Providence Journal
09.17.2003
I remember being shocked when typewriters began showing up in antique stores.

It\'s gotten worse.

You can now find early computers there - or in the antiques section of Web sites like Ebay.

It got me thinking about a new definition of old.


Old doesn\'t just apply to those who can remember life before airplanes or television.

You qualify if things you once considered cutting-edge technology are now antiques. Or when the latest trends you swear you embraced just yesterday are things the MTV generation never heard of.

So, today, a list.



You know you\'re getting up there if you remember when:

* Your computer\'s ready-mode was a black screen with a single curser.

* Apple was bigger than Windows.

* Or should I say PCs, since for a while, there was no such thing as Windows.

* There was just \"DOS.\"

* And they were called microcomputers instead of PCs.

* Contrary to free-market theory, your phone choices and bills were much easier because AT&T was a good old-fashioned monopoly.

* There was this amazing new video game called \"Pong.\"

* And you thought it had the most advanced graphics imaginable.

* AOL was just another start-up online service that could easily have lost out to rivals called Compuserve and Prodigy.

* A 20-something guy named Dell came up with the nutty idea of selling computers by mail.

* Jane Fonda went from sex symbol, to feminist activist, to dutiful wife of a powerful man, to obscurity.

* And that powerful man was known not as Ted Turner founder of CNN - but \"Blackbeard Among the Bluebloods\" for winning the America\'s Cup while scandalizing Newport society with raucus behavior.

* And there was no question U.S. sailors would of course win the Cup - forever.

* It was called VD instead of an STD.

* The first true laptop computer was a Radio Shack TRS-80.

* And if you were hip, you referred to it affectionately as a TRASH-80.

* Burning a CD was the act of a pyromaniac.

* Sean Connery was Pierce Brosnan.

* The new walkaround phone that gave you astonishing mobility was a cordless one you could take around the house.

* And it got better reception than the one you can now take all over the country.

* Only wives got alimony.

* Steve Jobs ran Apple. I mean, the first time.

* There was a guy on 60 Minutes named Mike Wallace who was so old you figured he\'d retire at the latest by 1990.

* TheMideast was simpler because Iran was run by a dictator called The Shah, who wanted power rather than Jihad.

* Mail was something you wrote on a piece of paper and put into a stamped envelope.

* And you didn\'t get 110 unsolicited pieces of it every morning promising to enhance your anatomical assets.

* No normal person had speakers on their computer.

* The diners at the next restaurant table were smoking cigarettes and you barely noticed.

* The only thing you knew about Robin Williams was he played a weird alien named \"Mork\" on television.

* A 1-gig hard drive seemed as big as a warehouse. (Today, most are 40-times that.)

* An 8-track tape the size of a paperback book was an advanced concept in compact music recording.

* Everyone knew what an LP was.

And now the final test of whether you\'re getting up there:

* Even though there are plenty of LPs in antiques stores, you still have 400 in your attic, because deep down, you still think the format will come back.