This candid picture, taken today while waiting for Michael’s soccer match to begin, pretty well sums up how life has changed in the past 37 years.
Twins James and Maggie, aged 7, took a netbook computer to the match. They played games on it and listened to music.
When I was seven years old, the high-tech gadgets in our house were a television (black and white), a wireless (that’s what we called the radio), an LP player and (unusually) a tape recorder.
The tape recorder was a bulky thing with two reels. Dad used it to record and play some of his music.
We kids were allowed to play with it sometimes, but I recall that winding the tape was often a tricky exercise.
Do you recall how many channels you could pick up on your TV? We lived between two major markets and could get five channels in the 60s. We’d get ABC, NBC and CBS … two chanels of two of those and one of the other. We got a gizmo at some point that allowed us to get UHF, which gave us access to channel 22 (which was either ABC, NBC or CBS… I can’t recall) and WXIX out of Cincinnati. We’d also get a couple of PBS stations (14 and 16?), which were typically run by local universities and provided educational programming.
Twitter: mgorey
says:
We were similar. With a big aerial we were able to pick up the four Melbourne channels: Nine, Ten, Seven and ABC, which are still the main commercial networks today. We also received a local station.
Multiple channels have only been available in Australia over the past few years, first with pay TV and more recently with free digital.
Do you recall how many channels you could pick up on your TV? We lived between two major markets and could get five channels in the 60s. We’d get ABC, NBC and CBS … two chanels of two of those and one of the other. We got a gizmo at some point that allowed us to get UHF, which gave us access to channel 22 (which was either ABC, NBC or CBS… I can’t recall) and WXIX out of Cincinnati. We’d also get a couple of PBS stations (14 and 16?), which were typically run by local universities and provided educational programming.
Do you recall how many channels you could pick up on your TV? We lived between two major markets and could get five channels in the 60s. We’d get ABC, NBC and CBS … two chanels of two of those and one of the other. We got a gizmo at some point that allowed us to get UHF, which gave us access to channel 22 (which was either ABC, NBC or CBS… I can’t recall) and WXIX out of Cincinnati. We’d also get a couple of PBS stations (14 and 16?), which were typically run by local universities and provided educational programming.