# I'm just old!



## ChasD (Mar 27, 2008)

Few weeks ago I did a run on a passenger vessel across the Biscay, one of the advertised facilities was ‘Free WiFi’, which to a sparky of the old school having struggled across the Biscay with a variety of equipment, mostly ‘807’ powered, was a quite fascinating concept. Even more fascinating was the degree to which it worked. To be able to sit in the lounge, fire up the – rather tatty – slaptop and not only do emails, skype,(bit rough) but get a satellite fix on the nav app that would have made most second mates drool in the old days with the level of info available was quite mind boggling ! Brought it home to me how old and out of date I’m getting but a quite fascinating revelation !


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## endure (Apr 16, 2007)

Your tale tells me that no matter how old you may be physically you're not old at all. There are those who are your age who refuse to have anything to do with any technology that is less than 50 years old. They're the ones who are out of date. If you mentioned 'wi-fi' or 'Skype' they'd say 'eh what' ?


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## tony mullen (May 30, 2009)

many of my old mates won't even talk about all that stuff. I tell them I would be lost without my comp ,ask it any question and you get an answer , it is very educational and covers any topic . oh no I can't be bothered ,they say . you can't beat a good book etc. everyone to their own but I think it is amazing, so I
say to anyone thinking about it ,go for it .it has changed the world and it will change yours as well.


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## rknibbs (Mar 11, 2006)

I remember in the late 60's a second engineer who recounted a question on a recent exam which asked if your vessel had a computer controlled engineroom where would you site the control terminal, he said he replied, `next to my bed at home' - we laughed and laughed at the sheer concept!!!!


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## Bill Greig (Jul 4, 2006)

Modern communications is something I never take for granted, having been at the sharp end of shipboard comms in the past, the fact you can send a text message to pretty well anywhere in the world (within reason & range) very easily blows me away.
Bill


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## ChasD (Mar 27, 2008)

It may be seen as 'a bit sad', but it seems I can't run my life these days without a computer - mebbe I've just let things get out of hand !
I do still find I'm running just to stay level, the two desk tops I have at my present location are both 'Pre Y2K', though a bit like 'The Irishmans Brush'. With the demise of XP I've had to upgrade both to W7 - interesting exercise ! (they both started as W98 - thinking on it, not much more than the box is original !).
So I have little sympathy with those who say 'Need a new 'un - this is twelve months old !'


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## chadburn (Jun 2, 2008)

There are still areas of North Yorks you cannot get a mobile signal so it's back to UHF Walkie Talkies.


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## spongebob (Dec 11, 2007)

Everything in this digital world seems to be rushing ahead at a frantic pace and I get the feeling that if I don't try to keep up to some degree I will be left wallowing in its wake without a life jacket.
Brave words seeing I am still learning to dog paddle

Bob


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

chadburn said:


> There are still areas of North Yorks you cannot get a mobile signal so it's back to UHF Walkie Talkies.


But do they want mobile phones? Won't it distract them from watching the bacon slicer?

John T


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## Farmer John (Feb 22, 2012)

trotterdotpom said:


> But do they want mobile phones? Won't it distract them from watching the bacon slicer?
> 
> John T


Less of your cheek, we have trafic lights to watch nowadays.

I can assure you there is reception at the top of the cliffs at Bempton, as last year when I visited to see the amazing seabird spectacle, a prat standing very close to me was describing it all to some cretin at the other end of his phone. Nearly grabbed it and chucked it.


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## chadburn (Jun 2, 2008)

Farmer John said:


> Less of your cheek, we have trafic lights to watch nowadays.
> 
> I can assure you there is reception at the top of the cliffs at Bempton, as last year when I visited to see the amazing seabird spectacle, a prat standing very close to me was describing it all to some cretin at the other end of his phone. Nearly grabbed it and chucked it.


You should have walked to the North a few hundred yards and you will have seen the foundations of what was a highly secret wireless listening aerial. GCHQ thought Bempton Cliffs was a good reception spot too(Thumb)


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## Varley (Oct 1, 2006)

spongebob said:


> Everything in this digital world seems to be rushing ahead at a frantic pace and I get the feeling that if I don't try to keep up to some degree I will be left wallowing in its wake without a life jacket.
> Brave words seeing I am still learning to dog paddle
> 
> Bob


The problem is not that the new technologists can 'swim a new way' but that they have forgotten the doggy paddle. Sometimes an old technique (such as a moving coil meter or battery and bulb) is more appropriate than the ubiquitous high impedance meter (I see that Fluke have got a meter with a low impedance range so I'ts not only an only a codger's opinion).


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## lakercapt (Jul 19, 2005)

I have frequent calls on "SKYPE" to the UK Australia and the US and find it mind boggling.
Used to be weeks between mail on some ships now there is never a time when you are remote!!!!


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## Farmer John (Feb 22, 2012)

chadburn said:


> You should have walked to the North a few hundred yards and you will have seen the foundations of what was a highly secret wireless listening aerial. GCHQ thought Bempton Cliffs was a good reception spot too(Thumb)


I know it well, there are some very good pics on 't net, but it has been vandalised and is now dangerous due to folks blithering about and exposing asbestos.


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## Farmer John (Feb 22, 2012)

lakercapt said:


> I have frequent calls on "SKYPE" to the UK Australia and the US and find it mind boggling.
> Used to be weeks between mail on some ships now there is never a time when you are remote!!!!


I can sit in the market place of our little town (reception is crap at home), and talk to my daughter in Thailand for free with Skype. Mind you, the equipment is quite challenging, it is double the size of a packet of ten cigarettes.


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## chadburn (Jun 2, 2008)

F.J. There are some interesting 'Illustrations' below ground along the passage(EEK)


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## Farmer John (Feb 22, 2012)

Don't know about that, the photos I have seen show very polished lino and big blast doors.


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## chadburn (Jun 2, 2008)

Farmer John said:


> Don't know about that, the photos I have seen show very polished lino and big blast doors.


I visited the place after it had been shutdown for a few years after the vandals and the 'Artist' had done his work as part of a project on Underground Defence Systems.


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## Bill.B (Oct 19, 2013)

A few years ago I was on the Franklin Philips in Diego Garcia doing the Maersk Fleet FCC C GMDSS inspections. While sitting in the radio room with the REO he suddenly said I have to phone the wife as water is coming out of the garage! He had a webcam set up on his house roof and using the ship BEST system was monitoring it. Made the morse key still bolted on the desk seem a bit dated. Did a tanker in San Francisco for Seariver and the 2nd Eng was running his cranberry bog on Cape Cod from the engine control room. He had signed up with a young English lad whose software allowed him to control the flood gates of the bog, monitor the air temp and other things, to keep it all going. The wife at home didn't have to do much at all. Quite an amazing setup. Not as much fun as bashing two bits of metal together though.
Bill B


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## chadburn (Jun 2, 2008)

The systems to monitor your property via i phone, i Pad are now readily available these days, they do not cost too much and well worth the money.


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## ChasD (Mar 27, 2008)

Still think a room full of grey boxes with knobs and dials and twiddly bits was a lot more fun than entering a code and letting Inmarsat do the rest, albeit you couldn't get pictures on a G11/G12 or Mercury / Electra ! Still having the entire world as a sound picture within one's skull, via the head phones, whilst the eyes are just receptors for the readouts - well maybe that does something to the brain ! Explains a lot some might say 

... Chas


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## sparks69 (Dec 18, 2005)

But are we any better off ? Is our quality of life any better ? Am I really interested in the fact that JT has bran flakes for his breakfast..........(poetic licence that last one)


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

sparks69 said:


> But are we any better off ? Is our quality of life any better ?


Yes. Undoubtedly.


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## Hugh Ferguson (Sep 4, 2006)

Here's a theme song for this thread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWsf0Aj0cPc


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## Denis Picot (Sep 2, 2008)

I remember sitting in the shack on a Shell tanker ( in about 1964 ) with a 4th. Engineer sitting on the desk alongside lots of grey Marconi boxes filled with valves etc when I made the following observation.............." Do you know what Mate ??? One day, all this equipment will one day fit into something like this desk drawer ??? " Little did I know that this very thing would occur in my lifetime. The technology today is mind blowing. Trying to raise GKA from Chile at 17H00 on 22Mgs..............now I punch a few buttons on my cell and I can talk to my Sister in Jersey from S.A. any time. The mind boggles.


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## sherman (Sep 22, 2009)

I got my first computer about 30 years ago (A small black Sinclare "THINGY") and have been buying bigger and better ones ever since. My wife used to tell me that I will go GAG! GAG! looking at that thing all day. I showed her how to play Scrabble on that "Thing". She now has her own "Thing" and the internet is turned on first thing in the morning. I have found that if you can show a Ludite one thing that interests them it just takes off


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## chadburn (Jun 2, 2008)

I still have one of the first games that were brought out, in black and white of course where you could play tennis by moving the white squares on a black background and your score flashed up.


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## quintero (Jul 2, 2007)

I am a 79 years old engineer. I used Apples, and now use Windows. But for some reason do not understand Android. Why ? No logic ?
Erik


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## GBXZ (Nov 4, 2008)

We are no old, we are adapting to changes in technology and then using the changes to improve and better our lives. Before your laptop and cell phone there were a whole range of technology advances. Consider the changes in communication technology from the Marconi trans-atlanic transmissions to what you were accepting as being the norm in accessing a data hotspot half way across the channel!


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## Farmer John (Feb 22, 2012)

About 5000 years ago a game was launched called "Rock". With later developments, it became "Rock, Paper, Scissors", but all power to those who stuck with it through the lean years.


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## spongebob (Dec 11, 2007)

John, I guess that the original game was played by crushing your opponents head with a rock, the Egyptians refined the play by inventing paper and the scissors probably came from the forerunners of the Swiss Army a Knife Company.
That's evolution for you and I wonder what the 4th component will be when it is introduced.

Bob


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