Obsolete skills
Feb. 17th, 2009 09:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chickenfeetSo I'm stealing this from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jonquil because it's really interesting.
So. What -- apart from courses that were required for your major or profession and loathed at the time -- were you taught to do that is now obsolete or forgotten?
How about me?
* I don't suppose I will ever cut a stencil for a Roneograph again.
* I have a slide rule and both four figure and statistical tables and I know how to use them.
* I am a dab hand with a topo map and compass. This may not be quite obsolete but I suspect GPS will be all but universal within a few years.
* I can strip and clean a carburettor.
* I can do all sorts of odd repairs to obsolete fountain pens.
* I used to be able to develop film and make prints.
* I can splice audiotape.
How about you?
jonquil because it's really interesting.So. What -- apart from courses that were required for your major or profession and loathed at the time -- were you taught to do that is now obsolete or forgotten?
How about me?
* I don't suppose I will ever cut a stencil for a Roneograph again.
* I have a slide rule and both four figure and statistical tables and I know how to use them.
* I am a dab hand with a topo map and compass. This may not be quite obsolete but I suspect GPS will be all but universal within a few years.
* I can strip and clean a carburettor.
* I can do all sorts of odd repairs to obsolete fountain pens.
* I used to be able to develop film and make prints.
* I can splice audiotape.
How about you?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 03:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 03:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 03:32 pm (UTC)Use Letraset to do graphic design... Ah Letraset, how I miss you.
Operate a view camera (although tbh I did hate that ;).
no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 04:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 03:49 pm (UTC)* Type 70-75 wpm on an IBM Selectric with no mistakes.
And yes! I remember Letraset, too. My father was a graphic designer (among many other trades), and he occasionally let me use/play with/covet/grok his materials (Pantone markers, t-squares, etc).
no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 05:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 11:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 04:56 pm (UTC)Never could use a slide rule (probably because I didn't even know what I needed them for) although I can still see my father's white bakelite ones on top of the grey marble chimney in his bedroom in our old flat. I have no idea where it's gone now, or the couple of photographs propped against the looking glass which I can clearly visualise now, after 25 years.
Splicing audiotape was one of the reasons I struck to the written word & didn't go into radio. (The main one was 17-lbs Nagra recorders.)
Ditto film, prints, darkrooms, and 10-lbs Nikons.
A carburthingie needs to be cleaned? It's one of those things under the hood the man in the overalls knows all about, right?
I can wash a fountain pen, and that's about it, but I still own about two dozen.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 05:02 pm (UTC)I could hack about any office switchboard to make trunk calls.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 07:21 pm (UTC)I actually have a few films still to develop - but after that, alas, no more.
And I also can splice audiotape!
no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 10:15 pm (UTC)I can type a manuscript with footnotes* at the bottom of each page, and I can make a carbon copy at the same time (with corrections in both copies! not using wite-out, another only slightly-less obsolete skill)
*in old-style MLA format, with loc cits and ibids everywhere
I can correct errors on a duplicator* master
(*or whatever you may call those things that ran off the purple ink copies that weren't mimeos but smelled like some kind of addictive drug)
I can take Polaroid pictures (not a skill, really)
I can make thermofax duplicates
I also have mastered the slide rule and the fountain pen
I can wiggle rabbit ear antennas to achieve something like a black and white picture with minimal snow
Also treadle sewing machines, hand mixers (non-electric, don't know what they're called, and carriage return typewriters.
And this is still part of my life (but for how long?)--I can drive a stick shift car.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 10:50 am (UTC)Every car I have owned has been stick shift but, of course, now that I don't own a car I end up driving automatics. I quite like the Selectric box on the Mini Cooper S. It seems to combine the best of both.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 04:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 06:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 10:28 pm (UTC)I also know how to do the map-and-compass thing, thank you orienteering.
I used to know how to use one of those machines they edited video with before video editing software really existed. But I forget what they were called.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 11:20 pm (UTC)I can use log tables etc but never had a slide rule. (I'm married to someone who can and still has one.)
I can operate treadle and hand-cranked sewing machines.
I know where to put or not to put an apostrophe - a rapidly vanishing skill.
I can transfer an image using tracing paper and black pencil.
I can read Anglo-Saxon, which has to count as obsolete!
And yes, I can do Letraset and make Dymo labels.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 12:29 am (UTC)Fix, refill and use Rotring pens
Make blueprints
Get a moody car going by walloping the starter motor in just the right place (Ford Fiestas circa 1991 only)
Tape the Top 10 off the radio without getting any ads or DJ banter in between
no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 04:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 04:55 am (UTC)Cursive seems to be going, if not gone. I don't know why but it's not taught here anymore. Repairing almost anything around the house is a dying art. I can do both of those. Blink reminds me, there's the ancient art of hitting things to make them work - when it helps, when it doesn't.
I can sort of remember how to entertain myself without internet access but I would have to do it to find out for sure.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 10:51 am (UTC)I actually tend to use a cursive italic nibbed pen for note taking