your resume of "obsolete" skills

[Cybrvanr]

I'm only 33 years old, but being that I'm in the high-technology field of audiovisual equipment and electronics, I've found I have accumulated a rather large list of skills related to my job that just aren't needed anymore, or are rarely needed today. Here's a few of mine:

Carbon-arc "changeover" movie projection system operation

Servicing and upkeep of 16mm film equipment

"cross-fade" slide projector programming and setup.

Color convergence of "triad" style picture tube televisions, and other tube-television adjustment/alignment

Turntable cartridge geometry adjustment

Magnetic tape bias and other recording adjustments

Tape head alignment, belt replacement & other magnetic media equipment servicing.

Vacuum tube matching and amplifier bias adjustments

fully experienced using command-line DOS operations on a computer

can program machine language for a Commodore 64

Due to my enjoyment of working with vintage equipment, I ended up acquiring skills that very few people of my age are experienced with. This has helped me occasionally in my career, as I am one of a few people who can perform some of these tasks, but they won't make or break my career. It's interesting however that as I was younger, and the equipment was more common, I figured it would always be around, and learning the inner depths of it's workings would be imperative for a career in the desired field. Ultimately, as I have become very skilled in my profession, I have had to learn totally new tasks, but experience in the way it used to be done has helped me learn the new equipment, like LCD monitors, etc.

What are some of your "obsolete" skills, either appliance related, electronics, or other field.

 

[sudsmaster]

Oh, it's probably a long list. I did the DOS thing, as well as Netware... which is now finally on its last legs. I was in I for about 15 years, and got rather disillusioned as the OS wars heated up, the internt viruses and worms took hold, and the endless combinations of errors that fools can commit. Towards the end I was designing Windows 2000 server systems and Active Directory architecture. I got out of IT back in 2003, and decided to become a CNC machinist. Still get to use computers and do a type of programming called G-Code, but it has very real results which I like. While I'm no Luddite, I get by just fine without a pager or a cell phone. My work PC is running Windows 98 - recently upgraded to SE . Yeah, I know, but it's not my call, and it works well enough for the job at hand.

It's only obsolete if nobody enjoys it or nobody can make any money with it... lol...

 

[maggie~hamilton]

DOS 1.0 ~ 6.22
PaintShop Pro
Ventura Publisher
Gem Draw
Wordstar
And all the other ancient software I cut my teeth on!

---

Operating and repairing Mimeographs and Spirit Duplicators

---

I guess that's really about it for my list!

 

[tolivac]

Where to begin-at where I work-I work on electronic "dinosaurs"-Short wave transmitters that are anywhere from 15-40 and lastly 65 years old!Try to keep these going.One is down right now waiting for parts-a meter to be shipped all the way from Switzerland.Other parts have to be made by us or a machine shop.I guess some of my skills are like Cybervanr's-and some others-tuning and repairing tube TV tranmsitters,FM tranmsitters,AM tranmsitters and antenna systems.Lastly the short wave transmitters I use now.don't work on any "new" type stuff.I do feel like a pipefitter on a steam locomotive!But LOVE it!Most of the time you can see smell or hear the problems.Older gear was like that-you could diagnose it with your built in "test gear"-eyes,ears,nose!Love those big glowing tubes!I am one who loves radios that literally glow in the dark.and for another skill here-setting modulator stage bias adjust-If you have adjusted the bias on Hi-Fi amps,guitar amps,then you are most of the way there for modulator bias adjustments.ditto with balance and hum balance adjust.oh yesat the same agency I am at now-worked on their older studio gear-Tube consoles,tape machines and RCA,QRK Tt's.The Gates tube boards were fun to work on-and the modules so easy to fix-just replace some tubes and caps-and then its ready to go!was good at aligning tape machines-and fixing Ampex R/P amps in them.also hi-Speed Reel and cassette dubber systems.The ampex ones were tube.so easy to work on!Miss hose-now the studio plant has gone digital-sigh-no cool old machines any more!Those went to the library of Congress.they are sticking with analog.Very smart really-analog can ALWAYS be used-and it archives better!they even convert digital material to analog.

 

[danemodsandy]

Well, There Are Skills, And Then There Are Skills...

Here are a few I haven't used in a while:

- Styling my hair with a hot comb.
- Doing the Hustle.
- Doing the Hustle in shoes with a four-inch heel and an inch-and-a-half platform.
- Spotting a fake pukka-shell necklace at twenty paces, in bar lighting.
- Ironing an all-nylon Nik-Nik shirt without scorching it.
- Wearing an all-nylon Nik-Nik shirt on a Georgia summer day and not sweating.
- Spraying my hair so that not even driving with the top down would dislodge it.
- Knowing that Patrick Juvet was way cooler than Paul Jabara.
- Knowing that Paul Jabara was pretty damn cool.
- Repairing eight-tracks.
- Having an encyclopedic knowledge of every Ken Russell movie up through Tommy.
- Knowing that Tommy was the end of Ken Russell.
- Nursing a car with a carburetor into running smoothly on cold mornings.
- Making fondue, both cheese and Fondue Bourguignonne.
- Arranging the pieces of a pit group interestingly.
- Using the fine tuning, horizontal hold, and vertical hold controls on a TV set.
- Finding great apartments at under $150 a month.
- Knowing during the beginning credits of Can't Stop the Music that disco was deader than a doornail, even if it was still being played on the radio.

 

[danemodsandy]

Obsolete Skills I Still Use:

- Cranking a wall-mounted can opener.
- Winding an alarm clock.
- Cranking my car windows.
- Repairing eight-tracks.
- Operating a manual toothbrush.
- DOS.
- Raking (as opposed to those horrid jet-screech leaf blowers).
- Mending.
- Shelling peas.
- Turning off unused lights and appliances.
- Turning book pages.
- Telling time from analog-dial clocks and watches.
- Maintaining a fountain pen.
- Cleaning vinyl records.
- Looking up words I don't know how to spell in my trusty Oxford Unabridged instead of displaying my ignorance for the world to see.
- Waxing kitchen floors.
- Putting iodine on a scratch or scrape.
- Wrapping a sandwich in waxed paper.
- Knowing it's "waxed" paper, not "wax" paper. (Same goes for "ice" tea).
- Writing a decent condolence letter, not sending a damn Hallmark card.
- Knowing that inkjet paper is not stationery.
- Polishing silver.
- Operating esoteric eating irons such as butter and fish knives, as well as iced tea, bouillon, and demitasse spoons.
- Laying a tablecloth when company's coming.
- Turning off the television at mealtimes and talking pleasantly with tablemates.

 

[jaxsunst]

COBOL
VOS (on a Stratus mainframe)
DOS
Windows versions 1 and 2.
Paradox database
putting a coin on a tonearm to keep a worn record from skipping.

 

[irishwashguy]

Oh my!!!

i just turned 36, however, i can remeber when I first started at Sears in 1991 at 3.50 and hour plus spifs, which I did well at. We did not even take Visa/mastercard, and the scanner really did not exsist either. i handpunched in all of the #' on the NCR register. even when I worked for a store for extra money when the scanner broke, with a line of people, that did not stop me, it is second nature to me, the show must go on, to the shock of the people I was working with, they asked me how I can run the register w/o a scanner...........10 key by touch maybe? my eyes read the numbers, an outdateed skill I would imagine
-----writing checks, I like to, although, many do not like they once did.
-----Dialing a rotary phone
-----using a clock that does not have a snooze on it, when do you wake up? I usually do when the alarm goes off.
-----all of the computer skills on the old dos system we had at Sears that was a totlal pain to look up costmer accoutn # on years ago.
------the system we had at the Bank when I worked there, the Sharp system and bascially " old school" way that we would manually do lots of everything, i would hand write the amount of money in denominations on the pink slip and on the blue slips, and gave service with a smile.
maybe i am dating myself, although, as I said, I am not very old, i have more analog clocks and watches than most people.Buying something for the long hall as opposed to throwing it away when it breaks. When I was a kid, my mother took the old Toastmaster in to get fixed, as well as the old GE iron. those were the days.

 

[Unimatic1140]

NBI
Wang
MuliMate
IBM Displaywriter
Digital DecMate
Syntex
Ventura Publisher
PageMaker

I started out in 1982 as a Foot Messenger in Manhattan for Bankers Trust and then within a year learned Word Processing and started doing temp Word Processing work. Oh the fun memories.

 

[whirlcool]

I went from this: (Steamboat Gauges)

 

[maggie~hamilton]

Oh yeah, I had forgotten about the Wang and the IBM Displaywriter --- used both of them too, as well as an IBM word processing system similar to the Wang. Don't remember the name of it tho.

I always thought the daisy-wheel printers were really cool.

 

[whirlcool]

To this (B727-200)

Believe it or not, the layout is basically the same, instead of reading a real gauge, you read a representation of that gauge on a CRT.

 

[maggie~hamilton]

Oh yeah, I had forgotten about the Wang and the IBM Displaywriter --- used both of them too, as well as an IBM word processing system similar to the Wang. Don't remember the name of it tho.

I always thought the daisy-wheel printers were really cool.

 

[whirlcool]

Hey cybrvanr:

Those vintage audio skills are still needed! From my Vintage Turntable website I get tons of e-mails asking me how to do just about everything you have listed as a "lost skill". You are still needed!

 

[jaxsunst]

I remember Displaywriter. I learned Word Processing, in 1986, on Word Star, it was a nightmare to use. Very similar to Unix's VI editor.

 

[parunner58]

Here is the first computer I was paid to operate I worked at Lafayette College here in Easton. One skill I learned i can't use anymore is keypunching on an IBM 129 keypunch machine, the 80 colume Holerith code cards. The computer was an IBM System 360 model 20. I think it had 16K of memory, two 3310 removable disk drives and a 2203 printer, it printed a whopping 300 lines a minute. When I first started I would comein sometimes at 4:00 PM start one job and just have to sit and read for 8-10 while the machine printed two boxes of paper, which was about 3000 pages of two part with carbon paper in it. The CRC boxes in the back of the room were all used cards waiting for the qaurterly trash pick up. The person was our RPG programmer. The drawer on the table was full of the course detail cards, one drawer per class and if you took 5 courses you had 5 cards in the drawer.

 

[westie2]

COBAL
TIAC (Texas Instruments Automatic Computer) in octal
TIMAP (Texas Instruments Multiple Array Processor) in decimal
ASC (TI Advanced Scientific Computer) in hex
Can you tell I worked for TI!!!
Flexo Writer for flexo tape data input
Card Punch
FOCUS
Slide Rule calculations
10 key adding machine being able to multipy and divide with it.

 

[bobbins]

Well, my skill sets in appliances are considered somewhat obsolete, heck I am a Vintage Appliance Repairman.

When I was servicing appliances from 1981 to 1990 somethings were considered industry standards, such as:

- Freon Refrigerators (now the use of Ozone friendly products) – we were just being introduced to Freon reclaim methods back then.
- Belt driven Whirlpools – when I left the industry we were introduced to the direct drive
- Manual timers, very few electronic timers were used
- GE O/S washer timers (clam types)
- Microwaves had serviceable controls and contacts
- Maytag belt driven dishwasher – towards the 90’s the N/S pump was introduced
- Helical drive Maytag washer – when I left the industry we were introduced to the N/S orbital drive
- System 2000 Whirlpool fridges (wow electronic controls)
- Rotary compressors used on Coldspot fridges
- The famous Filter flo GE

So many more skill I had then that are now considered obsolete…good thing I change careers to mechanical engineering!

Bob

 

[kenmore58]

Yikes! Am I feeling old. Most of my obsolete skills come from my days as a business teacher, which I did before becoming a court reporter. Here's a few:

Gregg shorthand - I can still take dictation with it, not that I do!
Typing and correcting spirit duplicator masters and mimeograph stencils.
Margins for a leftbound manuscript with footnotes.
The correct touch for typing on a manual typewriter
Using a Mag Card Selectric.
How to multiply large numbers on a 10-key adding machine.
How to do division using a reciprocal table on a 10-key adding machine.
Using a dictaphone.

I'm going to crawl back into my cave now!

Ron