Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Things kids don't recognize anymore...



When was the last time you used onion skin with carbon paper?  What the heck is that, you thirtysomethings-and-under may ask?

Back in the good old days, well before Commodore and Atari broke down the doors for personal computers, before pagers, brick phones and then "new" flip phones broke down the doors for smart phones, before Hewlett Packard became the go-to choice for printers, and before Xerox became a generic word for copier, there were these noisy things called typewriters (many were made by Remington) on almost every desk in the office.

You typed on a keyboard, just like today, but the keys were linked by mechanism to long "arms" with letters at the end.  Very noisy when those arms hit the paper, which was on a hard-rubber roller and it moved as you typed.  At the end of the line, you then hit a return bail with your hand, and manually advanced one line/moved the roller back to the beginning position.  More noise.    You can most likely see one of these at nearly any antique store these days...

How would you make a copy of that letter for your file?  And one for your boss in Paducah?  Remember, there was no Xerox.  You went to the shelf, picked up two sheets of onion skin (very thin, almost transparent paper, like the outer skin of an onion - great for sending via air-mail, which doesn't exist anymore either), and two sheets of carbon paper (thin paper backed on one side with lightly-bonded carbon.  Very messy.)  Stacking the paper properly with letterhead paper on top, a piece of carbon paper facing carbon side down, a piece of onion skin, then another piece of carbon paper facing carbon side down, and the last piece of onion skin.  Roll it into the typewriter, with the letterhead facing up,  and go ahead with typing your memo. 

Woe betide you if you made a mistake...there was no easy way to correct carbon copies (remember, no white-out yet, nor any correction key!)  You simply tear the whole thing out, crumple everything up, and start over.  (No recycling yet...just throw it in the garbage!)  Be careful, don't make any more mistakes...    Need to calculate some figures to use in your memo?  Remember, there are no calculators as we know them.  Adding machines multiplied by repeat addition. 103 x 6 calculated very clumsily as 103+103+103+ 103+103+103.   Ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-CLUNK.

I can remember on Saturdays, playing with the "calculators" at Dad's office, huge old things that had gears and made all sorts of noise.  One thing for sure, Dad (the manager) could always tell when his employees were working, from the din in the office...and nobody was talking!  At the time (early to mid-1950's), this was advanced technology, since you didn't have to write figures down and do the math manually. 

Even a slide rule was considered "high tech" - for those privileged few who knew how to use one.

Just a little refresher course about "the way it used to be..." back in the halcyon days!

More later,

Mandy




4 comments:

  1. Long...long...time ago...I can still remember.
    In high school we all learned how to use a slide rule. At first it seemed to defy logic but after a while it became a useful too.

    In college statistics we had those monster calculator machines that seemed to roll on forever. You are not kidding about the racket. The professor had a heavy Indian accent so I did not understand a word he had to say but I remember in the front of the Statistics textbook was the phrase "Figures never lie...liars sometimes figure". Go figure.

    When I started in the work force in the late 1970s our reports needed multiple copies and these were color coded with pink onion skins, green onion skins, beige, etc. We even had matching pink, green, beige white out. We would dictate our work and our secretary would type out a double spaced draft. You made your changes on the draft once and hope you got it right. The secretary would then type the report or memo in final using the rainbow of onion skins. If you needed to make changes at that point in time you were taking your life in your hands.

    Speaking of white out did you know that 'Liquid Paper' the proper name for white out, was invented by Bette Nesmith, the mother of Mike Nesmith of the Monkees. She sold the rights to the product to Gillette in 1979 for $47Million.

    Pat

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    Replies
    1. What brought all this to mind was finding some pictures taken in Dad's old office. Good memories, for sure, as Dad passed away almost 20 years ago - to the day.

      It was a fun way to remember him...

      Mandy

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  2. This is a tough time of year. I lost my dad 40 years ago mid December. Sad to see him passing at an age that is now well within my own rear view mirror.
    Pat

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    Replies
    1. And it will always be thus. It's easy to remember Pearl Harbor Day...both for the "day that will live in infamy" and the day my Dad passed.

      At least they're both in a better place now...

      Mandy

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