Terminology Oldsters vs Youngsters

[Kory]

[It gets worse when people start calling websites apps!

Oh good grief! Seriously? Where have I been?

Yes, I can't stand it when a website tells me "You need to enable JavaScript to run this app."

[MurphCID]

That wonderful "modem" sound as your modem connected, and having to put in a special code to disable Call Waiting to keep from being booted off your connection. I remember having the phone company show up and install a new phone jack in my extra bedroom that I was using for an office.

I remember those color dot matrix printers and they were too expensive for me at the time, I got the 24 pin one on a special model year update sale for about half of what I would have spent otherwise.

I also remember LAN parties where you would lug your desktop AND monitor to somewhere else and play games. Now, you just either log on to some service, or take your gaming laptop with you, not 70-100 lbs of gear. I remember computer cases which had handles built in just for that purpose....

[Lady Fitzgerald]

That wonderful "modem" sound as your modem connected, and having to put in a special code to disable Call Waiting to keep from being booted off your connection...

We didn't pay to have the call waiting option so we didn't have that problem. The only thing less delightful than the modem sounds was dealing with a 300 baud connection,

...I remember having the phone company show up and install a new phone jack in my extra bedroom that I was using for an office...

Before the Feds finally broke up the ATT monopoly ("We may be the only phone company in town but we don't act like it"; like heck they didn't), I was constantly doing battle with the misbegotten money grabbers. I put in the phone lines to the kid's bedrooms, something the phone company hated and gave me grief over, hated me for not using their inferior, overpriced phones, etc. which I did to avoid paying extra phone rent, and did my own repairs, to avoid excessive service charges. They once even, after coming out to "fix" an "outage", disconnect one of the phone wires coming into the house and denied doing so when I called them on it. Even though we were still stuck with the local Baby Bell, when the Feds allowed us to to choose our own long distance company, I couldn't ditch ATT and get on with MCI fast enough.

...I remember those color dot matrix printers and they were too expensive for me at the time, I got the 24 pin one on a special model year update sale for about half of what I would have spent otherwise...

I never bought a dot matrix printer; they were too expensive, were monochromatic, and the printouts looked awful. Back in the day, I used a thermal transfer printer (not a thermal printer). It cost less overall, even when you considered it had to use a special, ultra slick paper in it, and special thermal transfer ribbon, but the quality of the printouts was way better. The printed characters always were dark (unlike the characters from a dot matrix printer that kept getting fainter the more you used the ribbon) and could even print in color (lousy color but it was color!).

When I retired from the company I get my pension from went to work in a convenience store to supplement my pension until social Security could kick in back in late 2013, the store was still using a 24 pin dot matrix printer. I was already using a laser printer by then, having ditched the crappy, ink thirsty, inkjet by then.

...I also remember LAN parties where you would lug your desktop AND monitor to somewhere else and play games. Now, you just either log on to some service, or take your gaming laptop with you, not 70-100 lbs of gear. I remember computer cases which had handles built in just for that purpose....

I never got into that scene. My idea of hard core gaming was XP Pinball.

[cfb]

Back to the original topic:

A "folder".
Seriously? It is called a "directory". There is a reason for the command being named "mkdir".
And yes, I was 44 years in IT until retirement last year.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Back to the original topic:

A "folder".
Seriously? It is called a "directory". There is a reason for the command being named "mkdir".
And yes, I was 44 years in IT until retirement last year.

The terms folder and file were used to simplify the transitions from filing cabinets with paper folders and paper files inside people were once used to to digital data organization. Youngsters have trouble relating to those terms because they never had to deal with physical file cabinets, folders, and paper files; it's completely foreign to them.

[TaterChip]

Youngsters have trouble relating to those terms because they never had to deal with physical file cabinets, folders, and paper files; it's completely foreign to them.

Just like a stick shift

[wwblm]

card catalogue

my memory is fading but IIRC were there not 3 of them? Subject, Author, Title? I know I spent a fair amount of time flipping through them.

Speaking of folders vs directories I'm still working on databases that were built to replace paper files and some things in those databases are still referred to by their paper names! I date back to when businesses still did things on paper and am responsible for moving business practices from paper to computer. Endangered species I am. Not too long and we will all be extinct.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Youngsters have trouble relating to those terms because they never had to deal with physical file cabinets, folders, and paper files; it's completely foreign to them.

Just like a stick shift

Yup!

[BG405]

A "folder".
Seriously? It is called a "directory".

I totally agree on that one. Is that per chance a Windows-ism?
A bit like the default Win behaviour of classing EVERYTHING as a "Document" be it music, video, whatever and placing it in a subdirectory of the My Documents "folder"?


How about Mouse Pointer? I'm sick of the now long-term trend calling it a "Cursor". It's usually even shaped like an arrow for Pete's sake! (Unless hovering over a document for example). You Point with .. ahem .. something called a Pointer!!!

It's originally known as a WIMP System; Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointer.
A Point and Click interface. Not a Curse and Click interface, unless you're using the Other OS of course.

Not only that, it's more confusion for older folks learning computing, e.g. "Move the cursor to where you want the cursor then the text will appear where the cursor is.."

[Lady Fitzgerald]

A "folder".
Seriously? It is called a "directory".

I totally agree on that one. Is that per chance a Windows-ism?
A bit like the default Win behaviour of classing EVERYTHING as a "Document" be it music, video, whatever and placing it in a subdirectory of the My Documents "folder"?...

I explained that already. In the early days, computers were more for office work than for entertainment. One established, the terms carrier over from just documents to other media.

...How about Mouse Pointer? I'm sick of the now long-term trend calling it a "Cursor". It's usually even shaped like an arrow for Pete's sake! (Unless hovering over a document for example). You Point with .. ahem .. something called a Pointer!!!...

That's one that frosts my buns when I see or hear it, especially from people who should know better. Cursors and mouse pointers are two completely different things that work differently. It's a carry over from before we had rodents running our computers (and yes, I'm old enough to remember that).

...It's originally known as a WIMP System; Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointer.
A Point and Click interface. Not a Curse and Click interface, unless you're using the Other OS of course...

To quote Homer Simpson, "It's funny because it's true!"

[RollyShed]

Youngsters have trouble relating to those terms because they never had to deal with physical file cabinets, folders, and paper files; it's completely foreign to them.

Just like a stick shift

What do you mean? All cars have gear leavers..... don't they? Mine certainly does.

As for filing cabinets, that's were the membership list is filed and in the bottom draw, the 2 engravers that we use each year at the local schools to engrave their bikes and scooters. Where else would you put them? No, not out in the workshop where they'll get mislaid.

[wwblm]

What do you mean? All cars have gear leavers..... don't they? Mine certainly does.

When I was young, some cars had push buttons. I hear that is making a come back. I recently rented a van that had a knob that you turned like the volume on the radio. Did not like that. Wife's car has "paddles" on the back of the steering wheel. Guess you could call those gear leavers;-) They are kind of fun to use but are rarely used.

Taught my daughter to drive a stick. Would have taught my grandson but did not have a vehicle available to teach him with. Don't have a problem with a stick shift but don't particularly miss using one either.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

What do you mean? All cars have gear leavers..... don't they? Mine certainly does...

Nope. Chrysler built cars, at one time, had push button automatic transmissions located on the dashboard. Some high end sports cars have shifting paddles on the center of the steering wheel like those found on some race cars.

Then there are the electric cars. They may have levers to select forward, reverse, etc. but they don't have gears that have to be shifted so they can't be called gear levers (OK, that one was a bit of a stretch).

I'm not sure if you're just joking about the gear selector lever on an automatic transmission car making it a "stick shift" but, if not, stick shift is a term for manual transmissions in many parts of the world.

[wwblm]

again to the subject of terminology while continuing the transmission thing... How many of you know how to operate a three on the tree? Perhaps only Americans used the phrase three on the tree but am certain many of us oldsters know what it means.

[coffee412]

again to the subject of terminology while continuing the transmission thing... How many of you know how to operate a three on the tree? Perhaps only Americans used the phrase three on the tree but am certain many of us oldsters know what it means.

I do!
I remember learning in drivers ed on a three on the tree. Going from first to second gear was fun.

A bit before my time but the push button transmission shifting I think was called the "Select-o-Matic"

[RollyShed]

I'm not sure if you're just joking about the gear selector lever on an automatic transmission car making it a "stick shift" but, if not, stick shift is a term for manual transmissions in many parts of the world.

Yes, I was joking.
However, as I've said before, those over 70? should only drive a manual (with a gearbox) as you have to switch the brain on to do it. No brain, no licence.

[RollyShed]

If you want to make it a bit harder then make sure the gearbox doesn't have syncromesh, meaning you have to double-de-clutch when changing down.

[TaterChip]

A "folder".
Seriously? It is called a "directory".

I totally agree on that one. Is that per chance a Windows-ism?

For me it's visual. When you are in a GUI, what does the directory look like?

[TaterChip]

card catalogue

my memory is fading but IIRC were there not 3 of them? Subject, Author, Title? I know I spent a fair amount of time flipping through them.

Speaking of folders vs directories I'm still working on databases that were built to replace paper files and some things in those databases are still referred to by their paper names! I date back to when businesses still did things on paper and am responsible for moving business practices from paper to computer. Endangered species I am. Not too long and we will all be extinct.

I still use that terminology. Here is one of my folders (directories). I stick my research and reference materials in there.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

again to the subject of terminology while continuing the transmission thing... How many of you know how to operate a three on the tree? Perhaps only Americans used the phrase three on the tree but am certain many of us oldsters know what it means.

Three on the tree (three speed manual transmission with a column shifter) is common. I've seen some sportier cars that had four speed transmissions with a column shifter. The most "fun" one I drove was was the small IH (International Harvester) cab over semi the electric/irrigation company I worked at for 32 years that had been set up for hauling steel street light poles. That had five on the tree. Shifting that thing was like playing golf with a rubber golf club. It also had a four speed Brownie (slang name for an auxiliary transmission based on the name of a manufacturer of them, Brown-Lipe) that had its shift lever on top of the dog house (engine compartment) that sat alongside the driver; the gear shift lever was bent 90°and ran parallel to the top of the dog house. That truck was "interesting" to drive, in a sort of fun way.

Grandma (an extra low first gear) in the tractor (truck) was first gear in the brownie. The three remaining gears were underdrive, direct, and overdrive and used to split the gears in the main box so you could keep the revs high in the top torque band.The five speed main box (the one shifted off the column shift) had a wide ration between gears. When the rig (tractor and trailer) was heavily loaded, or you were starting while on a steep upgrade, you started with the main box and the Brownie in first. Then you shifted the Brownie out first and into underdrive or direct, depending on the load. If heavily loaded, after running through underdrive, direct, and overdrive, your shifted the main into second, then ran through underdrive, direct, and overdrive on the Brownie. Rinse and repeat for the remaining gears.

Fortunately, because the poles were sticked when loaded (notched wooden spacers between layers of poles) and only enough poles were loaded for what was needed for the day, I usually didn't need to split the gears except for using Granny to get started.

Oh, did I forget to mention those were crash gears (nonsynchromesh) that had to be double clutched when you used the clutch? An experienced driver could shift those without the clutch once the truck was rolling just by adjusting engine speed. I learned to double clutch on my Daddy's F100 that had three on the tree and no synchro in first gear.

The deuce and a half (2 1/2 ton) line trucks of the time had five speed mains and electric two speed rear axles. The axle was shifted with a switch on top of the wiggle stick (gear shifter). The axles were for splitting the gears on the main. Those were easier shift without the clutch after you made it to second gear.

I had a '63 F300 that had a four on the floor Borg Warner tranny. The rear end was way overgeared (5.13-1) because it was intended to use 19" rims and tires but the idiot I bought it from had replaced the tires and rims with 10x16.5s because 19" tires were hard to find and he thought 16.5 looked cooler. To get around that problem, I replaced the four speed with a medium duty 5 speed Clark overdrive transmission. It had a weird shift pattern. Reverse was top left. First was under it. Second was middle top and third was under it. Fourth, however, was bottom right and fifth, the overdrive gear, was above fourth. The box had synchros but they were weak so it was easier to double clutch when I bothered to use the clutch to avoid gear clash.

One truck I drove had a ten speed Road Ranger. The tranny in it was a close ratio five speed main with a two speed range box bolted on the rear of the main box. You ran through the five gears on the main, then shifted the range box from low to high, then ran through the five gears in the main. It also was a crash box.

Truck transmissions have changed a lot since then. Even the clutches now have clutch brakes on them (for slowing down spinning gears to make shifting easier). I wouldn't have clue how to drive one now even though the only stick I driven in the past ten years or so is a friend's Jeep Liberty's console shift six speed (but I bet I could learn fast). Today's slush pumps (automatic transmissions) are a lot better now than they were half a century ago, to the point they are more efficient than sticks. Even the big rigs are getting them.