Did any of you use these sticks and rocks?

T

tylerr

While doing research on flowcharts for a style guide I'm wrting, I happened upon an image of the "tools" used to make flowcharts in the past.

I'll admit, I'm young (26) but I just can't imagine someone using this, especially today.

It's not a joke but it certainly is funny for those of us that grew up with computers. Visio, you're my best friend now.

Tyler R
 

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Miner

Forum Moderator
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Admin
Laugh now. I used to use that exact template among others. When I began my career, I used a dumb terminal that you had to dial up a remote mainframe then insert the phone into foam cups. The output printed onto a roll of thermal paper. When IBM launched the first PC, I thought that was great.

I rest easy knowing that 20 to 30 years from now, another 20-something will be poking fun at the iPads, iPods, iPhones, laptops and more that you use today.

BTW, I use Visio now also.
 

Jim Wynne

Leader
Admin
While doing research on flowcharts for a style guide I'm wrting, I happened upon an image of the "tools" used to make flowcharts in the past.

I'll admit, I'm young (26) but I just can't imagine someone using this, especially today.

It's not a joke but it certainly is funny for those of us that grew up with computers. Visio, you're my best friend now.

Tyler R

Damn smart-alecky kids.
Did any of you use these sticks and rocks?


I used to have one of those. It might surprise you that you can still buy those as well as lots of others.
 
H

Howard Lee

Not only have I had to use that but I've been required to solve any angle using the knowledge in my head and a pencil. Society has become too mired in technology that we have lost the knowledge of where things come from.
 

howste

Thaumaturge
Trusted Information Resource
A person who can use one of those rocks! They can stick it to anyone who can't. :cool:


I think I could probably find one of those somewhere at home if I looked hard enough. Does anybody else remember writing code on punch cards?
 

Miner

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Admin
Yep. Wrote Fortran IV on punchcards. Thought Pascal without punchcards was great.

Remember drawing a black stripe diagonally across the card deck, so if you dropped them, they were easier to sort?
 

Wes Bucey

Prophet of Profit
I still have my T-square, protractor, straight edge, lettering guide, French curve, compasses, Rapidograph pens and an assortment of pen point thicknesses. I think I had enough different stencils to create "stencil envy" among my peers, exacerbated by the fact I had a drafting table made from a bulletproof window I salvaged from a currency exchange that was being demolished. Oh yes, don't forget the slide rule! I remember buying india ink by the quart. My first wife was an architect whose firm (Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill) was one of the first to use computer drafting software in the 1970s, but we still had reams of Zipatone (Sp?) at home for her to stick onto foam core for making models look like they had windows, or bricks, or any other repeated architectural detail. I remember buying Xacto blades by the hundreds for carving Balsa. posterboard, foamcore, and cardboard into 3D scale models. We bought rubber cement by the case in gallon cans.

In an average drafting studio, combining spirit duplicator (alcohol) smells and rubber cement thinner smells with the smells from the blueprint machine and three martini lunches, it's no wonder some draftsmen and engineers fell asleep at their tables in the afternoon!
 

Celtic Warrior

Involved In Discussions
Yeah, who would have thought that one of these was used in the Apollo moon landings! :rolleyes:
I knew how to use one once upon a time, I am not sure that I could now :nope:
 

mdurivage

Quite Involved in Discussions
Do you also have a slide rule?

While doing research on flowcharts for a style guide I'm wrting, I happened upon an image of the "tools" used to make flowcharts in the past.

I'll admit, I'm young (26) but I just can't imagine someone using this, especially today.

It's not a joke but it certainly is funny for those of us that grew up with computers. Visio, you're my best friend now.

Tyler R
 
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