@Muffintopgina the tyre fetish might harder to explain. Good thinking!

@Muffintopgina I had the same problem.

@ArishMell You must be from somewhere else because there are things on your list, as for you on mine that are still very much accessible where I live.

I see typewriters and film cameras often. Being used with the later developing their own film.

Plenty of good non fancy coffee in many diners.

Card catalogues in our libraries, along with the interest in learning how to do something without the Internet.

Also, plenty of shops for ordinary everyday goods.

There are states in the U.S. that because of insurance will not allow you to pump your own gas, so there still is attendants.

@dragonfly46 Oh, I know film cameras are still used and my local camera shops sells film, but it is expensive and I think really used by professional and serious amateur photographers s-me of who will develop their own work, too.

Typewriters though? I can't remember when I last saw one used. I gave mine to a charity-shop years ago; but saw another in a charity-shop recently.

Yes, the non-fancy coffee is available but even in the good, independent cafes I use they seem to want to give it silly it names!

I must admit I have not used my public linrary for a long time so I don't know what system it uses, but what I mean by using the Internet is for functional purposes like transport, money or health services and finding information, and these areas are increasingly being pushed into narrow Internet-based channels. There are plenty of people of all ages interested in doing things without the Internet but that is becoming harder in some areas of life.

I live near two moderately-sized towns and both still have a fair range of shops but there is also a depressing number of empty ones, or if not empty now hold charity or "vape" businesses, thanks to a combination of high costs and the onslaught of the supermarkets, out-of-town supermarket clusters and on-line shopping. Those who survive, seem to be ones with more individual lines, or are "convenience stores" in franchise-chains. The problem with the latter is they are like the supermarkets in holding rather narrow ranges in each category, dictated remotely by accountants who refuse to allow them to support local producers.

I didn't know about the insurance rule. I knew attended service at filling-stations is still common in the USA but I thought it was by choice. One problem with self-service is "drive-away thefts", where motorists fill up then drive off without paying, and this is difficult to fight.

@meJess ouch!

@supersnipe Oh yes, many a time on many cars

Sometimes I've adjusted contact-breaker points in the middle of a journey; and once the tightness of cylinder head nuts. (The manual said, re-torque 100 miles after replacing the cylinder-head.).

@WelshLovely I know! I just wish I could buy a landline type phone with a Bluetooth connection so I could relive those days. But they'd probably make them so fragile now that if you treated it like a real phone, it would shatter.

@Lilymoon I definitely think those were a huge part of the reason why nobody answers their phone without checking the caller ID first.

@Lilymoon Haha, caller ID destroyed my bliss.

@Bumbles I remember in the early days of caller ID, we would dial *67 to bypass it, and people were still gullible enough to answer. You try that trick now, they let you go to voicemail.

@WelshLovely
I sort of thought that too... but I don't understand his first answer to the posted question then...

The question asked
..and his first answer was
..and then I began to ask him what he was talking about, which I now a journey I regret embarking on! 😆

@swirlie They're born into a world with the internet and smartphones, so they'll never get to experience life without them. Makes perfect sense to me because the majority of people use the internet every day and it's readily available, so kids are aware of them from a very young age.....

@WelshLovely
Yeah, that's true! In other words, they'll never know the difference between having and not having internet and cellphones. When I was a pre-adolescent growing up in Canada, I learned Morse Code from my father who is a Ham Radio operator, who would sit upstairs in our attic every night sending messages back and forth to his friends back home in Norway where he's from.

To this day, he won't buy a cellphone or pick up the landline phone, but will ask me to sit with him in that attic when I go home to visit to act as his official 'translator', since his friend-base these days is more English-speaking than Norwegian!

@dragonfly46 I don't know those last few I assume are American brand-names, but...

I am pretty sure clock radios are still available. I used the alarm function on mine quite frequently. There is something of a market for modern radios - able to receive DAB as well as FM and AM broadcasts - with 1960s-style cases.

So I would add mechanical alarm-clocks, and mechanical clocks generally are rare now, for home use at least. (A new one now is likely to have been made by an enthusiast with the requisite metalworking skill and equipment.)


Public pay-phones - still some around the UK where portable 'phone coverage is weak. Many of the kiosks that became disused have been converted to miniature public exchange libraries, others to hold defibrillators.

I would add dial telephones, though.


Eight-track tapes? I think those vanished long ago but vinyl has made something of a return, and a lot of music is still recorded on CDs.

Prices of tickets? I expect they were always expensive, really! Your examples show inflation.

@swirlie You have more issues than Readers Digest. Take a pill..........pass out,.

@basilfawlty89 I've been lucky to avoid any kind of place where this type of conversation is normal. 😆 Or rather..looks like I've always known how to navigate the online space.

@CrazyMusicLover pfft. Responsibility. Ew.

@hunkalove Loved the Janis Joplin cover.

@rinkydinkydoink
Did Canada even exist as a Nation in the 1950's? I thought Canada wasn't even inhabited by the White man until about 1983 or so?

@swirlie

Your humor has me flummoxed, ma'am.

@rinkydinkydoink
Are you a Native Indian or an Eskimo?

@mindstruggle I told a youth we used to burn CDs, they were horrified and legit thought we threw discs in a fire.

@basilfawlty89
Poor innocent souls.

@Penny and payphones 😅