You Know You Are Old When

[scootr]

You know you are old if you started each school day with the pledge of allegiance to the flag.

 

[ultrarunner]

I sold my II to a high school teacher and bought my //e because of the 80 column over 40 of the II.

It was a huge improvement for correspondence.

The 300 baud modem also swapped for a 1200 baud… 4x the speed… what’s not to like?

I still have my //e including the original box with the styrofoam inserts.

A few years ago a friend wanted to list it on eBay and I said no.

I got all my money back when I sold the II so my timing was spot on…

When ATT rolled out DSL I got a postcard saying it was available… the installers had a fit because it didn’t work and they had to run 12 pole length new line to get it working saying I never should have been offered DSL.

Now I’m a few blocks further remote and cable would need to be under ground at my expense so borrowed a Verizon Cube and get 9.5 out of it but it is not available for my address… go figure.

 

[MossRoad]

You know you are old if you started each school day with the pledge of allegiance to the flag.

You know you are old if the pledge didn't have "one nation under god" in it when you recited it. That wasn't added until the 50s.

Also, lawsuits about saying the pledge in school started in the 40s, well before 'under god' was added.

Also, the original pledge was a marketing gimmick. And anti-Catholic.

From here:

Why Eisenhower Added 'Under God' to the Pledge of Allegiance During the Cold War | HISTORY

The Pledge of Allegiance wasn’t standardized until World War II, and didn’t contain “under God” until 1954.

www.history.com

As a marketing gimmick, Bellamy put together a program for schools to use to mark the Columbian Exposition, and successfully lobbied Congress to support the program. Part of this program was a Pledge of Allegiance, which originally read:

“I pledge allegiance to my flag and the Republic for which it stands—one Nation indivisible—with liberty and justice for all.”

Like the magazine’s other marketing strategies, which included sending flags and pictures of George Washington to schools, the pledge was part of a push for “Americanization.” Bellamy was one of many Protestant Americans of northern European heritage who believed that new immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, many of them Catholic, were harmful to the “American” way of life, and that they needed to assimilate.

 

[WinterDeere]

You know you are old if you started each school day with the pledge of allegiance to the flag.

My kids still do.

 

[WinterDeere]

I sold my II to a high school teacher and bought my //e because of the 80 column over 40 of the II.

I believe I sold the color ribbon dot matrix printer from our Apple IIgs for more than my father paid for it, 30 years earlier.

Old computer hardware is cool. I'm glad there are a few collecting and maintaining it, because I sure wouldn't want to dedicate any part of my own house to storing it.

 

[chiefcook]

You know you are old if you started each school day with the pledge of allegiance to the flag.

Still do where I live(SW AR)

 

[bigtiller]

immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, many of them Catholic, were harmful to the “American” way of life, and that they needed to assimilate.

My 5th grade Sunday school teacher warned us kids to stay away from Catholics, but she clammed up when we asked why.

 

[deserteagle71]

I believe I sold the color ribbon dot matrix printer from our Apple IIgs for more than my father paid for it, 30 years earlier.

Old computer hardware is cool. I'm glad there are a few collecting and maintaining it, because I sure wouldn't want to dedicate any part of my own house to storing it.

The Mac IIsi computer I bought from a pawn shop in 1991 is still hooked up and still works, down in my basement. It has the Apple ImageWriter dot matrix printer hooked to it and it works wonderful to make big long colorful banners.

 

[drssg]

Same here, but I had held out for it, since I was in the Army and employed at an Army research lab which had just started getting DEC Rainbows (with floppy drives) for all the secretarial staff.
And once I got it I found I could fit the C64, it's tape deck and power supply into a scavenged briefcase so I could bring it in to work to write reports.

Then after I produced several good reports, proving it wasn't just a toy my boss agreed I could get a DEC Rainbow. I managed to finagle that into a DEC Pro 380 (with the PDP-11/73 chipset) with a 10 MEGABYTE hard drive! I was the envy of the Lab.

That's interesting. I worked for DEC for a couple of years in the early 90s, and I never even heard of the DEC Rainbow. They made another attempt to enter the PC market when I was there, but it was over-priced, and it didn't sell well.

I didn't stay long at the company, because they were obviously going out of business. At our first big meeting, the Division Manager said we were in a "transition." I didn't know what he was talking about, but he made it sound kind of exciting. I eventually realized that it meant they were firing people.

 

[newbury]

That's interesting. I worked for DEC for a couple of years in the early 90s, and I never even heard of the DEC Rainbow. They made another attempt to enter the PC market when I was there, but it was over-priced, and it didn't sell well.
<snip>

Dec Rainbow - link
Overbuilt, overpriced, slow as a snail but reliable. The lab probably bought them because they were sold by DEC and we ran many PDP-(8,11) and in a few years moved to many Vax's.
A few years later I was fielding MicroVax's for Geographic Information Systems.