Growing up without a cell phone

[lord_feldon]

Originally Posted by Jaime Vargas

I suppose the UK had the same model Spain had, in which you could not buy your own receiver; telephone terminals were leased by Telefónica at a monthly cost added to your monthly bill. Of course when the first buyable receivers appeared and we realised how inexpensive a telephone actually is, we all realised Telefónica had been sucking our money like crazy.

That's how it worked in most of the US, too. My grandmother was still leasing a phone in 2003 or 2004.

[erwins]

Originally Posted by Lainie

I did know some people in the 70s and 80s who were on metered local phone plans, where they were charged a reduced monthly fee but then paid for each outgoing call.

I think my family may have had that when I was very young. I know that later, when I was a pre-teen, I somehow had it in my head that we were on a metered plan. I wound up being embarrassed when I was talking to a school friend and mentioned that I should hang up so I didn't run up the phone bill. The friend insisted that it didn't work like that, and when I checked with my mom she confirmed that local calls didn't cost per minute. (I may have also just been confused because all of our calls to family were long distance, including some international long distance where my parents were pretty tense about how long the calls were.)

ETA: Re phone leasing. It was required here until, I think, the break-up of AT&T in the early 1980s. At that point, modular phones and jacks started being available and you could buy your own phone to plug into a modular jack.

[Lainie]

My recollection is that on metered plans, you weren't charged by the minute, but by the call.

[llewtrah]

Originally Posted by Jaime Vargas

I never knew the UK was so backwards. I was born in the early 70s and all my school friends' homes had a landline, and while I didn't live in the hills, I didn't live in Madrid either.

I think it was the cost (monthly rental plus minutes of usafe) that deterred many people. When I lived with my parents, if my aunts came to stay and wanted to make phone calls they first rang the operator who timed the call and after the call they phoned the operator to ask how much it had cost. They then gave my parents a contribution towards the phone bill. It didn't held that the phone company was a monopoly - if you didn't like their terms, you went without.

Another problem was the availability of numbers (connections into an exchange). Every so often, they added a digit to the start of the phone number or a digit to the exchange number to increase capacity. They're still doing this.

A lot of my friends when I was pre-teens didn't have phones, but it wasn't a problem for us kids as we just walked round to see them. The thing that really amazed us kids was watching Dallas on TV where households were shown to have multiple phones - and not just extensions on a single number! When I moved into my own home in the early 80s it was a few years before I could afford the monthly line rental and phone usage bills. So I walked to a phone box with pocketful of 10p and 20p pieces if I needed to make a call.

Where I worked (a large company), starting in the mid-80s, our use of company phones was monitored and each month we got a printout and had to account for all external calls. We had to pay for personal use of company phones unless we could justify the call (making a doctor appointment etc). Right up until the mid 90s there were payphones in the company and we were supposed to use those instead. Which illustrates that cost was the big factor in phone availability.

[JoeBentley]

I've never understood glurge like this that seems to consist of some big long list of why things were harder back in 19XX, and then jump straight to some foregone conclusion that made the people from that time better and/or tougher.

[Jaime Vargas]

Originally Posted by Lainie

My recollection is that on metered plans, you weren't charged by the minute, but by the call.

Here it was charged by something called "steps". Basically they charged you for discrete amounts of time. Kind of like private parking sites did until recently (they charged you by the hour and if you picked up your car after an hour and 10 minutes you had to pay two full hours)

[Floater]

Originally Posted by JoeBentley

... conclusion that made the people from that time better and/or tougher.

That's because we are better and tougher.

[Lainie]

Originally Posted by llewtrah

Where I worked (a large company), starting in the mid-80s, our use of company phones was monitored and each month we got a printout and had to account for all external calls. We had to pay for personal use of company phones unless we could justify the call (making a doctor appointment etc).

I had employers who did that, around the same time frame, with long distance calls. We were encouraged to minimize personal local calls, but apparently the expense for those wasn't enough to justify the effort of documenting the purpose of the calls.

Which highlights another thing I don't miss about the "good old days": expensive long distance calls.

[Mimi]

I was born in 1980. We always had seatbelts. One time my parents took my siblings and me to Toys R Us and I took off my seatbelt as we pulled into the parking space, but the car wasn't stopped yet. My mother spanked me (the only time I can remember her ever spanking me). She was and still is insistent on seatbelts being used. I was probably about 9 at the time.
My parents got married in 1978 and received a microwave as a wedding gift. It was huge and lasted until about their 17th year of marriage.
I can't remember a time when my dad didn't own a computer. I remember playing games like Alice in Wonderland on the Commodore 64. Those computers used DOS, of course. I remember having to load games (with those huge floppy disks) and having to type something like start:/.
The first cell phone my father had (a company phone, he worked for Ameritech) was huge and was in a black square zippered pouch.
I can remember the first time I went online, back when it seemed to be only chat rooms. I was about 14 at the time.
I am glad that Facebook didn't exist when I was in school. Kids today can't get away from issues at school even when they are at home.

[Floater]

The Commodore 64 did not use DOS.

[UEL]

Actually, the Commodore used its own DOS, called DOS, but you only learned about it if you were programming.

But, I think it was using DOS as the generic acronym, not the Mirosoft specific DOS programming.

[Beachlife!]

DOS stands for Disk Operating System, though when people refer to DOS they generally mean MS-DOS which the Commodore 64 did not use. The Commodore operating system was called Kernal though some people used GEOS. The C64's operating system was resident in memory and did not require a disk drive at all. Progams could be loaded with a cassette tape.

[GenYus234]

Originally Posted by JoeBentley

I've never understood glurge like this that seems to consist of some big long list of why things were harder back in 19XX, and then jump straight to some foregone conclusion that made the people from that time better and/or tougher.

That's because there has been nostalgia your entire life. When I was growing up, we didn't have nostalgia. People just forgot everything right after it happened. Old people had to rant:

"Those kids tomorrow will be so spoiled with their as-yet-not-invented gadget. In today, we don't have as-yet-not-invented-gadget, we have to make do with things that currently exist."

[Lainie]

Originally Posted by Mimi

I was born in 1980. We always had seatbelts.

I was born in 1961, and when I was little my father wouldn't start the ignition until everyone's seatbelt was on. This was not at all the norm at the time. I'm very glad he was like that, because he ingrained the habit in me, and it's literally saved me a couple of times.

I wish I could say he'd been as conscientious about it when we kids weren't in the car, but I know he wasn't.

[Floater]

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

[Alarm]

Originally Posted by GenYus234

That's because there has been nostalgia your entire life. When I was growing up, we didn't have nostalgia. People just forgot everything right after it happened. Old people had to rant:

"Those kids tomorrow will be so spoiled with their as-yet-not-invented gadget. In today, we don't have as-yet-not-invented-gadget, we have to make do with things that currently exist."

Originally Posted by Floater

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

In my day, Nostalgia was better... it was crisper and more memory like than the Nostalgia you get these days which looks like a re-run from the 70's, washed out colour and all...

[Gayle]

You and your color nostalgia. In my day, nostalgia came in black and white and was hand cranked at 16 frames per second.

[Auburn Red]

Originally Posted by snopes

3) Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our behinds! Nowhere was safe!

Yes, let's go back to the good old days of domestic violence and child abuse where abusive NBSKoles could beat their kids and spouses all day long. What a marvelous time!

Originally Posted by snopes

You kids have no idea how annoying you are

I think they inherit it from their elders.

[DawnStorm]

Originally Posted by Aureal

I had nothing but a radio for music in my first car.

AM only right?

[Blatherskite]

Originally Posted by Auburn Red

Yes, let's go back to the good old days of domestic violence and child abuse where abusive NBSKoles could beat their kids and spouses all day long. What a marvelous time!

Well, you never heard the beaten children complaining!

Because if they did they would have been beaten up again. Remember, if you didn't hear about it it didn't happen! The uppity misfortunates of today are so selfish with their attempts to take away the sweet ignorance of other people by failing to stifle their misery properly.