The first time you ever heard about something that is now commonplace

[CormoranStrike]

I have two.

I was chatting to a guy who had an audio company in the early 90s I reckon and he mentioned Bluetooth, which confused me. He raved about this new tech and said he was sure it would be massive.

The other was interviewing a forensic scientist on his retiral from the police. He had been the most senior of his speciality at Lockerbie.

He was explaining transference (Occam’s razor) and I can remember sitting on his couch in his living room in the small village he lived in and saying, “wait, do you mean evidence of me having been in your house is now indelibly here, I’ve left traces?” - totally fascinating.

There started a fascination with crime novels, too.

Click and collect!

I had a book about future household technology written in the 70s predicting housewives (?!) would order their food via a computer which would send the message to the shop who would have it ready for them to collect! (Their prediction didn't stretch to home delivery or card payments).

The internet also. Before most companies had websites it was still a poor mans yellow pages. I remember thinking it was a bit of a pointless novelty.

I still can't get over being able to stream films. In the 80s when VHS first came out it was a massive deal. VHS video players were so expensive, let alone the cost of the actual videos. If we wanted to watch a film we would hire the video and the actual player from the local One Stop. I remember having to lug it all home - then lug it back as soon as the film finished as it was more expensive to keep it overnight! If I remember correctly there was a huge deposit involved.

For my ( 10th / 11th? ) birthday we hired one overnight and my friend and got to watch two whole films

It was either late 1970s or early 1980s when my cousin showed me the special features of my uncle's new company car, a Volvo. It had seatbelts that didn't have to be adjusted manually to fit the passenger. Whether it was a very small person or very big person the seatbelt would automatically adjust to the right size. But although a very long length of seatbelt could be pulled out if you did it slowly, if the car stopped suddenly, the seatbelt would automatically lock. How clever!

The car had seatbelts fitted as standard in the back as well as the front. I hadn't come across that before. It also had bumpers that looked huge at that time when many car bumpers were little more than a token strip of metal.

I clearly remember my dad telling me about a concept where someone would ring your mobile phone and your phone would recognise the number and tell you the name of the person who was ringing

Sorcery to me!!!

An old friend of mine worked for a satellite tv company and one Friday night when we got together he said he'd had a really tough week at work. They were getting data down the lines for television and internet and knew they had to increase the capacity but couldn't figure out how. His boss said it was impossible but he knew they'd crack it. They did. Broadband.

Cordless electric kettles, they were starting to come along in the 80s and I couldn't believe you could use something that didn't have the cable attached.

Microwaves. New fangled and you couldn't stand beside them and stay healthy!

And of course - garlic bread. Food of the future that is. (Said in a Peter Kaye, Phoenix Nights voice.)

Due to a particular short contract I did, I was given WiFi with all the equipment to support it. It felt like magic.

When I left the job I still wanted this new thing so went into PC World to ask and they looked at me like I was crazy when I explained what it did.

In the late 80s/early 90s the company I worked for (in their Data Processing department) were replacing their copper cabling and getting fibre optic cabling for their computer systems, new technology then. Now it's the norm.

Were the electric milk floats from the 60s/70s/80s the precursor for electric cars now? I mean, electric cars, who'd a thought?

Not me but my father remembers his grandfather telling him that one day people would fly all over the world on holiday, people thought he was ridiculous as it would never happen.

I remember being amazed when you could first buy pasta that was a different shape to spaghetti.

I remember when spaghetti was grown on trees

My dad got a car with a carphone in it in about 1972. He didn't find it very useful. Now he scolds me for not turning my cellphone on.

(in addition to apps on his phone) He has 2 types of SATNAV (Garmin) in his car now. Refuses to use any of them & thinks it peculiar that people do, sigh. He still navigates everywhere, even to completely new towns & addresses, using basic paper maps & a few remembered directions.

I remember hearing in the news about the bidding war for mobile phone companies when the government first sold off bandwidth for 2G, 3G etc.
So much money was involved and I couldn't see what they would get back.

Email
I took a message at work for my boss, I took down their email address, I had no idea what it was. About 1996.

My uncle had a mobile phone he let us take out. 94i think

"Off topic, but OP I think you're getting your principles/theories mixed up. The idea of forensic transference is Locard's Principle (much beloved of Jeffrey Deaver/Lincoln Rhyme)." Just what I was gonna say I watch too much CSI

Watching the good wife episode about driverless cars. Thought it was fiction for the tv show but something that might be getting worked towards - had no idea they were already real! Still wouldn't use one

Ted talks - first heard about them at uni 2nd time round when one of the younger students asked how you reference one! I had to ask a librarian

I now think they're great things on some very interesting subjects.

I can still remember Beattie (BT) ads mentioning video calls with Maureen lipman worrying about getting caught without hair and make up done yes I'm old

More recently a crime show where someone had been framed by manufactured DNA - again thought it was sci-fi close enough to true to be plausible - nope! This can actually happen! It's in infancy I understand but it's going to turn criminal justice on its head after we've had what 30 years of pretty much relying on DNA evidence?

I do remember thinking phone cameras wouldn't catch on - but mainly cos the cameras then were so crap! I'm a bit of an amateur shutterbug but even I have to admit that now they're quite good (for snapshots). I have a couple of pics of dd taken on my first camera phone on my FB still and they look ancient! Really grainy and poor colour quality.

"I was on holiday in Switzerland and bought a can of Fanta or something and couldn't figure out how the heck to open it. Someone had to show me the 'pull forward, push back thing'." I remember the old ring pulls - and how they were scattered EVERYWHERE. Huge littering (and of course environmental) problem but also I well remember often a hazard for dogs who'd cut their paws on them 😪

"It was like a much better version of friends reunited." Was just about to mention this! The first major social media platform - ended many marriages when people got back in touch with their first loves from high school!

"I was at university when I had Pesto for the first time" I went to a friends for dinner and she had some but she said it was "a bit marmite" so let me taste a bit first. omg! Loved it!

However I also remember having to explain to an older colleague that a fax didn't literally send the paper through the phone line, just the text/images and it was printed out at the other end - came about because the fax was "broken" (it'd run out of paper).

"A friend telling me how she used a 'mouse' at work. I had no clue what she was on about." There's a new series of "back in time..." Just started. It's schools this time. From a clip it looks like they're taking it up to 80's/90's? And one of the kids is like "where's the mouse? How you supposed to move the thingy without a mouse?" 😂 erm. That would be cursor keys - and yes it was a slow arse way to have to do it!

Which reminds me...applying for an admin job in 1998 and being asked "you know how to use windows of course?" And answering "yes of course" but not being sure how being able to open a glass panelled orifice related to admin! Then having to bluff on my first day month I did actually pick it up really quickly as I'd been using computers for a good few years and compared to previous software it was a damn sight easier!! The boss even had me train someone else on it just 2 months in!

"No need to use pricing guns anymore and no need to tap the price into the till." I'm old enough my first job was pricing up in a supermarket - yep it used to be a job some people even did it full time!!

"I remember seeing CDs on Tomorrow's World. Apparently, they were indestructible" yea that was a load of bollocks wasn't it? As anyone who remembers "skipping" cd's damaged because they were scratched or had been in the path of the 80's love of hairspray!

"Mate got a job in Internet advertising in 2003.. I remember my parents saying oh that's not a good industry to get into, how could it ever be profitable" my 2nd uni is one that was one of those criticised for offering "Mickey Mouse" modern media subjects, including as joint degrees alongside things like journalism. Many of those students (who I'm sure their parents worried 'will they even get a job'?) are now working for piddling insignificant employers like...

...the BBC, cnn, time, Facebook, Microsoft, itv, gannet...

Not so "Mickey Mouse" now eh?

A couple other friends trained as graphic designers in the late 80's, their parents also didn't think this was a particularly sensible route to go down. Both doing very nicely. One self employed and works from home which works great around a family, the other works freelance and travels the world.

"I still can't get over being able to stream films. In the 80s when VHS first came out it was a massive deal." The first time I watched video was Betamax! Video seemed a HUGE development at the time.

Pilot-less commercial airliners. Apparently the technology is all there and it would be safer. However, airlines need to work out how to get passengers to accept it as focus groups show that passengers believe a pilot in the cockpit would make more of an effort to save them than computers and staff on the ground.

On secondment to IBM in 1995 - being told that soon we wouldn't need to leave the house to shop for anything - sounded ridiculous to me then - now I hate shopping in real life also the first time I heard about "search engines"

At school on the eighties a friend's dad worked in Abu Dhabi. She said he was going to help her with her homework that night, which was to be in the next day. I had no idea how. She said they had a machine which sent the paper off to her dad - a fax machine. I had no idea how that could work. I aplrecaiet they weren't new at that stage but new to me.
Also remember being shown how to email at university, in the computer room, where most students never bothered to go.

Before I ever used one I thought fax machines sent the actual piece of paper you put in to the recipient and I’m honestly not normally dozy!

First time I saw a CD I thought you turned it over when it was finished.

Spring of 97, I was backpacking around the Greek islands and talking to some Australians about how they were keeping in touch with home and they said e-mail. I knew what e-mail was but I remember asking them how the e-mail would find it’s way to them if they weren’t using their usual computer.

@Silkei
In 1997 we didn’t have a house phone so I bought a pager. Friends had to dial the number to be connected to a call centre where a nice lady would type out what they wanted to say and send it. The call cost 50p. When I received the text I had to walk to the phone box and call them back. I still have it and I’m tempted to call the number just to see if it still works!

I was briefly one of those “nice ladies!” 😃

However, the call centre was like a prison. You weren’t allowed to stop the relentless calls, you had to stand up with your hand up for a toilet break and the supervisors randomly listened into your calls to make sure you were following the rules - such as reading numbers back. It was honestly like an unbelievably bad sitcom.

My dad showed me the internet when I was about 8 or 9. He kept asking what I wanted to look at but I had no idea what to say. In the end we looked at the Gladiators website I didn’t really think it would catch on.

I also remember being shown an early digital camera and again I didn’t really get the hype.

Bloody hell, I thought I was a late adopter, but some of you on this thread are practically dinosaurs! Surely everyone had the Internet from the mid 90s? Yes it was dial up, but I cannot believe that some of you were only hearing about it for the first time in 1997-98, fucking hell. I think we often forget we all also had mobile phones, yes they were shit (although pleasingly tiny) but they gave them away “free” in shitty Sunday papers!

Is that a typo Silkei? Do you mean 1987? When mobile phones were unusual and very large. In 1997, they were much smaller than they are now, and absolutely everyone had one. (Usually in a drawer at home)

WereYouHareWhenIWasFox wenn didn't all "have" the internet as soon as it was available simply because it wasn't very useful to most people in its early form.

My dad showed me a dial up text news page in the very early 90s, but it was so slow compared to cefax it seemed pointless aside from novelty value. You had to pay for each page then too.

I remember a computer science student boyfriend trying to convince me the internet was now great in 1993, and persuading me into the computer room to be amazed, and then explaining, when the page wouldn't load, that it was because America was awake and honestly it was great when there were no Americans using it (volume of traffic had slowed everything to a halt I assume).

I didn't get a PC with internet access of my own until 1997 - I had no use for one before that, and doubt the majority of the population did.

I also didn't get a mobile til I 1996 for similar reasons, despite the fact my dad had one with its own suitcase to carry it around in from his employer in the late 80s, and I also used (huge) satellite phones in places abroad with no landlines in the early 90s.

I remember my boss having one of those tiny mobile phones he needed an ear piece to use with because it was too ridiculously small to talk and listen at the same time in the mid 90s though

In 1992 although I had used a desktop at work it was with programs written for the insurance company I worked for. It was before windows, at work at least.

I then went to uni as a mature student (23) and my friend took me to the computer lab to teach me how to do some word processing. I had never seen or used a mouse and actually picked it up and waved it around in attempting to influence the screen. My friend found it hilarious.