One for those over a certain age

[lowdrag]

I was given my first motor bike, a Sun 98cc 2-speed, then I inherited one of the first MOT failures, an E-type. Well, a Morris series E to be more precise. I paid £10 for my Austin 7, and cars and bikes I've had since I sold for peanuts, like an M1 Beemer and a Beezer Gold Star for £40. I bought petrol at 4/6d a gallon, I paid £2 10/- to see the Stones and £3 10s to see the Beatles. Domino cigarettes were sold with a paper around the five for 6d. We all carried Swan Vestas matches because we could strike them on the wall. 10-pin bowling was £1 for three frames. My first pint was 11d. Three brown and milds were 5/-. I remember ITV starting. I saw my first colour TV in London at a friend's house in 1967 and the parents had paid £379 for a 21 inch screen. my first wage was £300 p.a in Cheapside with a phenomenal £30 p.a. London weighting on top. We were paid monthly in cash rounded to the nearest 10/-. I was sent home because I wore a red tie to work and a half day's wage deducted. My boss wore a bowler and carried a brolly. Digs in Brixton - half board - were £3 10/- p.w.

Ah well..............

[Biker's Nemesis]

School bag then work bag.

[Dog Star]

Biker's Nemesis said:

School bag then work bag.

I had one of those! Ex army.

Lowdrag - loved your post.

[Gunk]

Dog Star said:

Biker's Nemesis said:

School bag then work bag.

I had one of those! Ex army.

Lowdrag - loved your post.

All of us born in the 1960’s had one of them for school.

[eldar]

AstonZagato said:

Oh yes. Black and White Minstrel show (most popular show on TV at the time but a WTF from me, even back then). Mind Your Language, unfunny lazy racism.

Lenny Henry had his first acting job with the B&W minstrels, the stage version, in 1975.

[227bhp]

Gunk said:

Dog Star said:

Biker's Nemesis said:

School bag then work bag.

I had one of those! Ex army.

Lowdrag - loved your post.

All of us born in the 1960’s and 70s had one of them for school.

EFA. With your favourite band written on it in black marker or Tippex.



Watching 'I spit on your grave' on a friends Betamax VCR.

[motco]

lowdrag said:

I was given my first motor bike, a Sun 98cc 2-speed, then I inherited one of the first MOT failures, an E-type. Well, a Morris series E to be more precise. I paid £10 for my Austin 7, and cars and bikes I've had since I sold for peanuts, like an M1 Beemer and a Beezer Gold Star for £40. I bought petrol at 4/6d a gallon, I paid £2 10/- to see the Stones and £3 10s to see the Beatles. Domino cigarettes were sold with a paper around the five for 6d. We all carried Swan Vestas matches because we could strike them on the wall. 10-pin bowling was £1 for three frames. My first pint was 11d. Three brown and milds were 5/-. I remember ITV starting. I saw my first colour TV in London at a friend's house in 1967 and the parents had paid £379 for a 21 inch screen. my first wage was £300 p.a in Cheapside with a phenomenal £30 p.a. London weighting on top. We were paid monthly in cash rounded to the nearest 10/-. I was sent home because I wore a red tie to work and a half day's wage deducted. My boss wore a bowler and carried a brolly. Digs in Brixton - half board - were £3 10/- p.w.

Ah well..............

Weren't Weights and Woodbines in fives, but Dominos in fours? Otherwise, you're me! Except I got £4 14s 6d a week in Perivale, at Hoover's Oh, and mine was a Series M

[Bluedot]

227bhp said:

EFA. With your favourite band written on it in black marker or Tippex.



Watching 'I spit on your grave' on a friends Betamax VCR.

Both of these

[FiF]

98elise said:

Wacky Racer said:

motco said:

I kept my 1979-bought piano key Ferguson going for years. It needed a new lamp in the tape end sensor and eventually a drive belt. Mine had only two buttons on the bottom left where that one has four. Built like the proverbial brick outhouse and far more rugged than its successor. I have machine number four still powered up (JVC) and 90 tapes in a cardboard box - some tapes never watched since recorded in a fit of enthusiasm back in those heady days!

I bought one of these "Piano key" Ferguson VHS recorders in 1977, it cost £575 with WIRED remote control.

Probably around £2500 today.

Asda were selling new VHS videos several years back for £40.

I remember buying my first VHS for £299 thinking they could never be cheaper than that!

I remember buying my first scientific calculator, well scientific is stretching a point, but it could do a little bit more than add and subtract etc. It cost me a weeks wages from my summer job, they'll never be cheaper than that I thought.It had a red led display.

Then when I was in my first proper job after uni, one of the offices had a desk calculator where the number display was from a series of incandescent bulbs which had multiple filaments shaped into the numbers. I pulled out my Hewlett Packard, a newer version of the one referenced above, and started to use that, I think the old timers thought I'd landed from Mars.

[nicanary]

FiF said:

98elise said:

Wacky Racer said:

motco said:

I kept my 1979-bought piano key Ferguson going for years. It needed a new lamp in the tape end sensor and eventually a drive belt. Mine had only two buttons on the bottom left where that one has four. Built like the proverbial brick outhouse and far more rugged than its successor. I have machine number four still powered up (JVC) and 90 tapes in a cardboard box - some tapes never watched since recorded in a fit of enthusiasm back in those heady days!

I bought one of these "Piano key" Ferguson VHS recorders in 1977, it cost £575 with WIRED remote control.

Probably around £2500 today.

Asda were selling new VHS videos several years back for £40.

I remember buying my first VHS for £299 thinking they could never be cheaper than that!

I remember buying my first scientific calculator, well scientific is stretching a point, but it could do a little bit more than add and subtract etc. It cost me a weeks wages from my summer job, they'll never be cheaper than that I thought.It had a red led display.

Then when I was in my first proper job after uni, one of the offices had a desk calculator where the number display was from a series of incandescent bulbs which had multiple filaments shaped into the numbers. I pulled out my Hewlett Packard, a newer version of the one referenced above, and started to use that, I think the old timers thought I'd landed from Mars.

This is all space-age stuff. I joined a bank as my first job, and this is what we had as an adding-machine. A Burroughs, with a handle to pull after every entry. I usually didn't bother. It was quicker to add up in my head (people could do that back in those days).

[GetCarter]

My first weeks wages (all of it) went on the tech wizz that was a clock radio (1974). This one to be precise:

[nicanary]

Biker's Nemesis said:

School bag then work bag.

Used to get mine from Milletts (remember them?). Every year I got a new one of these, because after a school year I'd lost or broken most of the contents.

[motco]

FiF said:

I remember buying my first scientific calculator, well scientific is stretching a point, but it could do a little bit more than add and subtract etc. It cost me a weeks wages from my summer job, they'll never be cheaper than that I thought.It had a red led display.

Then when I was in my first proper job after uni, one of the offices had a desk calculator where the number display was from a series of incandescent bulbs which had multiple filaments shaped into the numbers. I pulled out my Hewlett Packard, a newer version of the one referenced above, and started to use that, I think the old timers thought I'd landed from Mars.

The display on those early desk-top calculators was Nixie tubes - see the picture below



In my office we had an example of the first calculator to offer single-key square root extraction, an Anita 1021 a bit like this lower model the 1011:



It cost about £700 in the early nineteen seventies which is a huge amount even now but extrapolated up to today's value it's about £9,000

[p1esk]

eldar said:

AstonZagato said:

Oh yes. Black and White Minstrel show (most popular show on TV at the time but a WTF from me, even back then). Mind Your Language, unfunny lazy racism.

Lenny Henry had his first acting job with the B&W minstrels, the stage version, in 1975.

The Black & White Minstrels used to appear in summer season shows at the Futurist Theatre in Scarborough: I think that would have been in the 1960s/1970s. Does anybody else remember John Boulter, Dai Francis and Tony Mercer?

[Bluedot]

[nicanary]

p1esk said:

eldar said:

AstonZagato said:

Oh yes. Black and White Minstrel show (most popular show on TV at the time but a WTF from me, even back then). Mind Your Language, unfunny lazy racism.

Lenny Henry had his first acting job with the B&W minstrels, the stage version, in 1975.

The Black & White Minstrels used to appear in summer season shows at the Futurist Theatre in Scarborough: I think that would have been in the 1960s/1970s. Does anybody else remember John Boulter, Dai Francis and Tony Mercer?

Oh yes. My mum fancied John Boulter, although how she could tell what he really looked like is beyond me. Wasn't Tony Mercer the plump one?

Billy Cotton's Band Show always had a sultry singer every week. Remember Alma Cogan?

[nonsequitur]

GetCarter said:

My first weeks wages (all of it) went on the tech wizz that was a clock radio (1974). This one to be precise:

Sonny and Cher......Its Groundhog Day!

[p1esk]

motco said:

FiF said:

I remember buying my first scientific calculator, well scientific is stretching a point, but it could do a little bit more than add and subtract etc. It cost me a weeks wages from my summer job, they'll never be cheaper than that I thought.It had a red led display.

Then when I was in my first proper job after uni, one of the offices had a desk calculator where the number display was from a series of incandescent bulbs which had multiple filaments shaped into the numbers. I pulled out my Hewlett Packard, a newer version of the one referenced above, and started to use that, I think the old timers thought I'd landed from Mars.

The display on those early desk-top calculators was Nixie tubes - see the picture below



In my office we had an example of the first calculator to offer single-key square root extraction, an Anita 1021 a bit like this lower model the 1011:



It cost about £700 in the early nineteen seventies which is a huge amount even now but extrapolated up to today's value it's about £9,000

Shortly before I left the chemical industry in 1972 we got a desktop calculator for the office - I think it was a Busicom 162, and that had the Nixie tubes. I don't know exactly what it cost, but I think it was several hundred quid.

...and then only about five years later we could buy a hand-held Casio that had trig. functions, and a load of scientific stuff - all for about £20. I still use a Casio 'COLLEGE fx-100' that I've had for above 20 years.

[FiF]

p1esk said:

motco said:

FiF said:

I remember buying my first scientific calculator, well scientific is stretching a point, but it could do a little bit more than add and subtract etc. It cost me a weeks wages from my summer job, they'll never be cheaper than that I thought.It had a red led display.

Then when I was in my first proper job after uni, one of the offices had a desk calculator where the number display was from a series of incandescent bulbs which had multiple filaments shaped into the numbers. I pulled out my Hewlett Packard, a newer version of the one referenced above, and started to use that, I think the old timers thought I'd landed from Mars.

The display on those early desk-top calculators was Nixie tubes - see the picture below



In my office we had an example of the first calculator to offer single-key square root extraction, an Anita 1021 a bit like this lower model the 1011:



It cost about £700 in the early nineteen seventies which is a huge amount even now but extrapolated up to today's value it's about £9,000

Shortly before I left the chemical industry in 1972 we got a desktop calculator for the office - I think it was a Busicom 162, and that had the Nixie tubes. I don't know exactly what it cost, but I think it was several hundred quid.

...and then only about five years later we could buy a hand-held Casio that had trig. functions, and a load of scientific stuff - all for about £20. I still use a Casio 'COLLEGE fx-100' that I've had for above 20 years.

To be frank I was shocked when I found one of those out of the ark Nixie tube desktop things was regarded as the bees knees, when a few months before I'd been programming a small desktop calculator using machine code simply to do the heavy repetitive number crunching for my thesis, and now carried a pocket calculator capable of blitzing both of them.

[NDA]

nicanary said:

Used to get mine from Milletts (remember them?). Every year I got a new one of these, because after a school year I'd lost or broken most of the contents.

Good shout.

I had this kit - or something almost identical.