You Know You Are Old When.....

[Jen]

Talking about the good ol' VCR and the disappointment when the tape broke on your cassettes - made me think it would be fun to reminisce about some of the things that were part of our every day lives growing up. Things that the kids today will never get the fun of experiencing.

My dad bought a satellite dish in the early 80's. One of those huge metal ones. It looked similar to this:

Anytime you wanted to watch a different channel, you had to go outside and turn the crank. Someone would be inside with a walkie talkie telling the person turning the crank when the picture was clear.

Good thing about it is I remember Flash Gordon being on different channels practically 24/7 back then. I can't even count how many times I must have watched it.

 

[Jen]

My dad was always on top of the latest technology back in the day. Oh the fun times we had playing Intellivision. The baseball game was the coolest home video game we had. My dad, brother and I would spend countless hours playing this game. It was soooo cool.

 

[karamazov80]

Damn, your dad was rich! I took a Japanese language distance learning class at my middle school in the mid 1990s, and we watched the class via a satellite channel that used a huge ass satellite dish like that one.

Video tape head cleaners, remember those? They helped sometimes.

We had an Atari 2600 and then a Commodore 64 to play really old school video games on. The NES was so fancy and advanced when it came out. Of course, even as a kid I had all the geeky games like Spider-Man and Star Wars on the Atari, and Hulk on the Commodore.

 

[gibby]

We loved our Intellivision! I think my brother still has it, too.

Loved baseball, bump n jump, donkey kong and of course....pitfall!

 

[BadMoon]

We loved our Intellivision! I think my brother still has it, too.

Loved baseball, bump n jump, donkey kong and of course....pitfall!

Pitfall was the best.

 

[Jen]

Damn, your dad was rich! I took a Japanese language distance learning class at my middle school in the mid 1990s, and we watched the class via a satellite channel that used a huge ass satellite dish like that one.

Video tape head cleaners, remember those? They helped sometimes.

We had an Atari 2600 and then a Commodore 64 to play really old school video games on. The NES was so fancy and advanced when it came out. Of course, even as a kid I had all the geeky games like Spider-Man and Star Wars on the Atari, and Hulk on the Commodore.

I do remember the tape head cleaners.

I remember making my own mix tapes. Recording my favorite songs off of the radio. You had to time it just right so you didn't get any of the DJ talking...but then you always missed out on a few seconds of the songs beginning and ending.

One day I came across the endless cassette tape. That was the best invention ever! I could record my favorite song(s) and it would just keep playing over and over on an endless loop. You never had to flip over the tape. Genius!

 

[Jen]

We loved our Intellivision! I think my brother still has it, too.

Loved baseball, bump n jump, donkey kong and of course....pitfall!

I forgot all about pitfall! That game was awesome. I don't think I ever did very well - but it sure was fun to play.

I remember getting this - in 6th grade, I think. Oh how I loved it. I wish I knew what happened to it. I can't imagine I would ever purposely get rid of it.

 

[Voorhees27]

Omg intellivision Son of a ***** that takes me back. We had a Colecovision before it but intellivision was fun as hell. We had a ton of games but Pitfall, Dugeons and Dragons and Snafu were legendary

Awesome thread, Jen

 

[gibby]

Pitfall was the best.

I forgot all about pitfall! That game was awesome. I don't think I ever did very well - but it sure was fun to play.

I hated those stupid alligators, too.
Every time I would go to jump the darn side button (or was it the numbers?) would stick and I would die.

I remember getting this - in 6th grade, I think. Oh how I loved it. I wish I knew what happened to it. I can't imagine I would ever purposely get rid of it.

I forgot all about those!

 

[hoodonit00]

Damn the lot of you were rich. My parents didn't get a VCR or a DVD player until about 10 years ago. Probably got cable about 15 years ago. Growing up in the late 60's early 70's we had 5 channels. 15, 21, 27, 33, 08. Our antenna was in the basement. The only way to get any kind of picture was to try and adjust the antenna and even then the picture sucked.

 

[Skiman]

My dad was always on top of the latest technology back in the day. Oh the fun times we had playing Intellivision. The baseball game was the coolest home video game we had. My dad, brother and I would spend countless hours playing this game. It was soooo cool.

The controller slip screens would get all bent and messed up while everyone spilled drinks on the circular toggle, they were done for after that....

 

[Darth Waller]

Do you remember this when trying to channel surf? CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK...

 

[karamazov80]

We totally had that, Waller! My mom worked for the Cable company, so we got HBO and everything back in the mid-80s

I forgot all about pitfall! That game was awesome. I don't think I ever did very well - but it sure was fun to play.

I remember getting this - in 6th grade, I think. Oh how I loved it. I wish I knew what happened to it. I can't imagine I would ever purposely get rid of it.

I was a bit younger I guess, and was more into NES-era stuff, but pre-Gameboy I had crap like this:

and this:

I did have this pretty cool throwback to classic arcade games, though:

Anyone else remember Showbiz Pizza. There's a pretty crazy documentary about it and the guys who are still really into it on Netflix.

 

[Uncanny Web-Slinger]

^ OMG we had a TV with a remote similar to that, it would slot into the TV like a tape and pop out and was a huge brick sized thing

 

[Jen]

Do you remember this when trying to channel surf? CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK...

I don't think we ever had one of those. But we did have something similar to this:

I love how it has Space Commander on it.

 

[Darth Waller]

Kids today have it so easy.

 

[Uncanny Web-Slinger]

Kids today have it so easy.

Too easy

 

[automaton]

memories......

 

[Jen]

Anyone else remember Showbiz Pizza. There's a pretty crazy documentary about it and the guys who are still really into it on Netflix.

I grew up in a small town in Idaho. No Showbiz Pizza...Chuckie Cheese's, etc...We did have an arcade though. That was one of the things my dad and I used to do together, when I was a kid. He would give me around $10 in quarters and we would play games for hours. Well he would play for hours...I would play for maybe 30 minutes because I sucked.

 

[Skiman]

Do you remember this when trying to channel surf? CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK...