Quote Originally Posted by loosechickens View Post
I'm so old that I remember that when you needed a copy of something, you had to take it to a photoshop, where they would photograph it, and you would get back what was called a "photostat" of your birth certificate or whatever important paper you needed a copy of, and the background would be black and the lettering white, a reverse of whatever the original was, and on heavy photo paper. Getting a copy of an important paper was a big deal and cost several dollars as I remember, which would be like paying twenty bucks to get a copy of something now.

If you were creating a document that you wanted a copy of, you could use carbon paper to make several copies (had to remember to hit those manual typewriter keys HARD if you were making more than one or two copies), OR you could type what was called a "stencil" that you then stretched over a drum of a ditto or mimeograph machine and used a handle to revolve the drum of the machine to end up with a purple (if it was a ditto machine), or a black ink (if a mimeograph) copy of your typed stencil.

Oh, and I'm also old enough to have lived in Washington D.C. when there was literally NO air conditioning anywhere, except in a few "refrigerated" movie theaters, which was what the signs said out front "REFRIGERATED".........

Have I mentioned that I love my computer, my internet connection, my cell phone, my scanner/copier/printer, etc.? I'm definitely one who thinks that the "good old days" were only the "good old days" so long as we engage only in selective memory.........
I agree with you 100%, LC!! And I have the same recall of that old office equipment. I went to Katharine Gibbs for a six-week "Entree" program for women who graduated from college but somehow still needed skills to get a job. If we made more than 3 mistakes, we had to rip the letter out of the typewriter and start over. We had VERY strict standards on how many lines to start the inside address on, and we had to estimate how long the letter was, so that it would be perfectly centered on the page.

When I got a job at NBC at 30 Rock in 1974, the only "fax" machine was in the News Dept. and it was called a "Dex" machine. Imagine a company like NBC only having one fax machine!!!

And then I remember being at Union Carbide when the Wang Word Processor came out and I had to teach the executive secretary how to use it. She was about the age I am now back then (59), and she was HOPELESS!! Couldn't even get the concept of putting the cursor where you want to add a word. She kept saying "If I were typing this, I would have had it done a half hour ago!!" The way I felt teaching her is probably how my kids feel teaching me other stuff, although I really think I'm pretty good for an older working girl.

Oh, and I also remember staying after school for hours when I was responsible for making the playbill for our drama club play--those mimeograph machines were so cumbersome and MESSY. And when you made a mistake on that special paper you had to use a razor blade to scrape off the mistake and then retype.