Over 40? Let’s Take a Nostalgic Jaunt Down Memory Lane

Join me in the way-back machine for a visit to the forgotten world of analogue

As an English as a Second Language teacher I speak with many people, not only from different countries and cultures, but from vastly different age ranges as well. Some of my favourite conversations are with students younger than twenty as I fill them in on the timeline of technology in my life.

It’s fun to witness the shock and complete disbelief as I casually mention that I only got my first cellphone at the age of twenty-seven. Yes folks, my Nokia 3110 was the best thing that I had ever had in my hand and I glowed with excitement every time I looked at it. “Snake” was the only game that you could play, but play it I did! These young ‘uns are even more astounded when they find out that I had my first experience with the internet at the age of twenty-three.

I’m not sure whether it’s good or bad that these youngsters will never know the awful sound a dial-up connection made as you waited get online, filled with anticipation for what was to come. Neither will they know the frustrated grunt of dissatisfaction as the screeching tones took a little longer to convert our phone lines from that of voice communication to one that brought you all that lovely data.

Come for a wander down memory lane with me to revisit some of our long-lost analogue treasures.

Rotary Phones

Who remembers these lovely contraptions? If you want a good laugh, watch this video of two seventeen-year-olds trying to figure out how they work.

That quick swish of a finger as you pulled down the next number until it hit the metal stopper, then the long wait as the plastic dial made its arduous journey back from whence it came. Did anyone else have to answer the phone by repeating the house number and your name? “548–2305, Vanessa speaking.” Just me?

The sharp trill of the ring could make you sit bolt upright from a dead sleep — no wonder hotel wake-up calls were so popular!

TV

Now it’s not just the youngsters that are amazed when I tell them that South Africa only got TV in 1976, my friends in the US and Canada are also blown away by this little nugget of information. I was three years old when my father brought home our first TV set.

Despite some people believing that in Africa we rode elephants to school, had lions as pets, and had no electricity or running water, life in the 70s was pretty similar to that seen in American sitcoms — we were just a few years behind in broadcasting due to the ban by the Apartheid government. When television was introduced into South Africa, it was only on for four hours a day, two hours at lunchtime and two hours in the evening, alternating between English and Afrikaans programming.

We never got “I Love Lucy” or “Bewitched,” but I was completely addicted to “Growing Pains” and “Who’s The Boss” when I got a little older.

I’ll never forget my parents taking two pyjama-clad girls to the communal lounge at a holiday resort to watch cartoons before bed, afterwards retiring to dream of cats and mice as well as a white duck with no pants.

Cassette & Video Tapes

Remember the Top 40 on a Saturday morning? It was a weekend ritual to sit by the boombox as we waited for the opening bars of a favourite song, our fingers moving at the speed of light to press down on the record button, hoping to miss the DJs introduction for a “pure” version of the tune. A good recording session would play on an endless loop for the rest of the week on our state-of-the-art Sony Walkmans.

For some bizarre reason, we were desperate to hear that Robert De Niro was waiting, talking Italian, or that we needed to wake George Michael up before we “go-go.” Has anyone figured out what a “Karma Chameleon” is? Regardless of the meaning, that song still makes me dance whenever I hear it.

Oh, and let’s not forget using a pencil wind the tape back into the cassette when the boombox decided to eat our favourite compilations for lunch!

“Please be kind, rewind!” was the slogan that could make your toes goes cold as you realized you’d forgotten to do so when returning a video to the store, knowing you were about to lose precious pocket money as punishment. Anyone else spend hours trying to get the VCR to released a tape it was busy chewing? How about throwing a temper tantrum after someone had carelessly recorded over something you wanted to keep, followed by an argument about popping the tabs out.

Surely it couldn’t just have been me!

Pong (TV Tennis)

These youngsters today will never understand being totally enthralled by a game consisting of two lines and a dot, and yet we were. We watched that dot with an eagle-eye as it flew faster and faster between the opposing white lines that were frantically moving up and down the TV screen.

If I’d attended to my never-ending homework with as much concentration, I’d have been an excellent student!

Game Consoles

My family eventually graduated from Pong and upgraded to the latest in game consoles: the ZX Spectrum. Games like Penetrator — yes, I too am astounded that this name slipped past the censors — Adventure A: Planet of Death, and Hungry Horace — which was a glorified version of Pacman — entertained us for hours on end. No matter how futile his mission, I desperately wanted to help Horace get full.

Even if you didn’t have this exact model of 80s console, I’m sure you found yourself playing a text-based game at some point in your youth. Who else remembers being totally captivated by the ugly pixelated fonts that filled the TV screen with instructions to follow?

When you got stuck trying to figure out the answer, you really wanted to tell it what to do in no uncertain terms…

Floppy & Stiffy Discs

At nineteen I bought my first computer, and to be honest, it was nothing more than a very expensive game console. I moved my family up from the ZX Spectrum, which had been retired for quite some years, to DOS-based games on stiffy discs. Those 3.5 inch marvels of modern technology could hold a whopping 1.44 megabytes. Through gog.com I have satiated my desire to revisit my 90s addictions and was able to purchase Crystal Caves and Secret Agent, which I played in any given waking moment at the end of my teen years.

As for the 5.25-inch floppy discs, which at their peak could hold quite a significant 1.2 megabytes, I did write a few documents in the word processing software that came with my Window 3.1 operating system. Possibly cataloguing the few CDs that I had at the time, but mainly writing poetry as an outlet for my tortured teenage angst! Was there anything more satisfying than inserting one of those black squares into the slot on your tower and locking it into place, knowing the excitement that was about to befall you?

But, can I ask: stiffy and floppy? Really 1990s? Couldn’t we get any more phallic?

Rolls of Film

Anyone remember that satisfying click as the last picture was taken? Followed by the hum of the mechanism rolling the film back into its round plastic container. The waiting was torture as our fingers itched to yank the neat little cylinder out of the camera before hurrying to the photo store for processing. Then the endless three or four days that it took to get the pictures back. I was particularly ecstatic when one-hour developing became a thing.

Thankfully, due to the expense of developing rolls and rolls of film, there is not as much photographic evidence of our delinquent behaviours, as there is for them young ‘uns today!

Those of us over forty have lived through what could arguably be considered the biggest technological revolution in history. If I sit and think about it, I’m amazed how far we’ve come over the last thirty years. From the red rotary phone in my home when I was nineteen to the Samsung phone I slip into my pocket now, thirty years have gone a long way. That rotary phone may feel completely inept if it found out that my current phone can book a flight to anywhere in the world, manage my finances, or allow me to watch a volcano erupt in real time thousands of miles away — that’s some amazing progress.

It makes me wonder what the world of technology will look like thirty years from now.

At the risk of sounding like an old woman, I wouldn’t give up my childhood of climbing trees, saving up to buy a record from the record store, renting video tapes, sitting around listening to stories on tapes borrowed from the local library, or playing for hours with a swingball set in the backyard for anything.

Don’t get me wrong, the convenience of modern technology is wonderful and I would be lost without it now, but every so often it’s fun to wander down memory lane to a time when analogue was king.