I meant to indicate that that the term was used in auto use starting around 1910 and used it in automobiles up to around 20yrs ago, . when the general electrical/electronic world had renamed it for over 50 years at that time.
Max.

I understand completely. I was only commenting on the irony that condensers themselves have become obsolete in cars.

 

Remember when B and C batteries referred to the battery's use, not its size -- like a 90V or 135V B battery?

John

 

Condenser instead of capacitor

And when repairing televisions for people, you would often get the question: "Is it THE condenser"? As if there was only one.

 

How about "Channel Knob" Funny story: I was watching The Simpsons, when Homer asked Bart to change the channel. Bart grabs a pair of pliers to use to change the channel. I fell off the sofa laughing, because we had to use pliers when our channel knob broke.

One of my most repaired items was tuner rebuilds. I swear I must have rebuilt my aunt's tuner every 6 months. Used to wonder why I had to have so many tuner rebuilds for her until I saw her change channels one day. Yikes. I am not sure you were able to change channels on solid state tuners that fast.

 

CB = Citizen Band

 

Channel Knob is about the same category as Rotary Phone.
Max.

When I was growing up, phone prefixes had names. In our area Federal = 331 , Spaulding = 771.

I guess you could say those are antiquated terms.

 

puffs meaning pico farads.

puff isn't used anymore??
I might be the youngest one in this thread, I've only worked one company, but puff is totally commonplace there

 

Inside a telephone handset, the microphone (carbon) was the "transmitter" and the speaker was the "receiver."
"Talk battery" was the 48 volts from the "CO"(central office.)

 

Federal (FE) and Spaulding (SP) described the first two numbers of the exchange. It's all on your telephone keypad.

And to remind us of days gone by ....

 

What about phrase we use but don't technically apply any more:

Dial the phone.
Tape the TV show.

 

Play a record. A single or a album. 45 or LP. Ok we can add a 78 as well.

 

Play a record. A single or a album. 45 or LP. Ok we can add a 78 as well.

Also 8-track.

 

ohmmeter. Never seen a meter that just measured ohms (except for my 4-wire kelvin milliohmmeter).

Computer Terminal - 12 years ago in High School I leaned in my 10-year-old-obsolete computer class textbook about Computer terminals and how the had developed over the the past 15 years from typewriters. Never seen one except in those 40 y/o pictures.

Typewriter - I had one as a kid. Brought it home from the thrift shop on my bicycle. I used it until it ran out of ribbon, then I turned it into a box of cool widgets.

Slide rule - I keep hearing about them; even saw one once. Looked like a fancy ruler. the end.

Camera (just camera). SLR, DSLR, cameraphone, point-&-shoot, etc. Is there such thing as just a camera?

RCA - I've lived in this house 2 years now and just this week got around to setting up my surround sound system that's been boxed up in the garage. I ended up having to go out and buy new stereo (ahem, I mean A/V Receiver) because my old one only had RCA jacks on it and I need HDMI. I'm glad to see RCA go, because it baffles Google that you would search for an RCA (the brand) stereo (ahem, I mean A/V Receiver) user's manual and not RCA-to-HDMI adapters.

Floppy - need I explain?

Cut & Paste - when was the last time you literally cut something and pasted it?

Fax machine - We have one at work but nobody knows the number. Its written down on a post-it that always seems to disappear 30 minutes before someone asks for it.

Interoffice memorandum - I found one in an old desk at a place I used to work, and kept it as nostalgia

 

Slide rule - I keep hearing about them; even saw one once. Looked like a fancy ruler. the end.

I have my old one in a glass case on the wall, and labeled 'In case of Battery failure, Break Glass'.
Max.

 

Computer Terminal

I do my work on a Terminal Emulator. Terminals were so handy, we have emulated versions.

 

I do my work on a Terminal Emulator. Terminals were so handy, we have emulated versions.

Because programmers did not want to waste time in creating a GUI for the program.

 

Selenium rectifiers, 5 1/4" floppies, Centronics connectors, knob and tube wiring, .....I'm sure I'll think of more...

 

Since automotive topics aren't allowed on AAC, I didn't mean condenser/capacitor in autos but in electronics.

 

Hello,

How about the typeball printers of IBM:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Selectric_typewriter

And dot-matrix printers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot_matrix_printing

And what to think of core memory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic-core_memory

And a Telex:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telex

Bertus

 

Computer Terminal

Interestingly, the web browser has essentially brought back the concept of a terminal. Before the browser, everything was moving away from the terminal concept and to the stand-alone desktop applications.

The new Amazon Echo is really just a terminal device with input (voice), output/input connection to Internet, output to user (speaker). Almost no on board data or capabilities. We used to call it a terminal - now we call it "The Cloud" like it is a new concept.