Technology

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Originally Posted by Bigbjorn

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In the late 1940's we lived for a time at the bottom end of New Farm. There were 26 houses in the street. I had to count them for a school project on where I lived. Four had motor cars, two Vanguards, a 1936 Hupmobile, and a pre-war Vauxhall converted into a builders ute. The same number of telephones. When a near neighbour got a washing machine I think every woman in the street went to look. Washing was done in a copper often wood fired out in the back yard. Flash people had a gas copper under the house. Most had ice chests and fridges did not become common until the end of the 50's. There were street lights at tram stops and intersections and none in between.

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In the late 1940s the street I lived in (now suburban Sydney, but pretty rural then) had five houses. Three had cars - a 1923 Ford T, a 1928 Chevrolet 6, and I can't remember the other one, but from the styling, was also 1920s. Relatives that visited us by car had a 1926 Morris Cowley, a mid twenties Rover 9, and a mid twenties Austin Seven. But most visitors arrived by bus, even though it was a good walk to the bus stop.

Very few in Australia could get hold of post-war cars until the very end off the 1940s, and prewar cars remained common well into the 1960s. My best highschool friend was driving a 1934 Ford V8 in 1961 - I remember borrowing it; went like a rocket (for the day), but you needed to plan stops well in advance! Fun in city traffic (I drove it into downtown Sydney).

"Tell that to kids today & they won't believe ya!"

if you are talking computers, I was involved with them early on in Ford. I also did a programming course at Qld Uni in the early 70s. My first experience was with dealer stock printouts on a desk in Qld regional office .
I would take calls from dealers looking for particular specs and direct thenm to other dealers who had stock and also write SIDOs for build.
In about 1970 I was posted to Brisbane plant as the Sales company rep who took the orders(called SIDOs) and scheduled them into production.
IBM cards were punched by operators and to sort them you had to use a giant sorting machine which read them by individual number like a Friden, by say the first digit, then the second and so on.
Copies of the punch cards accompanied the cars along the production line and at each station eg body shop, trim line, Final assembly, rectification the punch card would be entered into the system.

When I later went to Broadmeadows, the computer was a Burroughs 4700 with 64K of memory.
There were 22 input operators in a room at Broadmeadows Plant which housed the mainframe and about 12-16 big Mercury reel to reel tape machines. By this time there was punch tape for production which accompanied the car along the line.

I was the user representative for an enhanced system being introduced and the programmer and I used to go in on the weekend and do dummy runs . It was special being in the room and switching the whole thing on and seeing it come to life. We would then put dummy cars in the system with different conditions , options etc to see if exclusions worked and ascertain any programming loops.
There was a strike at Broadmeadows in about 1975 and the strikers rioted and tried to break into the computer room to disable the machine and cripple the company.
You can now do all that on a watch.
Regards Philip A

Interesting commentary on technology I got in an email from my brother this morning:-

"
When we were small, some cars did not have ignition keys, and some did
not even have a self starter.

As we got older, cars always had ignition keys and a separate starter
button.

Then for many years all (or almost all) cars had a single keyed switch
which both turned the ignition on and off, and operated the starter.

In recent times, some car makers have started keyless systems, where
the car is unlocked or locked, and the engine started or stopped, with
a remote control.

So far this year in the U.S., 36 people have died from carbon monoxide
poisoning when they have driven into an attached garage, closed the
garage door, and gone to bed. Forgetting to stop the engine."

When I started in newspapers the printing presses were hot metal. That's how old I am.

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When I started in newspapers the printing presses were hot metal. That's how old I am

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A few years ago I went to Chillagoe where they had restored a linotype machine.
I was amazed at the complexity and the close tolerances of the machine.
Remember that in 1892 there were no standardized threads but the machine had hundreds if not thousands of screws/nuts and bolts etc.
It was a great reminder that technology existed before computers.
Regards Philip A

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Originally Posted by Bigbjorn

..... Washing was done in a copper often wood fired out in the back yard. Flash people had a gas copper under the house. ......

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Up to about when I was 14, the people next door had a wood fired copper that was actually built into the laundry (roof but no wall) at the back of the house. It had a bench next to it for sorting clothes. When I was about ten, their toddler, Frank, climbed onto the bench while his mother had gone into the house to get another basket of clothes, and sat on the edge of the bench to lower his feet into the copper. He recovered after a few months.

That family seemed to be a bit accident prone with the kids. When I was very small, the father was cutting hay with a horse drawn mower - one of those with an arm about four feet long with reciprocating blades - and their oldest son Spencer (about 5) was running along behind. When they turned the corner at the edge of the paddock, the cutter bar swung backwards. The kid hopped over it as it came back, but it got him on the back of the heel as the mower straightened up. Fortunately cut below the heel bone, leaving his heel pad a flap attached at the front. Again, he recovered, and there was no sign of it by the time I was old enough to notice. But he disdained the "little boys", so we played with the middle son (Tony), who was about a year younger - and disdained playing with Frank!

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Originally Posted by PhilipA

A few years ago I went to Chillagoe where they had restored a linotype machine.
I was amazed at the complexity and the close tolerances of the machine.
Remember that in 1892 there were no standardized threads but the machine had hundreds if not thousands of screws/nuts and bolts etc.
It was a great reminder that technology existed before computers.
Regards Philip A

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In the 1960's I was in a share house with a guy who was a linotype operator. I was a tradesman fitter and turner and earning what I thought was a decent wage. I was stunned to see what the lino guy was paid and he said he could get a lot more if he got on with one of the newspapers setting classified on piecework. Jobs that were tightly held and kept within the newspaper chapels. He worked for a Greek printer in Darlinghurst and set the English language type. He told me he did a six year apprenticeship, 12,000 hours, and had to have a good Senior English pass to be taken on.

There were some amazingly skilled trades in printing. All disappeared within a few short years with computerised technology.

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Originally Posted by JDNSW

I thought it was the 1970s, but I could be confusing it with when my sister's phone became automatic - she was on a party line.

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you may be right , I definitely know that party lines were still the go in the 70's in western NSW.

in 1975 I still had to book a trunk call to talk to Darwin from Broken Hill so I'm assuming manual exchange(s).....Darwin had just been mauled by Tracy so it might have been anything available.

btw, I had a gma(in law) in Caboolture was born in the 19th century and died in the 21st.....she could tell you story or two about technology on the farm.

Having to book a trunk call does not mean that the exchange is manual - could be just the trunk calls.