Entering a career in law enforcement in the late 80's at 26. Up until then I had no clear direction on a career path and was just cruising along making ends meet.

When I was a little kid, it was the moon landing.
Moon rocks at the local library.

When I was 12 the 200 yr celebration of America.
Red White and Blue, Hot Dogs and Hamburgers.

When I started college I heard of Aids for the first time. It was just starting to take hold
It put a damper on things...

Beastie Boys, always on vacation!

Long distance calls were expensive, and there were 'Person to Person' calls so you didn't have to pay that charge if the recipient wasn't there. People used to make a Person to Person call with a fake name to let family know they had arrived somewhere safely.

Then too, you could make a call and 'reverse the charges' and the recipient would get billed for the call ('Toll Calls', as they were known then).

Then there was pumping coins into pay phones over the course of an extended toll call.

Grew up in the 1960s and early 70s, so I'll go with Vietnam (both my older brothers served) and hippies.

quote:

Originally posted by apprentice:

quote:

Originally posted by senza nome:
1620, 1403, 360/18, 1130, the 360 family.

Clever.
Can those of us outside the joke get the decoder please?

I believe those are old computer models. In my case I go back to the 650.

flashguy

The birth of the personal computer. Stayed up way to late writing BASIC programs. I moved from programming COBOL on the IBM 370 mainframe to a PC. I started with the Apple II and moved on the the real IBM PC. The IBM wrecked my check book Fun as hell in those days and I still love writing software today. I'm a pretty lucky guy where I love my profession.

Creepy Crawlers™

Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in

Schwinn Orange Krate™

Frisbees introduced

Slide rules ->pocket calculators in High School

The Frito Bandito

Saturday Morning Cartoons: Pink Panther, Roadrunner, Secret Squirrel, Top Cat, Jetsons

Star Trek, TOS.

In no particular order.

Beatles disbanded
Apollo 13
The 747 Made its first commercial trip
Concorde
Vietnam
US lowers the voting age to 18
Kent State University

Freedom Train pulled into town, we had tickets and got to go on the train for a short ride...
Very cool




Link to original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_svWO97NlA

The Cold War, OPEC embargo, Space Shuttle and the fall of the USSR.

quote:

Originally posted by Bytes:
The birth of the personal computer. Stayed up way to late writing BASIC programs. I moved from programming COBOL on the IBM 370 mainframe to a PC. I started with the Apple II and moved on the the real IBM PC. The IBM wrecked my check book Fun as hell in those days and I still love writing software today. I'm a pretty lucky guy where I love my profession.

I can relate. My first personal PC was a TI "luggable" and I taught myself BASIC on it. I programmed in COBOL for 5 years in USAF and then 26 more years for TI. I got pretty good in COBOL . . . .

flashguy

quote:

What do you associate with your upbringing

Apollo 11, Motown music, AMX/Tyco H.O. slot car races, home made junkyard BMX bikes (before store bought ones), Bruce Lee movies, skateboards (starting with the 1st gen. urethane wheels), backyard keg parties, early punk rock, voting in my first Presidential election (Reagan vs. Carter).

Graduated HS in 66. So blessed to have great parents and growing up partly in the 50's and EARLY 60's. A golden time in America. Todays PC society is absolutely Godless CRAP

quote:

Graduated HS in 66. So blessed to have great parents and growing up partly in the 50's and EARLY 60's.

Graduated college in ‘65.
If you graduated 2 years later, you were sucked into the war protests, drugs, SDS, etc.
Our younger siblings faced that head on; thank God, we did not.
I was actually in the Peace Corps in Africa 1966-68 when the shit hit the fan. Came back to a country I didn’t recognize.

Stylistically my era had something unique....
JNCO jeans
Oh man do I miss having a pair of jeans that could fit a 3 litre bottle of Soda in the back pocket.

I was born in 1948, so I was in the Happy Days era. That all changed when in 1966 at the ripe old age of 17, I joined the Marines.

The Cold War.

The Soviet Union was at its ascendancy. Sputnik was a huge shock. Engineers and scientists were in huge demand. Reinforced my decision to pursue an engineering career.

What made me the person I am was joining the U S Navy at 17 teen.
They fed me three times a day and hauled my ass around the world.Got to play with big toys.
No more beatings from step father or mother and very little to eat even though I worked at a grocery store six days a week and they got my wages.

Friends getting BB and pellet guns for Christmas.
Mattel Vac-u-form toys. Heated plastic sheet until virtually molten and then formed it over a metal mold. For kids.
Chemistry sets for Christmas. Contained multiple things that could kill you.
Wood Burning toys for Christmas. Essentially a 400 degree soldering iron you used to burn wood panels. For kids.
Mattel Thingmaker (AKA Creepy Crawlers)- you poured goop into molds and placed them into a tiny 110v electric oven plugged in the wall. For kids.
Mattel made the best toys ever...
M80 firecrackers. Great physics lesson. For kids.

When I turned 16, government seized our family business property on the Outer Banks (along with many other families) to make the Cape Lookout National Seashore.
If you were politically connected you got a lot of money.
We weren't. Given peanuts in compensation.
Parents tried to fight it in court. We lost. Great civics education.

Was accepted at my college but no funds after that and had to join the Navy at 17. Submarines and Pearl Harbor...

I was born in November of 1979, graduated high school in 1997 and college in 2001. A couple of the more memorable moments for me growing up were the Challenger explosion, Chernobyl, taking down the Berlin Wall, the fall of the Soviet Union, the rise of grunge and the suicide of Kurt Cobain, O.J. Simpson murdering Nicole and the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban and the corresponding GOP takeover of Congress in the aftermath. I remember some of my favorite shows were Airwolf, Knight Rider, The Fall Guy, MacGyver, Hunter, Walker Texas Ranger and the X-Files, along with reruns of Emergency, Adam-12, Dragnet and Star Trek. I actually credit MacGyver for being a major influence on me going to school for engineering. I actually remember practicing “shelter drills” up until 1st grade.

I had a Nintendo and eventually a Sega Genesis video game system and certainly played some video games but nothing like kids today. I remember in the summer myself and my neighborhood buddies would get up, knock on each other’s doors and then spend all day riding bikes, playing baseball, street hockey, basketball, tennis, wall ball, etc. with breaks for lunch and dinner before playing more before dark and then usually finishing the day with a game of flashlight tag. I remember a much more physically active lifestyle. My sports heroes were Don Mattingly, Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, Bo Jackson and Joe Montana. I remember them being well paid and even rich but nowhere near as self important as today’s sports stars.

All in all I feel like I grew up in pretty good times. Perhaps the last of the really good times to grow up in.