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Generational Images

FloofyNewfie said:
Growing up I had the poor person version of this. Remember these? Can you believe that they STILL make them? I figured they would have stopped when the MP3 Player fad died out in the early 2010s.

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I stuck out with Mini-disc and skipped the cheap MP3 players until these came, I absolutely loved this phone even if it had a stupid headphone connector. It was my first phone with a decent camera too, I think it was 2MP and had a flash.
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Labraguy5 said:
I stuck out with Mini-disc and skipped the cheap MP3 players until these came, I absolutely loved this phone even if it had a stupid headphone connector. It was my first phone with a decent camera too, I think it was 2MP and had a flash.
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I've had many of those old cheapie stick style MP3 players growing up. They were so cheap that you'd often see people giving them out for free. Heck, I even got a U.S. Army flavored one at one point. I think I had to do 15-20 pushups to get it. Lol. They'd usually last for a year and then break.

However my first MP3 phone was the Nokia 6085. And for the time it was one hell of a device! This was back in the days when mobile companies made their own charger ends and there was absolutely no uniformity. To be able to use my own headphones you had to buy a special adapter that plugged into their proprietary charging port. I used it so much that one of the clips broke off of the headphone adapter, so I had to use a rubber band to keep the adapter from falling out of the charging port. I was sad when one day I went to plug it in and it did nothing. No power, no signs of life, nothing. It had a good 3-4 year run though.

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FloofyNewfie said:
However my first MP3 phone was the Nokia 6085. And for the time it was one hell of a device! This was back in the days when mobile companies made their own charger ends and there was absolutely no uniformity. To be able to use my own headphones you had to buy a special adapter that plugged into their proprietary charging port. I used it so much that one of the clips broke off of the headphone adapter, so I had to use a rubber band to keep the adapter from falling out of the charging port. I was sad when one day I went to plug it in and it did nothing. No power, no signs of life, nothing. It had a good 3-4 year run though.
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Nokia pretty much died out and never really came back here in the mid 2000s after Sony Ericsson launched and took over, I think my last Nokia was a 3310. I did hate those proprietary connectors, it was impossible to find a USB cable for them and the software to get them working with a PC. My first "camera" phone was a Sagem X7 and the only way I found to connect it to a PC was with an IR adaptor. And then once you'd messed about with all that, the photos were like 300x300 pixels. ....Actually no they weren't, I found some old photos I still have they were 120x160 pixels, like the size of a stamp :ROFLMAO:

That SE was actually the second phone I had that could play MP3, the one I had before was a Panasonic X700 which took a mini-SD card and could "play" MP3s on paper. But it ran on Symbian OS which crashed all the time and definitely didn't have a chance of playing music. I had to take the battery out so much to reboot it that the battery cover wore out and fell off all the time. Also it was impossible to find headphones for it, it did have bluetooth but the headsets cost a fortune back then....and probably wouldn't work anyway knowing that phone.

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saddlebum66 said:
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Whyforhowcome there's a rubber ducky instead of the indian?!?!?

Edit to add:
Trivia: Prior to the "turn on" of color TV, *EVERYTHING* but the indian on that card (Except for the "Please Stand By" that somebody has supered onto it) had a specific purpose. It was used to align the image on the tube in several ways, and even served to test whether the modulation of the signal was correct (the black bars would cause ringing/buzzing/whining in the audio section if the modulation was off, as well as their primary purpose of being places to take measurements (with a pair of calipers held against the screen) that would indicate if the image was set to the correct width)

Any problems with the image due to poor alignment of the TV set would show up as measurable distortions in the various circles and lines, and which one was distorted which way would tell a good TV tech what sections of the circuitry driving the picture tube was out of adjustment, and even give an idea of "which way" (too high or low of a setting) it was off, and by how much.

Once color TV became a real thing, the indian, which previously had been little more than an afterthought (though it was sometimes used as a quick-n-dirty "looks OK, hand it back to the customer"/"looks like something's hosed, tag it for further evaluation" indicator) the indian's headdress tested the color-burst signal.

Even the grey background was part of the testing. When certain parts of the drive circuitry were on the fritz, the grey would flicker, become black (or as black as a TV screen can display), or just plain vanish entirely.

Which was why it came to be called "The Test Pattern".

And now you know...

The Rest of the Story!
 
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Spoon-sized Shredded Wheat around 1959....The character on the box was a spoonsitter. I had a red one. The Walking Robot was one of a number of walkers that were often cereal box premiumsFB_IMG_1689192188255.jpgFB_IMG_1689192182442.jpg
 
UR20Z said:
Whyforhowcome there's a rubber ducky instead of the indian?!?!?

Edit to add:
Trivia: Prior to the "turn on" of color TV, *EVERYTHING* but the indian on that card (Except for the "Please Stand By" that somebody has supered onto it) had a specific purpose. It was used to align the image on the tube in several ways, and even served to test whether the modulation of the signal was correct (the black bars would cause ringing/buzzing/whining in the audio section if the modulation was off, as well as their primary purpose of being places to take measurements (with a pair of calipers held against the screen) that would indicate if the image was set to the correct width)

Any problems with the image due to poor alignment of the TV set would show up as measurable distortions in the various circles and lines, and which one was distorted which way would tell a good TV tech what sections of the circuitry driving the picture tube was out of adjustment, and even give an idea of "which way" (too high or low of a setting) it was off, and by how much.

Once color TV became a real thing, the indian, which previously had been little more than an afterthought (though it was sometimes used as a quick-n-dirty "looks OK, hand it back to the customer"/"looks like something's hosed, tag it for further evaluation" indicator) the indian's headdress tested the color-burst signal.

Even the grey background was part of the testing. When certain parts of the drive circuitry were on the fritz, the grey would flicker, become black (or as black as a TV screen can display), or just plain vanish entirely.

Which was why it came to be called "The Test Pattern".

And now you know...

The Rest of the Story!
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The Duck might have been an addition by a joker, or it could have been a copyright issue....Its hard to know since the guys who designed all that crap are long gone from these shores. I used test patterns for a Sociology project 12 years ago, along with a written memoir of 1960....I was truly astonished at how few people had any kind of clue to the patterns OR my referents.

They're still testing, I reckon
 
Sony-Ericsson P910 from around 2002
Used in the 007 movie “Die another day “
Pressure sensitive screen. More features when the flap was opened.
Worked for years until one day it locked, no access possible. Some years later I found an explanation from a technician about how to do a total reset by a complicated series of button presses. So now it works in production settings, that is English and only the preinstalled aps. No update is possible anymore.
I have kept it to use in an emergency.
AD5DABED-A744-4B22-A9F3-D57EE4AE3FF2.jpeg2C4C1F61-E3AF-4E62-8EE8-EBA6DC0E8715.jpeg
 
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humananimal said:
Sony-Ericsson P910 from around 2002
Used in the 007 movie “Die another day “
Pressure sensitive screen. More features when the flap was opened.
Worked for years until one day it locked. Some years later I found a note from a technician explaining how to do a total reset. So now it works in English. No update is possible anymore. View attachment 426408View attachment 426409
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I miss having a physical keyboard, the Blackberry ones felt so satisfying. A start up company was planning to bring out a 5G Blackberry Android slider phone with a keyboard but it looks like it's cancelled now.
 
These were a thing as " One Word: Plastics" took over the World. This was a semi-liquid plastic that could be put on the straw and blown into a durable bubble. Not at all sure they were safe, as soft plastics usually have a petrochemical in them that never completely plasticizes. That means its on your hands and in your clothing. Given the incredible reception of Teflon in its earlies, and the equally incredible rejection of such materials retroactively today, Id bet a dollar to a donut hole, it's a carcinogen.FB_IMG_1689112415943.jpg
 
saddlebum66 said:
These were a thing as " One Word: Plastics" took over the World. This was a semi-liquid plastic that could be put on the straw and blown into a durable bubble. Not at all sure they were safe, as soft plastics usually have a petrochemical in them that never completely plasticizes. That means its on your hands and in your clothing. Given the incredible reception of Teflon in its earlies, and the equally incredible rejection of such materials retroactively today, Id bet a dollar to a donut hole, it's a carcinogen.View attachment 426857
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Depending on the brand, they used a mixture of Acetone (Nail polish remover), Methyl (AKA "Wood") Alcohol, and MEK (Methyl Ethyl Ketone - AKA Auto-body paint thinner. HIGHLY toxic. Outright banned by some states nowdays, it's so hazardous to mess with - forms explosive mixes with air at any excuse, then oozes into low spots looking for a spark to trigger a hellish KABOOM) sometimes with some Xylene (fairly rare) and Toulene (Think "Testor's Model Cement") thrown in for "flavor". Just the scent of the stuff should have been a giveaway that it was about as safe as playing Russian Roulette with six holes filled!
 
UR20Z said:
Depending on the brand, they used a mixture of Acetone (Nail polish remover), Methyl (AKA "Wood") Alcohol, and MEK (Methyl Ethyl Ketone - AKA Auto-body paint thinner. HIGHLY toxic. Outright banned by some states nowdays, it's so hazardous to mess with - forms explosive mixes with air at any excuse, then oozes into low spots looking for a spark to trigger a hellish KABOOM) sometimes with some Xylene (fairly rare) and Toulene (Think "Testor's Model Cement") thrown in for "flavor". Just the scent of the stuff should have been a giveaway that it was about as safe as playing Russian Roulette with six holes filled!
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Yeah...My old man used to used MEK for starting fires....til an 'empty' went up.
 
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saddlebum66 said:
He's back?
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Never been gone that I've noticed - just not getting advertised as heavy as back in the day. Can't think of anyplace I've been where you couldn't find a bottle of Mr. Clean in the same aisle with the Pine-Sol, Comet, and Spic-n-Span. Who remembers this one?

Janitor in a Drum, 1970's | Roadsidepictures | Flickr


Wonder if it's still around? Can't recall seeing it lately.
 
UR20Z said:
Never been gone that I've noticed - just not getting advertised as heavy as back in the day. Can't think of anyplace I've been where you couldn't find a bottle of Mr. Clean in the same aisle with the Pine-Sol, Comet, and Spic-n-Span. Who remembers this one?

Janitor in a Drum, 1970's | Roadsidepictures | Flickr's | Roadsidepictures | Flickr


Wonder if it's still around? Can't recall seeing it lately.
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Never seen it here on this side of the Atlantic Ocean
 
I remember it, and given the brand, it had some of the same ingredients as Formula 409, but definitely not the Chickie thst advertized the 409, Lori Saunders.
 
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