen]

Using the internet before web browsers. It was weird but college bbs boards were great for finding games.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I remember having to have change on me in case I needed to use a payphone. Cell-phones had only recently been made small and available enough for normal people to have them, but children would never have been deemed responsible enough to own one.

I got my first cell-phone in high school. It was so that I could call my mom and let her know when practice was over so that she wouldn't need to wait for me. Sending a text message cost $0.10 per message and if I so much as looked at the web browser in my flip phone my parents would murder me because no one could afford to actually use that. Also wanting to change your ringtone would cost you between $0.99 and $2.99.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Having to print out Mapquest directions to get somewhere. I lost out on a date with a girl because I'd put in the wrong address to our meeting place.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I love old videogame instruction manuals. Sometimes there were comics. Samus was a dude until she wasn't. Gave me an advantage in multiplayer games because I actually knew what the buttons were.

I mean, they all had access to the instructions, I was the only one who read them.

Cardboard password keys as DRM

 

[Gergar12]

Having a Gameboy. Having to look things up on a real map. Having to use a GPS, not on my phone.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I love old videogame instruction manuals. Sometimes there were comics. Samus was a dude until she wasn't. Gave me an advantage in multiplayer games because I actually knew what the buttons were.

I mean, they all had access to the instructions, I was the only one who read them.

Cardboard password keys as DRM

DRM that would ask for a specific word on a specific page of the instruction manual.

 

[davidmc1158]

Dear Lord, having read the first 8 posts. . . . . . .

OK, I remember going to the phone in our house, the phone that was rented from the one and only phone company in the USA because that was the only option you had to have a phone at all, to rotary dial phone calls after dialing 0 to get a live, actual person operator on the line to request an unknown number from.

I also remember buying my first home computer, an actual I swear this is real and even still have it sitting in a box in my storeroom, an ATARI1040ST. It was so high-tech that it used the new hard-case 3.5 inch "floppy" discs. It was such a step up from the 5.25 inch floppies and the 9 inch floppies that were standard at the time.

*shakes cane* Now get off my lawn you whippersnappers!

 

[Worgen]

I remember watching my dad upgrade our 286 with ram chips. Not sticks, chips, I don't remember how much ram that was, maybe like 4 megs or something, but I was able to play Wing Commander after that, although I couldn't run it with the little joy stick graphic.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I've always felt I was one of the younger people on here (that was definitely true when I first joined 6 years ago), so I don't think I'll have a very relatable answer. Which is: cable TV.

With all the streaming services and... alternative options available, for most people I know, cable TV is a thing of the past. We cancelled our cable subscriptions maybe 7 or 8 years ago, so my youngest sister doesn't remember watching TV shows anymore, while my older sister and I can still remember the channel numbers of Disney, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Toonami, Discovery, Animal Planet, National Geographic, History Channel, AXN, etc.

 

[Chimpzy]

This sound

 

[Satinavian]

This museum exhibit

 

[Baffle]

Cardboard password keys as DRM

Ah man, codewheels.

 

[Baffle]

Literal penny sweets.

 

[ObsidianJones]

I remember being the envy of some of the people around me because my dad got us a VCR.

I remember having great timing. because eternally I could know exactly when to turn back to a channel to avoid the commercials.

I remember my mother dressing me in the brightest, weirdest designs because having a crayon box blow up on you was really cool for some reason.

I remember Arcades. We already talked about having enough money to use payphones. My mom made sure I went outside every day with 50 cents. I was like "Bet, that's two games I can play today".

Oh, and this is more likely a black culture thing, but I remember walking with a limp was cool. And yes, I did it. But in my defense, I was a freaking kid. What were the adults' excuse?

 

[gorfias]

This sound

I had a coworker who could mimic this sound well enough to have a modem try to "handshake".
I remember taking Adam West's Batman seriously.
And that this was the greatest Science Fantasy movie I'd ever seen.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I remember ruining my Gameboy because of gross, slimey battery discharge.

I remember when Terminator 2 was the coolest fucking movie that everyone was talking about and I wasn't allowed to see it.

I remember when Freddy Mercury died.

I remember seeing the teaser of Jurassic Park after the end credits on the VHS of Death Becomes Her.

 

[Baffle]

Tuning the television using the red, green and grey buttons on the TV itself, and having to go all the way though again if you went too far micro-tuning.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I remember our cable box having an analogue ticker that you had to slide back and forth to change the channel.

I remember watching porn through a fuzzy screen (we obviously didn't own the channel) and getting all giggly when we could actually make out a boob.

I remember getting in trouble because my cousins and I racked up a substantial bill from The Box, an ancient music television service that played music videos 24/7, and you could pay money to pick what played next (well, to put your choice into the queue.) One night we'd played "Ice, Ice Baby" from brand new phenom Vanilla Ice like 20 times.