Do you remember the first time?

I don't remember many first times like this - I think I took to technology like a duck to water. Although I don't have much trouble driving different cars, I do, however, remember being totally flummoxed when my employer asked me to move his car for him and it had one of the (then) "new" keys with no actual visible key. I think I gave him the key back saying there was no other free space.

Another time was when I was asked to pick someone up from the station in a company car. I couldn't find the handle to wind the window down to get the ticket out of the machine at the entrance to the car park. In the end I got out of the car! It turned out that the window was operated by a button in the centre console.

WE had a television for the 1953 Coronation; later we had ITV and the channels were changed manually via a box and plug-in lead. People bought colour TVs to watch the moon landing, (black and white), then there was the excitement of remote control and wresting it away from the person who liked to exercise control. And of course the video machine, lying full length on the floor to programme it, then wiping off someone's treasured recording by accident.

Our next door neighbour also had a gas fridge, I couldn’t work out how it could work as we had a gas cooker. That would have been 1962/63.
we didn’t get a fridge until some years later

I remember feeling really ‘techie’ when I sent my first fax message over from the hospital where I worked. Mid ‘80’s I think.

And my parents buying a huge chest freezer in the early 70’s. It must have cost a fortune to fill it up. I remember mum buying loaves of bread, extra packets of butter and cheese/cooked meats and making up sandwiches for us to take to work, wrapped in cling film. I think she made them on an industrial scale - once a month - and press ganged my sister and me onto the production line if we hadn’t been quick enough to high tail it.

Strange thought just popped in my head. Mum had a gas powered fridge. Just seems weird. Anyone else?

I love the way my mum's latest-up-to
-datest Keymatic can be seen at the museum of Wales

museum.wales/collections/online/object/c6adb905-ef1d-365d-b0b3-84caaa429dd7/Hoover-Keymatic-automatic-washing-machine/

Just checked, it was an E1400 and it was 1967.

The first time I used the Burroughs E1400 ( if my memory serves me correctly that was the number) you climbed in and sat on the seat, put your customer card in the slot, typed in the payment or Invoice and it slid the card through automatically calculating the amount owed.
When someone in the building put a kettle on it died, then roared into life when the kettle had boiled!

I remember the first time of being confronted with a twin tub in a rented flat. My mother had had an automatic. It moved all around the kitchen and the outlet tube came out of the sink and I flooded the kitchen.

B9exchange

I took a job at a primary school as secretary/bursar in the '80s. There was computer sitting in the corner of the office with a cover over it. At the interview the Head had said 'you and I are going to learn how to use it!'

We set off on the training course in her tiny Fiat Panda. It was the day of the 'Great Storm', we were nearly blown over so many times on the way back I am not likely to forget it!

😲

The computer course I went on when I learnt about emails was the day after - trees were down all across The Downs!

We ran a residential home for 25 people and had a twin tub washing machine. The first automatic washer we got was absolute bliss.

Tizliz

The golf ball typewriter/word processor - no more tippex!

It was just brilliant for typing mathematical equations in the middle of papers, because you just changed the golf ball, instead of heaving out half the typewriter and shoving in a new keyboard.

DS had the first computer in the family, an Amstrad for games, which was tape driven and used to take 20 minutes to load.

I remember being introduced to emails for the first time, it was when I went on a course from work. The lecturer said he and his friends never sent Christmas cards any longer, they just emailed each other and I remember thinking that was a miserable thing to do.

Ah yes the Hoover Keymatic was the first automatic machine but that was my DM's.
When we were married it was still the launderette each week until we bought a twin tub. We were in a rented flat and couldn't plumb in an automatic machine.

As for the other first time. It was so long ago. I could maybe tell you about the last time.
.

I remember seeing my first microwave oven in the University Café in Glasgow, around 1973/4.

And, as for the other first time, yes, I do!

I remember the first time we used a scanner (B&W)..
A friend who worked in design brought over a scanner which attached to a printer. The scanners were all freestanding in those days and had software which loaded into our desktop with a disk.

He wanted to demonstrate how it worked and asked our 6/7 year old what they would like to scan.
They came back with a story book with a drawing of a frog in and then when asked how big they wanted it, of course, wanted it the "size of the wall".

It was the most magical thing - seeing the pages churn out in order, sellotapeing them together in strips and blu-tacing them onto the wall.
Oh how exciting it was!
I can't begin to tell you.
All our children danced about in delight, laughing and shrieking. I will never forget it.

It was even more exciting than watching a cycle of my new washing machine which meant nappies didn't need to be washed in the Baby Burco any more!...and that was pretty exciting too!

Tizliz

The golf ball typewriter/word processor - no more tippex!

Me too! I was really excited, it felt very space age!

I left work to have our daughter in 1981. One secretary in the College where I worked had a computer. Her boss was a General Election expert and was writing a book. Nine years later I returned to the paid working world. The agency I went to put me in a room with a computer and told me to do the teach yourself computing course which was on it. Strewth, I thought! But I loved it and haven’t looked back. I remember golf ball typewriters. I bought a second hand one to type up OH’s Masters dissertation. Do I remember the first time…1970

I also have painful memories as a teenager of being asked to help my father out one Saturday morning, he was superintendent of mechanised accounts for a large insurance firm, and it was all hands on deck to move the boxes of punch cards containing the customers' data from one room to another. I was wearing a very chunky hand knitted sweater and a large gold medallion (this was the early '60s) Whilst carrying the trays (trying to show off and carring more than one at a time) the medallion hooked itself in my sweater behind the trays, and in attempting free it, I dropped all the trays. Cards everywhere, completely out of order, my father never swore, but I could see he was tempted, and I was never asked to help out again!

Not quite the first time, but I remember when my husband (then boyfriend) bought me an automatic washing machine, in the early 1970's. Before this we'd had to traipse out to the launderette every weekend. It still is the best present I've ever had, it transforted out lives!

“Do you remember the first time?” made me think of the Pulp song. 🎶🎵

sharon103

Do you remember the first time?

I must have a dirty mind.
I thought this was about something else! ................and yes I do.

I suspect that you are not on on your own. I thought that was what it was asking and my answer is yes as well. I'm not sure if it is or

sharon103

Do you remember the first time?

I must have a dirty mind.
I thought this was about something else! ................and yes I do.

Ditto sharon, ...... and yes, I do.

I`m another who could have got the thread shut down. And yes, I do! Not the exact date, but it was February 1963!

sharon103

Do you remember the first time?

I must have a dirty mind.
I thought this was about something else! ................and yes I do.

Oh, dear. I thought the same thing as Sharon.
Yes, I do - and it was a huge disappointment.🤭

Firstly
Yes the computers but in terms of what struck me as wonderful was getting my first automatic washing machine.
Just imagine, putting clothes in, having to do nothing except take them out when clean.

Secondly
The wide onset of Zoom and similar platforms coming when most needed.

Does anybody remember sending txt messages via Sky ?
My daughter was inJapan and it was so expensive to phone , I remember laboriously typing out messages on the hand set , it showed up on the tv screen !