Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for September 24, 2009

My pet rock is still alive an doing well.

Speaking of short attention spans… the first successful consumer pager came out in 1974. Today they’re all but forgotten, used mainly now by emergency personnel.

my pet rock is still doing fine too. i’ll have to feed him in another decade or so, but other than that, no problem!

What about Western Union? They thought the telephone would never make it as a communication device and now when texting is back in they’re missing that wave too.

I understand you can now get a Morse Code tone-play of your texts, so you wouldn’t have to take your eyes off the road to read it. Ain’t retreads fun?! 73, all!

Hey grapfhics… Western Union is alive and doing well. Just not the same thing as a century ago. Evolution

In the adjacent cemetery you can find the grave sites for the TI-99 and the Kaypro.

i think it’s just a computer related cemetery

Where’s the headstone for CompuServe?

Fads come & go but they can’t bury these three fast enough to suit me………

they need to add adultfriendfinder and similar sites to this line-up!

Hey, can I throw my 8-tracks, cassette recorders, sloppy and floppy discs, transistor radio, and cathode ray tvs in there too? That grave looks plenty deep to hold them all and then some more. I just found my original lava lamp and black lights, but wait! They’re making a comeback. Maybe I should hold off ditching all my valuable nostalgia. Anybody wanna buy a 4-speed turntable?

8 track and sony beta…..

Or even the 4 track.

Wicky - My first car cost me $200 (‘61 Ford Falcon) and installed a $300 4-track in it,,, seems like it was only two weeks later the tape player was obsolete, replaced by the 8-track. Some of these young pups think I’m pulling their leg when I tell ‘em about my beloved 4-track…

I forgot my quadraphonic tape player, too! I’m sure everyone remembers that–it was supposed to be the ultimate in what we now call “surround sound.”

some people say I have ADD but they just don’t underst…. hey is that a bird ?

I’ll have to consult my Mood Ring to see how I feel about all this.

While I completely agree with the sentiment of the cartoon, there are a couple of comments that need some factual assistance:

(1) Morse code audio from text? Maybe as a novelty: a joke or a conversation piece. But text-to-speech has been practical – AND USED – for about 30 years.

(2) Western Union is only a shadow of its former self. Money transfers are its business these days. They sold the telecom part of the company to AT&T (in 1991 IIRC).

Start tossing in hand-held, analog TVs too. I have a Casio TV-1800B that is now a useless little brick.

in another bit of trivia, Alexander Graham Bell offered to sell the patent for the telephone to ATT but they turned it down, as they didn’t see a future in it.

ADOH: Attention Deficit — Oooh, Shiny!

A few things you’d find if you visited here:

Commodore 128 Timex Sinclair T1000 1st generation Macs MacTV last Nubus Mac reel to reel decks turntables big @ss speaker cabinets made from real wood betamax Lps 78s …

I’d comment, but I have to go check Facebook.

While we’re at it..

DuMont Network NET(National Educational Television) The WB UPN Fox News Channel

Digitalfrog: Bell FOUNDED AT&T. He had to go through a huge lawsuit with Western Union who tried to steal his design for the telephone. No one EVER thought the telephone was a useless toy.

And for us Blu-Warriors: HD-DVD!

How ‘bout CB radio, good buddy?

I only use my buggy whip on the neighbor kids, now….

I not only have 33’s and 78’s, I also have 45’s. I have a working Betamax & untold number of tapes for it. VHS also. Dozens & dozens of working cassettes and players. Always waited until the last dog was hung before buying new technology. (Also waited for the price to come down) Don’t know when I’ll go to BlueTooth. Anybody else have a working viewfinder?

my apologies - you’re right, it was another major telegraph company at the time, which led to him founding his own company. The other telegrah co. may have been Western Union, I’d have to check my book on it when I get home.

Next new headstone will be “YouTube!” after the painter wrote “Twitter” on the headstone.

I would like to make a comment but I seem to have misplaced my Magic 8 Ball.

… . _ _ . . _

Oh please let it be so…

CedarCircle said, about 7 hours ago

How ‘bout CB radio, good buddy?

I ask:

How come back in the CB radio days, we could safely talk through a CB mic while driving whereas today, the idiot drivers can’t use a mobile phone without causing horrific traffic accidents ?

Interesting question, fbmce, and I’ll throw out a hypothesis: Because truckers using CB were using it purposefully, to exchange driving-related information directly relevant to what they were supposed to be doing at the time–paying attention to the road; whereas drivers using cell-phones today are using them to focus their attention on anything but?

Trebor39 said, about 3 hours ago:

… . _ _ . . _

If you refer to the demise of Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, I agree with you.

4deerinmyyard, your comment that

drivers were using CB to exchange “driving-related information” sure makes sense as I remember it.

Also, now that I think of it, a driver usually spoke with another driver so got away from distracting topics.

Thanks

Trebor39 said, about 5 hours ago

… . _ _ . . _

I don’t know what you want to swit, but your Morse Code reference remind me of the jingle:

“Three Dits, Four Dits, Two Dits, Dah

” (reference), (reference), Rah, Rah, Rah ”

Since unto itself this is entirely innocuous, it’s fun to chant this one within a large group and watch the reactions.

I’ll let y’all translate the Morse yourselves.

Oh, how cute! Wiley’s discovered the Internet again! Too bad he couldn’t work in another slam on Scott Kurtz in this one.