For the 40+ crowd…

[stardew_luv]

Do you ever feel like a complete idiot around all these young people who make IT stuff look like the easiest thing in the world? Then you try to do what they suggest and it either doesn’t work at best or destroys what you had at worst? I grew up pre internet and on a new Comadore 64. You booted up a game and went and did something else for a hour and it might be loaded when you got back lol. Floppy disks actually flopped and now they barely have flash drives anymore. You needed multiple computers to do different tasks if you had your own business like my dad did.. We still had and enjoyed typewriters, covering your mistakes with white out was the absolute best. Dot Matrix printers printed each line one at a time and slow as molasses yet so fascinating to watch at the same time. Plus those awesome tear off ends with the holes made the most fascinating toy. When I was in late middle school/early high school we did get home internet but you guessed it, it was dial up made the most horrific but totally unforgettable noise and made your phone line busy as long as you used it. When Google first came out the O’s in the middle kept growing the bigger they got and with more information they had. I remember car phones, which were basically a giant cell phone just for the car. The cell phones were absolutely huge and only for the well to do. I could go on and on. Anyways feeling like a middle aged old fart made me take a trip down memory lane. Hope you enjoyed it. And if you are under 30 you probably have zero clue what I was talking about and read about it in your history books. lol!

 

[One More Day]

Not sure what any of this has to do with Stardew, but certainly relate to all of it and more, things like

• Television screens needing their own table, using up several square feet of floor space, and also they weighed about the same as a ten year old child
• Phones had an actual dial, that you had to manually turn with your finger for each digit in a phone number, and you actually had to remember phone numbers
• Loading games into the computer from cassette tapes took forever because you had to play the whole tape to send the game data as audio to the computer
• Betamax losing out to VHS despite being technologically superior because the "adult entertainment video" industry pushed VHS
• Pagers.....

 

[sholbhe]

dunno what the heck your talking abt

 

[stardew_luv]

dunno what the heck your talking abt

That’s because you are still young.

 

[stardew_luv]

Not sure what any of this has to do with Stardew, but certainly relate to all of it and more, things like

• Television screens needing their own table, using up several square feet of floor space, and also they weighed about the same as a ten year old child
• Phones had an actual dial, that you had to manually turn with your finger for each digit in a phone number, and you actually had to remember phone numbers
• Loading games into the computer from cassette tapes took forever because you had to play the whole tape to send the game data as audio to the computer
• Betamax losing out to VHS despite being technologically superior because the "adult entertainment video" industry pushed VHS
• Pagers.....

I should have put this in off topic discussion so maybe a kind mod could please move it for me?

Yes, yes I remember all of these!

I posted this because I was reading a few threads on modding and these members were talking an almost foreign but perfectly English language like it was perfectly normal to speak like that. I was thinking about modding but I’m like nope I’m screwed.

 

[NetworkerC]

Do you ever feel like a complete idiot around all these young people who make IT stuff look like the easiest thing in the world?

I’m kind of a ‘go between’ for Digital, and my own Ops, where I work, and I can assure you it’s not an age thing. Digital did a bog-standard ‘phishing scam’ test recently, and I saw people my age (I’m younger than you) fall for it.

We still had Dial-Up, when I was small. I remember having Sky, and you’d need to dial-in, to play beyond the demo of a game.

Car Phones were bricks? I thought regular phones were bricks. It was pagers before then, right?

King Speed’s looking at me funny again. See you all on PlayJam, after a loop of Shinjuku and the C1.

 

[thatsmetttt]

Do you ever feel like a complete idiot around all these young people who make IT stuff look like the easiest thing in the world? Then you try to do what they suggest and it either doesn’t work at best or destroys what you had at worst? I grew up pre internet and on a new Comadore 64. You booted up a game and went and did something else for a hour and it might be loaded when you got back lol. Floppy disks actually flopped and now they barely have flash drives anymore. You needed multiple computers to do different tasks if you had your own business like my dad did.. We still had and enjoyed typewriters, covering your mistakes with white out was the absolute best. Dot Matrix printers printed each line one at a time and slow as molasses yet so fascinating to watch at the same time. Plus those awesome tear off ends with the holes made the most fascinating toy. When I was in late middle school/early high school we did get home internet but you guessed it, it was dial up made the most horrific but totally unforgettable noise and made your phone line busy as long as you used it. When Google first came out the O’s in the middle kept growing the bigger they got and with more information they had. I remember car phones, which were basically a giant cell phone just for the car. The cell phones were absolutely huge and only for the well to do. I could go on and on. Anyways feeling like a middle aged old fart made me take a trip down memory lane. Hope you enjoyed it. And if you are under 30 you probably have zero clue what I was talking about and read about it in your history books. lol!

im not 40+ (in fact im still 19) but i wanted to share my view as a gen z and show how it feels different to me. i admire your generation so much because yall grew up with tecnology. yall had the chance to follow IT growth. everything i know i learned from 40+ teachers, and i wouldnt be here if it wasnt because of them. when i was born, cellphones were already a thing. by age 7, touchscreen was already a common thing. my generation grew up with cellphones, so many struggle with computers and dont know how they work. i was lucky to have had one, i learned a lot alone too and today i try my best to help those i can.

anyway, dont put yourself down!! im sure you know how to do stuff i have no idea how!!

 

[ThePerfectGarden]

Funny ... I'm older still than most of you (I guess), and to top it all, I grew up in the "socialist camp", in other words under a rock. LOL

So ... we had our first telly (black and white of course and one channel only) when I hit puberty ... we had NO telephones, neither cell nor landline ones - for urgent matters, we had to walk one mile to the nearest telephone box or take the bus to the main post office to post a telegram ... I got my first typewriter (a mechanic one of course) at the age of 18 ... and the first car was an ancient round-sucked Trabant (in common parlance called Walking Aid, Roofed Spark Plug, Running Cardboard) with moss growing inside when I already had two kids. Just imagine - we did write letters! By hand!

First PC in 1998, first internet access in 2001, but that was a huge blessing for me - today I have abysmal handwriting and would be lost without the internet for all my research.

I think IT illiteracy has less to do with age than with specific interest. I haven't found it particularly difficult to get to grips with it, while one of my friends still happens to ask me what a hyperlink is. Even my father became a computer enthusiast in his mid-70s (e. g. playing Crazy Chicken ). When it comes to technical problems, however, it's often as clear as mud for me, so I'm glad to have two IT specialists in the family.

What I will never get used to, however, is the smartphone.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Do you ever feel like a complete idiot around all these young people who make IT stuff look like the easiest thing in the world? Then you try to do what they suggest and it either doesn’t work at best or destroys what you had at worst?

My job is being a translator for those things. I work in IT Customer Service and pretty much need to make <IT thing> not only work but show people who have better things to do with their time how to make it work. During Covid we couldn't directly interact to fix problems directly (frustrating) so I got good at writing instructions that VIPs could follow to fix things.

I grew up pre internet and on a new Comadore 64. You booted up a game and went and did something else for a hour and it might be loaded when you got back lol. Floppy disks actually flopped and now they barely have flash drives anymore.

Same computer for us! We had the cassette drive but no games but had a subscription to Compute! magazine. Big bro would type in the games from there and they would work but the graphics would look like trash as his brain just didn't do that. LOL he thought there was a bug in the graphics system for years but I eventually finagled access to those games (he was possessive) and fixed the visuals.

Oh! I still have a copy of Microsoft Decathalon on an actually floppy 5.25" disk, ©1979. I'm sure all the magnetty things have flaked off by now!

You needed multiple computers to do different tasks if you had your own business like my dad did.. We still had and enjoyed typewriters, covering your mistakes with white out was the absolute best. Dot Matrix printers printed each line one at a time and slow as molasses yet so fascinating to watch at the same time. Plus those awesome tear off ends with the holes made the most fascinating toy.

That HORRIBLE screeching sound! But we put up with it to print a single Print Shop banner before using up all the ink. Our parents just loved us for that!

When I was in late middle school/early high school we did get home internet but you guessed it, it was dial up made the most horrific but totally unforgettable noise and made your phone line busy as long as you used it. When Google first came out the O’s in the middle kept growing the bigger they got and with more information they had. I remember car phones, which were basically a giant cell phone just for the car. The cell phones were absolutely huge and only for the well to do. I could go on and on. Anyways feeling like a middle aged old fart made me take a trip down memory lane. Hope you enjoyed it. And if you are under 30 you probably have zero clue what I was talking about and read about it in your history books. lol!

Heehee we never had a modem or dialup but our cousins did so when they'd come over periodically, big bro would copy their games. I still play games with a keyboard instead of controller to this day because we weren't allowed joysticks. No car phone either though my FIL was one of the first with one in his area though as an MD he kinda needed one.

Not sure what any of this has to do with Stardew, but certainly relate to all of it and more, things like

• Television screens needing their own table, using up several square feet of floor space, and also they weighed about the same as a ten year old child

I recommend not ever having one of those falling on your head and breaking all sorts of things. Waking up in a hospital bed an unknown amount of time later with memory loss is a weird thing but hey I got outta gym class in 2nd grade!

• Phones had an actual dial, that you had to manually turn with your finger for each digit in a phone number, and you actually had to remember phone numbers
• Loading games into the computer from cassette tapes took forever because you had to play the whole tape to send the game data as audio to the computer
• Betamax losing out to VHS despite being technologically superior because the "adult entertainment video" industry pushed VHS
• Pagers.....

Our current house had a rotary dial wall phone in it for years until it just got too inconvenient and in the way. Our landline number has been in service since the late '70s so the pair was a fun connection to the past. No VCRs for us until well after the "video industry" dictated that VHS won. "Be Kind, rewind!"

Funny ... I'm older still than most of you (I guess), and to top it all, I grew up in the "socialist camp", in other words under a rock. LOL

So ... we had our first telly (black and white of course and one channel only) when I hit puberty ... we had NO telephones, neither cell nor landline ones - for urgent matters, we had to walk one mile to the nearest telephone box or take the bus to the main post office to post a telegram ... I got my first typewriter (a mechanic one of course) at the age of 18 ... and the first car was an ancient round-sucked Trabant (in common parlance called Walking Aid, Roofed Spark Plug, Running Cardboard) with moss growing inside when I already had two kids. Just imagine - we did write letters! By hand!

First PC in 1998, first internet access in 2001, but that was a huge blessing for me - today I have abysmal handwriting and would be lost without the internet for all my research.

I think IT illiteracy has less to do with age than with specific interest. I haven't found it particularly difficult to get to grips with it, while one of my friends still happens to ask me what a hyperlink is. Even my father became a computer enthusiast in his mid-70s (e. g. playing Crazy Chicken ). When it comes to technical problems, however, it's often as clear as mud for me, so I'm glad to have two IT specialists in the family.

What I will never get used to, however, is the smartphone.

That bit about IT illiteracy is very key. My FIL was a tech-head since he was a boy on a rural farm in the 1930s. Built a barn-sized grain sorter with his dad by hand so they could sell different grades for different amounts ( Corn and Wheat!), bred different corn strains for higher yield in various weather conditions and won the top 8 places in that category at the County Fair in 1948 (I have a pic of him with the sign commemorating that around it's 50th anniversary). I mentioned the car phone, he was the first person I knew with a Mac and was more than proficient on it in his 80s, replacing parts and fixing problems on it.

It's about familiarity from use and interest. Tech isn't just for young people, it's for interested people just like all other interests. And if you're not an enthusiast, it's because you're an enthusiast about something else that's just as fun. The world's full of great things to be enthusiastic about, pick your fun and have it!

 

[NetworkerC]

My job is being a translator for those things. I work in IT Customer Service and pretty much need to make <IT thing> not only work but show people who have better things to do with their time how to make it work.

127 dot 0 dot 0 dot curious, Lew. How often does ‘give it a hard reboot’ do the trick, when people contact you?

30 seconds on the Power Button, for a Lenovo, Power Button and ‘+’ button, on a Surface Pro.

 

[Lew Zealand]

127 dot 0 dot 0 dot curious, Lew. How often does ‘give it a hard reboot’ do the trick, when people contact you?

Loads of times, way more than it should ...maybe, up to 25% now though many of our users are used to it enough that they try restarting first, avoiding the call altogether. It seems like such a cop-out to request that as I'm not solving anything but if it works then that's the solution.

The 'maybe' is because OSes don't seem to crash out hard any more, instead pieces of it stop working and you'll never notice until you need to use that piece. Could be WiFi on a docked laptop w/Ethernet (lol or the reverse!), PDF conversion, mic, printing. You're doing email and Excel and corp. database searches, but unaware until you need to take that laptop to a meeting to give a presentation that WiFi and mic are out. A common cause of them recently have been pending Windows or Mac updates when the computer is too patient and should just tell you: Restart super right NOW or I'm agonna blow up yer data.

30 seconds on the Power Button, for a Lenovo, Power Button and ‘+’ button, on a Surface Pro.

Pretty much 15 seconds on anything with a power button should do the trick and that includes when your conference room presentation TV crashes. LOL our TVs can crash now, love it! We have finally weaned most people off Surfaces as they've been trouble-prone for us (though Surface 3 was very good) but just recently Dell laptops have tanked quality when before they were just tanks!

 

[FilthyGorilla]

I should have put this in off topic discussion so maybe a kind mod could please move it for me?

Yes, yes I remember all of these!

I posted this because I was reading a few threads on modding and these members were talking an almost foreign but perfectly English language like it was perfectly normal to speak like that. I was thinking about modding but I’m like nope I’m screwed.

The lingo for some stuff goes completely over my head at times too, especially when it comes to modding. It’s something to ease into I’ve seen, taking your time and asking for as much as help as you need.