Gen Z, Alpha need subtitles for parents' slang?

India Post recently announced that its Registered Post service, revered for legal proof and heartfelt messages, will retire on September 1, merging into Speed Post. In our office, the younger generation reacted with a “what service is that again?”, even as the oldies reminisced about “acknowledgment cards.”That brought us here. Once upon a time, before swipe-rights and ChatGPT, there was a world where the loudest sound in a household was the screech of dial-up internet, where letters came folded in blue aerogrammes, and where an entire family’s weekend plan hinged on whether the Doordarshan antenna faced the right direction. Before emojis, there were pager codes. Before Spotify, there was the mixtape cassette. Before Google Maps, there were fold-out atlases that never folded back in the same way. Here is a throwback list of things the younger lot may never know, but which once ruled the daily lives of your folks, when they were young.A Guide to Millennial ChildhoodsAirplane ticket booklets Yup, many of your folks’ first flight tickets were literally booklets.AltaVista search engineSearch, peaked before Google 123476501AOL instant messengerAnother messenger, this time with a distinct ‘door opening’ sound.Ask JeevesSearch engine with a butler mascot, also peaked before GoogleASL plsThe icebreaker in chatrooms that broke through internet anonymity. Stands for “age, sex, location please”BetamaxSony’s failed video formatCalling cardsScratch to reveal a PIN for payphone calls. Bought for a specific amountCarbon paperFor duplicate copies in forms and letters.Cassette tapesMagnetic reels for music and data. Could be turned around for a whole new bunch of songsCD tower stacks Spindles of blank CDs CD-R and CD-RW drives Wanted to write something on a CD? You needed to burn it using one of these drivesClippy The coolest virtual assistant ever. Siri, Alexa, eat your hearts outDemand draft When a payment needed to be made, and a cheque wasn’t enoughDetachable car stereos It helped avoid car stereo theft. Yup, that used to be a problem. 123476526Dot matrix printers Loud, perforated paper printing, still found at railway ticketing boothsEncarta Microsoft’s CD encyclopedia, which was supposed to replace huge volumes of Britannica from library shelvesFax machines Curling thermal paper messages scanning letters across geographiesFilm roll canisters Kodak or Fuji rolls in black cases, which needed a dark room to somehow become a photographFloppy disks (8", 5.25", 3.5") Limited MBs — yes, mega byte — storage in a black plastic case. Used to contain entire gamesGame Boy (Monochrome) Green-tinted handheld gaming, for those lucky few kids in schoolGeocities DIY personal websites with glitter textMonochrome monitors Heavy, curved glass displays. Early examples had weirdly green text options onlyHotmail Email, pre-Gmail. Was cool because of it was an Indian dude, Sabeer Bhatia, who created itIn just 20 years, the world went from floppy disks to cloud, from trunk calls to FaceTime, from money orders to UPI. What Gen Z and Alpha swipe through in seconds, older generations once waited days, weeks, or even months for:ICQ Early instant messaging serviceInflight smoking Technically it took till the early 2000s for airlines to ban smoking. Until then, many offered smoking sections at the backInland letters Foldable blue paper you could write on, for when envelopes were too expensiveCyber cafés The internet, available in a shop, chargeable by time spentISD/STD/PCO booths Yellow signs, black boxy phones, and long queues. These were public phones with timed billing slipsLAN partiesHauling PCs for multi-player gaming, connecting them via cables and playing classics like Need For SpeedLightweight blue aerogrammes International airmail folded paper letters with blue and red coloured edges, because it was meant to go abroadMoney order UPI transfer across geographies that involved the postman carrying money sent from afarMS-DOS commands Black screens and text input. Introduction to computers for a generation was in commands like DIR and CDNetscape navigator Web browser with a star logo. The Chrome browser of that eraOrkut The social networking site from Google that became a thing in India and Brazil for some reason. Eventually made uncool by Facebook Pager numeric codes 143 for ‘I love you’, etcPager If you’re wondering what a pager is, it’s a small device with a screen where numeric or short texts pop up. No, it’s not at all a mobile phone 123476544Pen pals Strangers, exchanging letters to build friendship or learn about each other’s cultures, often across countriesPhonograms Recorded voice messages sent via post or telecom 123476569Photo negatives Kept in envelopes after the films were developed. People looked funny in ’emRegistered post Signed acceptance and proof of delivery in the form of an acknowledgment card made this the blue tick for snail mailRotary dial telephones Finger-wheel dialling of a phone, complete with a whirr sound. Dialling numbers would take as long as entire conversationsT9 predictive text A way for folks to type fast on their alphanumeric mobile phone keyboards Telegram The original ‘instant message’ delivered via printed slips. They were short, urgent and always ending in STOP 123476587Telephone directory Imagine everyone’s number in your city in one book. It was the thickest book in most householdsTelex Pre-fax era long-distance text transmissionTraveller’s cheques Instead of forex cards, these were physical papers with a prepaid fixed amount for when you travelled, and it worked like cashTrunk calls You booked a call via an operator for long-distance landline calls, who then called back once the call was connected. Yup, you could even take hoursTypewriters Clack-clack and carriage return ding. Typing used to be a skill to be honed in institutesVHS tapes Video recording cassettes, which had to be rewound every time to get to the startVCD players The hardware used to play the VHS tapesWalkman Portable cassette playersWinamp Skinnable music player, for those illegal MP3 songsY2K bug scare The year 2000 brought about computer panic and pretty much created India’s IT boomYahoo! chat rooms The OG of online minglingYahoo! groups Pre-social media discussion boardsYellow Pages Another book, this time for business listings with addresses and contact numbersLoading...When the current generation looks back at the relics of our past, they may find it hard to believe that there existed a time when people spent hours on dial-up connections and queued up outside cyber cafés, all just to access the internet123476634123476658

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/eRMq2bY