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Life Before the Internet and other technology

What are some things we lived without back then which is hard to believe based on our dependence on them today? Something other than just the cell phone. Okay to mention Apps though. For me it’s GPS.
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ArishMell · 70-79, M
Umm, how far back?

We've always had "technology" of one sort of another: it's a rather vague term "capable" of being however wanted, but seems to have been invented in the 1930s.


The "Personal Computer"... not merely for bus time-tables, endless Ewe-Toob videos and chat-sites like SW!

I mean also for serious uses both amateur and professional, like word-processors, spreadsheets and their data-base cousins, photograph-archiving, CAD/CAM...

(You cannot sensibly use a "smart"-phone for such applications, even if technically possible.)

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Double-glazed windows. (Triple-glazed, in regions with far colder Winters.)

Modern street-lamps - still improving to give better illumination with lower electricity consumption and less "light pollution".

The microwave oven.

Trains, both electric and Diesel powered, capable of cruising at 100mph+ on conventional lines. That's even before the super-fast ones needing special lines, like the French 'TGV'. Thus saving you time. Steam traction's mean speed was only about 60mph for the fastest inter-city expresses. (Yes I know certain services are plagued by delays but that was always so, with fog a main cause in the past, and suicides / trespassers perhaps the largest cause today.)

Modern food packaging which despite its own disposal problems mainly due to laziness or ignorance, has allowed far greater ranges of fresh (as well as "processed") foods with far less waste.

The "Scientific Calculator". You still need know the maths for the task, to "ask" it to do the arithmetic; but it does the sums accurately without needing you turn to logarithm tables and slide-rules. (Similarly, you cannot put formulae into spreadsheets unless you know the formulae in the first place - and then how to translate the basic algebra into the application's dialect.)

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Also, things we should celebrate losing, such as having to breathe filthy air in cities. It is still bad in many places, but far cleaner than when coal was the universal fuel for industry, transport and domestic heating - the last use was particularly bad because the open fireplace is so inefficient.
4thdimensiondream · 70-79, M
@ArishMell thanks for taking the time to think about it and post it! Good stuff. It seems like technology has boomed over the last 100 years. Unfortunately a lot of bad has come with it I think. And yet we can’t do a thing about the weather! Cheers
ArishMell · 70-79, M