What was once High Tech is now the norm—common-place, unimpressive, hardly worth noticing? 
When I was 14 years old, I got my very own phone in my room. That seemed so unbelievably liberating, and to add to the wonderment of it all, it was a TrimLine phone. How “space-age”!!! This was back when you bought your phone from the phone company, and if memory serves me correctly, the type of phone you got had an effect on your monthly bill. It was less money to have a dial phone instead of one of the ultra-modern push button ones (was “ultra” a word then?) Still, I had bragging rights among my friends—for a short while.
I remember one night while making prank calls, I got a recorded sound of a screeching whistling and whirring followed by some static and beeps. That sound is readily recognized today as the sound of a fax machine, and I am assuming there were fax machines in 1974. I had my friends call that number over and over to listen—was this sounds from outer space?? WOW!!! I wonder WHY a fax makes that sort of sound. Is it a trademarked soundtrack indicating that the fax is connecting, and if so, why was that particular sequence of noises selected? Would the fax work if the sound was that of a duck quacking, an OOOGAH OOOGAH horn, or a voice saying “your message is being transmitted”? Or are those actually the sounds that a facsimile machine naturally makes? And would a person 200 years ago be bewildered hearing those sounds? No doubt, one with a tape recorder playing sounds from the 20th or 21st century to 19th centurions would be declared a witch and burned at the stake.
My super cool pager I had in the early 80s, is a goofy dinosaur today. (Actually, it might be a collector's item.) The latest greatest Motorola flip phone in 1998 was an worthless antique a few years later when the RAZOR phones came out, and now I am waiting for the iPhones to take a backseat to a newer cooler model. The same is true with cars. My 2007 model car does not change in the way it looks but my perception of it changes with the arrivals of the cars from each new model year. But 200 years ago, an older horse was as good as the newer models. They often got better with age, until they got too old. But a horse from 1820 really looked no different than a horse from 1890.
Sometimes I think I was born at the wrong time. I would have made a good 19th century farmer, with only the cares of my crops growing well, and milking the cows. I suppose I would still be murmured about—the guy who should be doing his chores but instead goes RUNNING across the fields and through the woods like he was chasing something. Being proud of blisters and black toenails—might need to keep that on the down-low as well. But the one thing that might be a problem for me living in 1820 would be not being able to have email. Waiting on the pony express mail for my hours of reading about what my friends were eating for lunch night not cut it for me.
When I was 14 years old, I got my very own phone in my room. That seemed so unbelievably liberating, and to add to the wonderment of it all, it was a TrimLine phone. How “space-age”!!! This was back when you bought your phone from the phone company, and if memory serves me correctly, the type of phone you got had an effect on your monthly bill. It was less money to have a dial phone instead of one of the ultra-modern push button ones (was “ultra” a word then?) Still, I had bragging rights among my friends—for a short while.I remember one night while making prank calls, I got a recorded sound of a screeching whistling and whirring followed by some static and beeps. That sound is readily recognized today as the sound of a fax machine, and I am assuming there were fax machines in 1974. I had my friends call that number over and over to listen—was this sounds from outer space?? WOW!!! I wonder WHY a fax makes that sort of sound. Is it a trademarked soundtrack indicating that the fax is connecting, and if so, why was that particular sequence of noises selected? Would the fax work if the sound was that of a duck quacking, an OOOGAH OOOGAH horn, or a voice saying “your message is being transmitted”? Or are those actually the sounds that a facsimile machine naturally makes? And would a person 200 years ago be bewildered hearing those sounds? No doubt, one with a tape recorder playing sounds from the 20th or 21st century to 19th centurions would be declared a witch and burned at the stake.
My super cool pager I had in the early 80s, is a goofy dinosaur today. (Actually, it might be a collector's item.) The latest greatest Motorola flip phone in 1998 was an worthless antique a few years later when the RAZOR phones came out, and now I am waiting for the iPhones to take a backseat to a newer cooler model. The same is true with cars. My 2007 model car does not change in the way it looks but my perception of it changes with the arrivals of the cars from each new model year. But 200 years ago, an older horse was as good as the newer models. They often got better with age, until they got too old. But a horse from 1820 really looked no different than a horse from 1890.Sometimes I think I was born at the wrong time. I would have made a good 19th century farmer, with only the cares of my crops growing well, and milking the cows. I suppose I would still be murmured about—the guy who should be doing his chores but instead goes RUNNING across the fields and through the woods like he was chasing something. Being proud of blisters and black toenails—might need to keep that on the down-low as well. But the one thing that might be a problem for me living in 1820 would be not being able to have email. Waiting on the pony express mail for my hours of reading about what my friends were eating for lunch night not cut it for me.
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