Reddit user motivetodayy asked:
"People born before 1980, What are some obsolete household items or gadgets from your childhood that younger generations may not even recognize?"
TV Tech
"Those GIANT projection TVs the size of a closet that only looked good if you were sat in the EXACT right spot. That one kid whose parents let him hook up his Nintendo to it was king."
"The same family probably had one of those satellite dishes in their back yard that were absolutely massive and made your house look like you were trying to spy on the Russians."
- nailbunny2000
How To Keep In Contact
- fidelkastro
"Wow, you just brought back some memories of me playing with one of these as a kid!"
- ajlm
"I worked for a large, billion dollar company in 2007 and the CEO/founder, 70+, who I had to meet with occasionally, insisted on having that exact phone book. He had a computer on his desk, and an executive assistant, and still HAD to have that mechanical phone book to access his phone numbers. Much to the dismay of the office manager when his old one wore out. By god, she found one. Edit for detail."
- -mopjocky-
"We still use this where I work...."
"And we are the ones supplying the natural gas to your homes and businesses. Till next time"
- braize6
Party Lines
"Phone lines that you share with a few neighbors. It was called a party line. Don't confuse this with the party line of the 90s where people could in a talk with several strangers at one time."
- Cultural_Standard_58
"I remember these! Knowing what series of rings was your phone number, and picking up quietly when the old ladies up the road were gossiping lol"
- cinkiss
GiphyPause So You Don't Get The Commercials
"The VCR recording clicker to pause the recording during commercials."
"Single button with a long cord to the VCR"
- queuedUp
Be Kind, Rewind — With Your Model Car
"VHS rewinder. Ours was shaped like a race car. Be kind, rewind."
- EddieRando21
"Ours was a red sports car!"
- fire_fairy_
"Whoever started the rumor that rewinding videos ruined your VCR made a lot of money in the late 80s."
- Peemster99
"My memory was that it took 10 minutes in the VCR player. Not in the Race Car Rewinder though."
- postmaster15
Home Intercoms
"The house I grew up in had an intercom system."
- Geek_off_the_streets
"Yep, wired intercom systems that could also play AM and FM music to all the rooms were a big fad in 1970s new home construction"
- Xyzzydude
The Origin of CC
"An actual carbon sheet that was placed between two sheets of paper to carbon copy the bottom paper from the top paper."
- tranquilseafinally
"Fun fact, this is where 'cc:' on emails comes from. ('bcc' is blind carbon copy, since the recipient can’t see other recipients.)"
- vandezuma
"And that's how I learned to copy my mother's signature on to bad school stuff."
- MickCollins
Smoking Was Everywhere
"‘Floor model’ ashtrays. Short stands that sat on the floor, and the top was an ashtray. Back in the day when people would just walk into your house and fire up a dart without asking, and nobody thought twice about it."
"The only place you didn’t smoke was in church."
- Joseph_Bloggins
"My Grandparents had ashtrays with places to hold cigarettes, when I asked, my mom said it was normal to provide cigarettes at parties, along with alcohol and food. 1950s and 1960s"
- Jbruce63
"No one in our family smoked, but we had a stash of ashtrays Mom would have us set out for company."
- mustbethedragon
"Remember the ones where you push a button and the floor of it hinges open to dump all the ash and butts into a compartment below?"
- GozerDGozerian
GiphyErgonomics Are Important
"A neck phone holder."
- modshavenopenis
"Those things always drove me nuts, it seemed like they were always made for giant people."
- Rokhnal
"We have these at my work for employees who have to spend a lot of time on the phone - though now that I think of it, maybe everyone's transitioned to headphones. Hmm."
- froglover215
"Grandma had one of these all throughout my childhood. I never "got" it until I hit 40...."
- Glum_Time3479
Milk Doors
"A milk chute built into our house. The milk man would leave the milk in the chute in the morning from the outside and we would pick it up from the inside."
"I am beginning to believe that this is a good idea again, albeit with a good sturdy lock on the inside door, so packages and food deliveries can be left out of sight but available to the homeowner from the inside. If I were building a house now, I would add that in to the plans."
- aeraen
"I would love to just have the whole fresh milk delivery thing again."
- dblshot99
"Growing up, our house had a milk chute. Never had milk deliveries, but we had cats."
"The milk chute became the cat door, which they learned and taught each other to open. Came in handy for when I'd lock myself out of the house."
- residentialnemesis
"I could contort my upper body through ours since I’d forget my keys a lot and could open the back door. Ah the latchkey days I remember them so fondly."
- raylab810
GiphySo Many Antennae
"My six year old daughter and I were walking through the parking lot of Auto Zone and she started laughing pointing at this like early 90s truck that had an old, aerial antenna sticking three feet out of the car hood and started laughing:"
'"Daddy that car has a whisker! It has a kitty whisker!'"
"She'd never seen an old antenna like that before."
- SeaTie
"My dad had a Mercedes back in the day and when you started the car, the antenna would extend up."
- lzwzli
"Now there’s no where for an antenna ball. Makes me sad."
- jburton24
Video Games Were Very Different
"Computer games that were loaded on cassette tapes"
- PrincessTusi
"Even before the cassette tape, they’d publish the games’ code in a magazine and you’d have to type it all in without any mistakes. No editor. No debugger."
- sapientia-maxima
"R…U.…N Enter. And pray to god you didn’t miss a colon somewhere"
- LadyGreyNoJoy
Mr. Yuck
"Mr. Yuck"
- Bmc00
"Child safety: Should we lock up these absolutely lethal chemicals? Nah, let's just put this green sticker on them!"
"This is also why the number for poison control was always on the first page of a telephone book, and often written as one of the emergency numbers on your telephone."
- MrHyde_Is_Awake
"As of a few years ago, you could still contact your local poison control office and request a sheet of these."
- ThatsABunchOfCraft
Analog Doorbell
"A doorbell that uses pipes to make sound. Most contemporary doorbells are just a box on your wall, a buzzer, or an app. That's if you even have a doorbell."
- Sigseg
"We would switch the pipes around at my friend’s house. It would drive his mum mad when the doorbell would ring and the time was all wrong."
- badpuffthaikitty
What now-obsolete technology did you grow up with that you think the young people around you would be confused by?
