When I was in Germany my Polish colleague was shocked when he watched breakfast TV with his wife who was visiting him and saw an advert for Dildos lol.
Also someone I used to work with got a QA report back from Germany saying can we have less of the blood and violence and more of the naked woman riding the nuclear bomb please.
They've got their priorities right though I think.
Something youngsters would not recognise or know how to work.
I just proved this by asking my fourteen year old daughter. She wasn't sure, but knew you had to turn the dial, but not sure how. :))
I worked at exchanges VIGilant and MELville. We were using the codes right through the eighties, long after the public stop using them. Private wires, data circuits used by banks and businesses used the codes for routing, as they feed through many exchanges.
Mechanical, noisy and needed a lot of maintenance.
Back in the day I used to play in my local table tennis league and two of the clubs were British Telecoms and they had social clubs/bars at larger exchanges. We had to go through these rooms full of equipment and they were a thing of wonder to a young lad - kept the place nice and toasty as well - but were quite noisy.
Very early computers such as the worlds oldest still working computer, the Harwell Dekatron Computer currently in use at The National Museum of Computing used the same relays and selectors found on telecoms equipment, as did the code breaking machines Colossus and Heath Robinson ay Bletchley Park.
Very early computers such as the worlds oldest still working computer, the Harwell Dekatron Computer currently in use at The National Museum of Computing used the same relays and selectors found on telecoms equipment, as did the code breaking machines Colossus and Heath Robinson ay Bletchley Park.
Indeed it was all post office stock. The first UK electronics computer was created by a post office Tommy Flowers using the very same equipment. It's all just switches after all.
I remember the days of going into a phone box and there would be small cards on the wall of women advertising their services. Some even had phone books but they usually got ripped up or stolen.
Very early computers such as the worlds oldest still working computer, the Harwell Dekatron Computer currently in use at The National Museum of Computing used the same relays and selectors found on telecoms equipment, as did the code breaking machines Colossus and Heath Robinson ay Bletchley Park.
Indeed it was all post office stock. The first UK electronics computer was created by a post office Tommy Flowers using the very same equipment. It's all just switches after all.
Tommy Flowers when at Dollis Hill had ideas for digital exchanges pre WW2 and it was only his time spent on the Bletchley Park machines that set back a lot of his plans. I believe he did design the first STD exchanges but would stand correction as I'm only familiar with his war time work in which he was told to use what was at hand hence the early devices like Heath Robinson and Colossus using stock GPO parts and equipment..
His great advance and breakaway from selectors and relays only, was in using valves as a generator of the German Lorenz cipher machines wheel patterns, rather than a second punched tape, making it much faster when .breaking the Lorenz rotor settings.
I remember the days of going into a phone box and there would be small cards on the wall of women advertising their services. Some even had phone books but they usually got ripped up or stolen.
I saw this on Imgur today, it's titled My Childhood
In my case, that would mostly be My Young Adulthood :|
Some of the references are obscure to me while many others are absent. The picture is clearly inspired by American mass culture.
There are a good few references to british pop culture in there too: a few i noticed: Alan Partridge, Gazza, Mr Motivator, Chuckle Brothers, Tony Blair, not sure if Mr Bean is in there with the Chicken on his head?, Mr Blobby, Teletubbies.
Not sure if the guy with the water-soaker is Louis Theroux?
Of course everyone would include different figures, mine might have included :- Alien, Salems Lot, Darth Vadar, The Terminator, Rambo, Jaws, one of the Dr Who's?, Frank Spenser, and Benny from Crossroads :-p
The concept reminds me a bit of a poster that was in one of the Spectrum Magazines - it was like an end of year party - with many references to the year gone by.
Please use quotes properly, dmsmith. You quoted Alessandro, then put your own reply into the quote. This can confuse the reader ...
A few posts earlier those old telephones were mentioned but I think it's pretty ridiculous to claim only people aged 40+ would be likely to recognize them. Surely someone in their mid 20s, provided they're not completely ignorant of everything from time before they were born would have seen a film/series where such a phone is shown, or maybe have an old gran who still has one (yeah, not very likely, but they could just have it standing around somewhere not connected, not being able to part with old crap).
That big "My Childhood" Scottie posted ... looks like it is mostly 90s stuff. So someone born in 1986 or so will probably be familiar with most of it, even if they haven't watched every single film/series or played the games shown. I mean, a 1986-born 6 year old would probably not have seen Wayne's World in 1992, but they certainly will know The Simpsons, Jurassic Park and will have found out about Beavis & Butthead as they grew up, to pick a few examples. But even a kid born 10 years later will find out about some of these by means of seeing them as re-runs on TV, or playing their older brothers/sisters' games.
Please use quotes properly, dmsmith. You quoted Alessandro, then put your own reply into the quote. This can confuse the reader ...
A few posts earlier those old telephones were mentioned but I think it's pretty ridiculous to claim only people aged 40+ would be likely to recognize them. Surely someone in their mid 20s, provided they're not completely ignorant of everything from time before they were born would have seen a film/series where such a phone is shown, or maybe have an old gran who still has one (yeah, not very likely, but they could just have it standing around somewhere not connected, not being able to part with old crap).
I realised and had been in the process of fixing it.
Maybe you could make your comments about the phones in a separate post as it was confusing whether you were addressing those comments to me, I assume not as I had not mentioned old phones only the accoustic couplers, but I wasn't sure if the rest of your comment was to me.
Sorry dmsmith, didn't mean it in a bad way. As you said, you edited it afterwards.
I usually avoid having consecutive posts (one of the reasons why my postcount is so low after all these years), so I just put multiple things into one. Only the first sentence was aimed at you.
Sorry dmsmith, didn't mean it in a bad way. As you said, you edited it afterwards.
I usually avoid having consecutive posts (one of the reasons why my postcount is so low after all these years), so I just put multiple things into one. Only the first sentence was aimed at you.
No probs. :-) I must be the opposite because of my double posts, i sometimes think the edit button is still there after an hour can click quote by mistake.
I remember the days of going into a phone box and there would be small cards on the wall of women advertising their services. Some even had phone books but they usually got ripped up or stolen.
Like this one?
Taken in Holborn, London, April 2014.
No pictures just small cards usually saying things like 'exotic massage'. And that picture was as late as 2014?
Even I don't remember that but i wasn't allowed to drink in a pub till 1992 which was in the middle of the CD era. I have a few 45RPM's my Dad rescued jukeboxes. They usually had the central hole missing.
There's a pub in Aberdeen that still has (had?) its old jukebox with singles from its era unchanged. It always reminds me of the early 90s when we'd go there for lunch when I was on day release at college.
I heard the owner passed a couple of years back, so not sure it's still there, but it's something of a legendary machine so I'd hope so.
It's the one on the left, eh? The place looks cosy, but from looking at the buildings across the street I get the impression the area is a bit rough (which of course is completely off-topic, just noticed).
Yeah, that's the one. It's smack in the middle of town, it's not a bad area at all, it's mostly been redeveloped and there's loads of student housing round the corner one way, a shopping centre the other. Tbh, the pub was probably the roughest place in the street.
The old Benefits Agency/Jobcentre+ office down the road a little has been flattened recently, I worked there for years.
Comments
They've got their priorities right though I think.
Back in the day I used to play in my local table tennis league and two of the clubs were British Telecoms and they had social clubs/bars at larger exchanges. We had to go through these rooms full of equipment and they were a thing of wonder to a young lad - kept the place nice and toasty as well - but were quite noisy.
Indeed it was all post office stock. The first UK electronics computer was created by a post office Tommy Flowers using the very same equipment. It's all just switches after all.
@luny@mstdn.games
https://www.luny.co.uk
Tommy Flowers when at Dollis Hill had ideas for digital exchanges pre WW2 and it was only his time spent on the Bletchley Park machines that set back a lot of his plans. I believe he did design the first STD exchanges but would stand correction as I'm only familiar with his war time work in which he was told to use what was at hand hence the early devices like Heath Robinson and Colossus using stock GPO parts and equipment..
His great advance and breakaway from selectors and relays only, was in using valves as a generator of the German Lorenz cipher machines wheel patterns, rather than a second punched tape, making it much faster when .breaking the Lorenz rotor settings.
Most references are from spanish people, TV shows and the like... but I guess some of them will awake some memories for you UK guys...
An' you know what they said?
Well, some of it was true!
In my case, that would mostly be My Young Adulthood :|
Some of the references are obscure to me while many others are absent. The picture is clearly inspired by American mass culture.
Like this one?
Taken in Holborn, London, April 2014.
There are a good few references to british pop culture in there too: a few i noticed: Alan Partridge, Gazza, Mr Motivator, Chuckle Brothers, Tony Blair, not sure if Mr Bean is in there with the Chicken on his head?, Mr Blobby, Teletubbies.
Not sure if the guy with the water-soaker is Louis Theroux?
Of course everyone would include different figures, mine might have included :- Alien, Salems Lot, Darth Vadar, The Terminator, Rambo, Jaws, one of the Dr Who's?, Frank Spenser, and Benny from Crossroads :-p
The concept reminds me a bit of a poster that was in one of the Spectrum Magazines - it was like an end of year party - with many references to the year gone by.
A few posts earlier those old telephones were mentioned but I think it's pretty ridiculous to claim only people aged 40+ would be likely to recognize them. Surely someone in their mid 20s, provided they're not completely ignorant of everything from time before they were born would have seen a film/series where such a phone is shown, or maybe have an old gran who still has one (yeah, not very likely, but they could just have it standing around somewhere not connected, not being able to part with old crap).
That big "My Childhood" Scottie posted ... looks like it is mostly 90s stuff. So someone born in 1986 or so will probably be familiar with most of it, even if they haven't watched every single film/series or played the games shown. I mean, a 1986-born 6 year old would probably not have seen Wayne's World in 1992, but they certainly will know The Simpsons, Jurassic Park and will have found out about Beavis & Butthead as they grew up, to pick a few examples. But even a kid born 10 years later will find out about some of these by means of seeing them as re-runs on TV, or playing their older brothers/sisters' games.
I realised and had been in the process of fixing it.
Maybe you could make your comments about the phones in a separate post as it was confusing whether you were addressing those comments to me, I assume not as I had not mentioned old phones only the accoustic couplers, but I wasn't sure if the rest of your comment was to me.
I think he looks more like the actor who played the alternate Ross in Friends, but of course that would be later.
We've actually still got that 'Adventure course' game, that Richard O'brian is playing with in the picture. Kept me amused for a whole day. ;)
@luny@mstdn.games
https://www.luny.co.uk
I usually avoid having consecutive posts (one of the reasons why my postcount is so low after all these years), so I just put multiple things into one. Only the first sentence was aimed at you.
No probs. :-) I must be the opposite because of my double posts, i sometimes think the edit button is still there after an hour can click quote by mistake.
No pictures just small cards usually saying things like 'exotic massage'. And that picture was as late as 2014?
Yes, I took it myself on 26 April 2014. Here is the full reference:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alessandrogrussu/16174172658/
Was that before or after you dialled the number for "Soo Lin I do you long time only £10 " ? :D
(Sorry I'm in a silly mood)
No, actually I was going to dial the number for Zara but it was late and had to take the plane to go back home X-D
(I'm in an even sillier mood)
(random thought and also a silly mood, lets see who gets the reference).
That's not what I've heard! :D
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fd/95/9c/fd959c571803f9ea6b416cc1aa4bc6d5.jpg
I heard the owner passed a couple of years back, so not sure it's still there, but it's something of a legendary machine so I'd hope so.
Well known enough that someone made a spotify playlist of it:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4gunsD9pUnkaFIZXx5L8mv
The old Benefits Agency/Jobcentre+ office down the road a little has been flattened recently, I worked there for years.