12/31/2008 8:45:00 AM Ringing in the new year: Dial phones, vinyl records not extinct yet
Kerry McMannis, visiting her parents in Port Townsend, checks out a rotary phone. Some older technologies, such as vinyl records, still have their good points, even from the perspective of 20-somethings. - Photo by Barney Burke
Does technology define your generation?
If you're a baby boomer (born between 1946 and 1964), much of the technology and media you grew up with has been replaced.
Baby Boomer technology
Gen-X, Y or Z technology
Bulletin boards
Craigslist
Face to face
MySpace
Blind dates
Online dating
Town meeting
Online discussion
Rotary phone
iPhone
Phone booth
Blue Tooth
U.S. mail
Email (via Wi-Fi, of course)
Fax
Download
Keeping a journal
Blogging to the world
VHS
DVD, Blue Ray disk
Film camera
Digital camera
Rabbit ears
High-definition TV
Newspapers
Internet
Candid Camera
youtube.com
Hi-Fi
iPod
Checking account
Debit card
Check's in the mail
PayPal payment sent
Garage sale
eBay and Freecycle
Full-service Realtors
Redfin
Gift certificate
Gift card
Wristwatch, calendar
Cell phone
Typewriter
Laptop
Writing easel
PowerPoint
Mug o' Joe
Starbucks to go
Glass of tap water
Bottled tap water
AAA maps
Portable GPS
Encyclopedias
Wikipedia
By Barney Burke, Leader Staff Writer
Can't figure out that new cell phone the kids got you for Christmas? Are the numbers on the buttons a little too small to read? Well, happy new year, baby boomer!
2009 marks the 60th anniversary of the Western Electric Model 500, the iconic rotary phone that was the flagship of phone service from the days when you had no choice but to rent your phone from the phone company - and you had to wait around all day for someone to come and install it for you.
Production of rotary phones based on the Model 500 ceased two years ago, but many boomers still have one hooked up and know how to use it. Designed to minimize maintenance costs, rotary phones are sturdy enough to endure earthquakes, spilled drinks and the occasional slamming down of the receiver. Better yet, voicemail and phone menus don't work with rotary dials.
But rotary phones aren't the only example of an old technology that has some advantages over state-of-the art technology. MP3 has become the primary way to play music, but an MP3 typically contains less than 10 percent of the data on a compact disc, or CD.
And believe it or not, the virtues of vinyl records (which boomers call LPs, or long-playing records) are not lost on young people.
"There's something to be said for the sound quality," says Sarah Fields, 27, who works at Quimper Sound in Port Townsend, Washington's oldest independent record store. "Music is a sensory perception," she says. "Digital has gone to such a level where it's impersonal."
Data from the Record Industry Association of America shows that vinyl sales climbed nearly 37 percent from 2006 to 2007, while CD sales fell nearly 18 percent. Although still a fraction of all music sales, vinyl records are a growing part of Quimper's business, Fields said.
Unlike CDs and MP3, vinyl records have a "tactile, tangible quality," agrees Kerry McMannis, 27, visiting her parents in Port Townsend this week. "The sound is real."
Asked to try out a rotary phone, McMannis spins the dial and recalls how her folks had one when she was 5 or 6 years old. "I know at some point in the last couple of years I've done that motion; it could have been in Panama," she recalls.
McMannis uses a 5-year-old Apple laptop while having coffee at The Boiler Room. It's ancient in computer years, she agrees, but "it's not rotary."
Meanwhile, some of us boomers are clinging to our rabbit ears, dreading the day - Feb. 17, 2009 - when we have to get a digital converter box or a new TV (see http://www.dtv.gov). This could eclipse the demise of eight-track audiotapes in the 1970s.
Oh well, at least we can try to stump 20-somethings with phrases such as "mimeograph machine" (typing on a "stencil" that could make about 50 copies in blue ink, circa 1960), "party line" (well into the 1970s, you could save on your phone bill by sharing the same line with another customer; only one party could use it at a time), and "double-clutch" (an extra step required before cars had fully synchronized transmissions).
Alas, those facebooking 20-somethings can stump boomers with phrases such as "ghost ride the whip" (letting your car creep down the street with no one behind the wheel) and all kinds of text-message abbreviations discernable only to the digerati.
Reader Comments
Posted: Friday, January 02, 2009
Article comment by:
Don Exelby
I'm pretty sure the switch of TV broadcasting from analog to digital is a government conspiracy.... What's 'facebooking'?!?
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