Things I can do that I no longer need to do (from here by way of here). Examining this list will no doubt tell you a lot about what I spent the past nearly forty years doing with technology.
- Adjusting rabbit ears on top of a TV
- Adjusting a television’s horizontal and vertical holds
- Adjusting a television’s color and hue adjustments
- Adjusting the tracking on a VCR
- Adjusting the head azimuth of a Commodore’s Datassette
- Archie AT commands for dial-up modems
- Autoexec.bat editing
- Backing up a PC using QIC-40 or QIC-80 tapes
- BASIC Booting off a floppy disk
- Burnishing a cartridge connector with a pencil eraser to ensure a solid connection
- Bust apart a long computer printout
- Calculating THAC0
- Calling collect on a payphone
- Cast Lead Miniatures
- Changing the ball or ribbon on your Selectric Typewriter
- Changing the ribbon on a typewriter
- Changing the wheel on a daisy wheel printer
- Cheating at computer games using a loader or binary patch
- Cleaning fish
- Cleaning head of a VCR
- Cleaning the balls inside a computer mouse for better traction
- Compressing a HDD to make vital space
- Configuring Trumpet Winsock
- Config.sys editing
- CP/M
- Cranking up or down a car-window
- Darkroom photography skills
- dBase IV
- Dialing a rotary phone
- Drying Clothes with a Mangle
- Editing AUTOEXEC-BAT and CONFIG-SYS to get as close as possible to 640K of free memory
- Editing text with a restricted 80-characters per column
- Entering "freeware" programs from a magazine
- Faxing a document
- fdisk
mbr - Filing cards in a library card catalog
- Fixing a Disk using a hex editor
- Focusing a camera
- Formatting a floppy
- FORTRAN programming
- FTP from a command line
- Getting off the couch to change channels on your TV set
- Getting to know your neighbors
- Getting TSRs and CD device drivers to load into DOS
- Gopher
- Himem.sys
- Installing Linux from floppy disks
- Kermit to transfer files
- Level Design for 2d games like Doom and Duke
- Letter writing
- Lining up paper on a dot matrix or line printer
- Loading data from a cassette tape
- Loading film into a 35 mm camera
- Long division
- Manually loading ink on a fountain pen from an bottle
- Map Reading
- Memorizing Multiplication Tables
- Multiplication using a Sliderule
- Navigating using a compass
- Operating an Overhead Projector
- Parking a hardisk
- PASCAL-TurboPASCAL
- Peeling back a lid from an sardine can with a key
- Programming a VCR to record a show
- Programming an analogue car radio
- Programming in dBase or Clipper
- Putting a needle on a vinyl record
- QBASIC
- Reading Moon Tables or Tide Tables
- Removing perforations off fanfold paper so it looks like normal typing paper
- Resolving IRQ conflicts on a mother board
- Respooling a chewed-up VCR tape or audio cassette
- Rewinding VCR tapes
- Reverse Polish Notation
- Rewinding an audio cassette using a Bic pen
- Saving your programs to a cassette tape
- SCSI HD configuration
- Smelling a freshly mimeographed test paper
- Taking the tape out of an answering machine
- Ticket Conductors on Buses
- Transferring files between computers using LapLink
- Triangulating your position
- Using correction fluid
- Using a compass
- Using a flash cube
- Using a fountain pen
- Using a Logarithm Table
- Using a microfiche
- Using a slide rule
- Using carbon paper to make copies
- Using a card sorter
- Using WordPerfect in a DOS window on a computer
- Using the Readers Guide to Periodical Literature
- Using xyzzy
- Using your fancy Zip Drive to copy mp3s
- UUencode usage to transfer binary
- WWAIS - Wide Area Information Service
- Watching a slide show with a slide projector
- Winding a watch
- Word Perfect 5.x
- WordStar
- Writing email whilst offline and going online to send
- ZIPping archives across multiple floppy disks
- Zmodem to transfer a file
Well that made me feel old.
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