Terminology Oldsters vs Youngsters

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I'm not sure if you're just joking about the gear selector lever on an automatic transmission car making it a "stick shift" but, if not, stick shift is a term for manual transmissions in many parts of the world.

Yes, I was joking.
However, as I've said before, those over 70? should only drive a manual (with a gearbox) as you have to switch the brain on to do it. No brain, no licence.

It's not that hard to switch between them. If you forget to shift, the engine will let you know.

[TaterChip]

again to the subject of terminology while continuing the transmission thing... How many of you know how to operate a three on the tree? Perhaps only Americans used the phrase three on the tree but am certain many of us oldsters know what it means.

Before my time, but I can operate an 18 speed stick shift 18 wheeler. Now even those have gone to automatic

[Lady Fitzgerald]

again to the subject of terminology while continuing the transmission thing... How many of you know how to operate a three on the tree? Perhaps only Americans used the phrase three on the tree but am certain many of us oldsters know what it means.

I do!
I remember learning in drivers ed on a three on the tree. Going from first to second gear was fun.

A bit before my time but the push button transmission shifting I think was called the "Select-o-Matic"

The trannies were Torqueflites.

[BG405]

This talk about manual vs. automatic reminds me of when I started driving in Kenya. The comment was "don't you people usually drive automatics?" I said at the time that was probably more common in America but most of us Brits drove manual cars (some of the locals naturally assumed I was an American). Although I do know a few people who can't drive "stick" and one who has an automatics-only licence.

I've never driven an automatic. What are you supposed to do with the other foot? And how to stop instinctively reaching for the gear stick in anticipation of something ahead.

I wonder how many people these days would still be able to drive a manual vehicle with knackered clutch and/or gearbox vs. the equivalent in an automatic? I could probably get you home or at least within suitable rescue distance with the former; not quite so sure about the latter.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...I wonder how many people these days would still be able to drive a manual vehicle with knackered clutch and/or gearbox vs. the equivalent in an automatic? I could probably get you home or at least within suitable rescue distance with the former; not quite so sure about the latter.

Yeah, trooper starts (starting with the tranny in gear) won't work on automatics (and some modern manual trannies).

[AndyMH]

I've never driven an automatic. What are you supposed to do with the other foot? And how to stop instinctively reaching for the gear stick in anticipation of something ahead.

Well the first time you drive an automatic at some point you are going to try and change gear with the brake pedal and because something is going wrong you instinctively press harder. You only do this once!

The other side of this is when driving a manual you will forget to change gear, e.g. slowing for a junction, less exciting. I've driven automatics for the last 30 years, we have two cars in the household, my other half's is a manual, she refuses to drive mine.

The sophistication of auto gearboxes has improved significantly over the years. Back in the day the "standard" auto box was a BorgWarner 35, three speed. The auto box in my car is seven speed.

Anybody remember crash gearboxes and double de-clutching?

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...The sophistication of auto gearboxes has improved significantly over the years...

True that; so much, in fact, an increasing number of big trucks now have them. One reason is the increased fuel efficiency over a poorly driven manual is often enough to offset the increased cost and weight (another reason is it's getting harder to find drivers skilled enough to drive manuals without destroying them and/or the clutch and/or drive them at acceptable fuel efficiency.

...Anybody remember crash gearboxes and double de-clutching?

I did a post earlier talking about crash boxes, auxiliary transmissions and multi-speed axles, and double clutching. Most, if not all, manual transmissions on bigger trucks are still crash boxes (synchros are expensive and add to much weight).

[ivar]

Well the first time you drive an automatic at some point you are going to try and change gear with the brake pedal and because something is going wrong you instinctively press harder. You only do this once!

.. and get very closely acquainted with the windshield? Check.

Afterwards, I've been able to swap between manual and auto without embarassing hiccups - I just seem to deactivate my "clutch" foot as soon as I enter the driving seat of an auto

[MurphCID]

"Party Line" does not equal a post on Facebook! Who remembers "Party line" phones?

autoexec.bat file vs init file vs whatever the heck is used today. And using Edlin to edit the autoexec.bat file?

As someone up above said, pushing the lever closed to be able to use your floppy drive? Or the shear joy of discovering 3.5" floppies that held 720k, and later 1.44m?

Being able to run your system on 64 or 128 kilobytes of ram?

[TaterChip]

"Party Line" does not equal a post on Facebook! Who remembers "Party line" phones?

autoexec.bat file vs init file vs whatever the heck is used today. And using Edlin to edit the autoexec.bat file?

As someone up above said, pushing the lever closed to be able to use your floppy drive? Or the shear joy of discovering 3.5" floppies that held 720k, and later 1.44m?

Being able to run your system on 64 or 128 kilobytes of ram?

*** raises hand ***

I also created my share of .bat files back in the day. I'm assuming that would be the equivalent of creating .sh files nowadays?

[Lady Fitzgerald]

"Party Line" does not equal a post on Facebook! Who remembers "Party line" phones?

autoexec.bat file vs init file vs whatever the heck is used today. And using Edlin to edit the autoexec.bat file?

As someone up above said, pushing the lever closed to be able to use your floppy drive? Or the shear joy of discovering 3.5" floppies that held 720k, and later 1.44m?

Being able to run your system on 64 or 128 kilobytes of ram?

Yeppers to all but the .bat file.

[BG405]

This also reminds me of going into the BIOS to set base memory to 640K instead of 512K (which was for some reason the default on the old PB640). Also, on older machines, shoving as much as possible into "himem" to give enough room for programs to install and run. Use of "dblspace" or whatever it was called to get a Win95 install to work on the 486 I was using at the time (in order to "meet" the minimum space requirements on an old 270MB hard disk (which I still have, somewhere!)).

[RollyShed]

I wonder how many people these days would still be able to drive a manual vehicle with knackered clutch and/or gearbox vs. the equivalent in an automatic? I could probably get you home or at least within suitable rescue distance with the former; not quite so sure about the latter.

I had two LandRovers in my time. A SWB IIA petrol and after that a LWB IIA diesel. First and second gears did not have synchromesh.

The van I drive, Ford Econovan, is manual and does have synchro.

My mother, decades ago had a Fiat 500. She was annoyed at not being told about the lack of synchro, not the lack of it. She was brought up on Austin 7s 1930s and used to strip them down to decoke the engines. She was a natural technician.

[RollyShed]

1.) Well the first time you drive an automatic at some point you are going to try and change gear with the brake pedal and because something is going wrong you instinctively press harder. You only do this once!

2.) The other side of this is when driving a manual you will forget to change gear, e.g. slowing for a junction, less exciting.

3.) Anybody remember crash gearboxes and double de-clutching?

1.) No, never a problem.
2.) No, never a problem.
3.) Yes. See my previous comments on that.

Also driving on the left or right, no problems. That is driving here or in USA, done both.

[MurphCID]

I remember there was a script called "Washing machine" and you put it into the autoexec.bat file, and when you booted it delivered a message that water was detected on the hard drive, and a spin cycle was starting, and you got a spin sound then the message drive was dry, please go ahead and boot normally. It terrified people when they saw it, it was a great joke.

[ivar]

Also, on older machines, shoving as much as possible into "himem" to give enough room for programs to install and run.

this was a real struggle, especially on laptops with PCMCIA slots (anyone remember those?) that required drivers, Dos network card drivers for Novell + commands to load non-US character sets. Had to spend some time juggling the sequence in which these drivers were loaded to get as much as possible shoved into himem or extended memory. On one of the brands we sold we were lucky to get much more than 500k free base memory

[MurphCID]

I went with my computer buddy, when he bought several tubes (yes tubes) of memory chips and added them to an AST ram card to get his computer memory up to 1 megabyte so he could take everything above 640k and run it a a ram cache.

[wwblm]

Low memory high memory autoexec.bat. I kind of remember that stuff. My work desktop had those limitations but someone else took care of all that stuff for me. For my field work, I had a portable with an 8 line LCD display and 32K of memory. Did not have a floppy drive at all. IIRC, it used something like a cassette tape to load or save programs. The battery was a few AA cells! Carried it in a briefcase sort of case that included a dot matrix printer.

When I got my own computer a few years later I had no intention of having to deal with any of that stuff so I bought a Mac! No novell cards or messing with low and high memory for me! In addition to the build in networking I got a huge 40MB hard drive and and amazing 5MB of RAM! That seemed like such a powerful beast -- and it was. That leads me to another piece of terminology that perhaps means nothing to the youngsters.

Moore's Law

For probably something like 20 years after getting that first computer Moore's law was a real thing. For me, the practical effects of Moore's law quit being noticed around 2011. From the first computer, I ended up getting a new desktop inside of 3 years. Needed another desktop about 3 years after that and then shifted to laptops. Went through 4 laptops in less than 10 years. Bought high end at the beginning of 2011 and still have that laptop and it works great with Mint! Have a 2012 that I picked up used and I still do significant Mac development on it. Typing this on a machine that was probably made in 2016 -- I picked it up last summer. I certainly don't feel like it is old an slow but perhaps I am;-)

[BG405]

Well the first time you drive an automatic at some point you are going to try and change gear with the brake pedal and because something is going wrong you instinctively press harder. You only do this once!

                .. and ..

.. and get very closely acquainted with the windshield? Check.

                ..

laptops with PCMCIA slots (anyone remember those?)

                    I have one! It's a Time machine.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

This is going way back when I was still working for a living in warehousing, which included frequent, extended stints Shipping and Receiving. When we had product that needed to be returned to a vendor, we and our vendors called it a Return. Vendors had to authorize the return and, to facilitate identifying what was the reason for the return when the vendor received the returned product, an RMA (Return Material Authorization) was issued. this could be just a number written on the package or a document, usually with a reference number, that had to be included with the packing list, or both.

RMA was a noun but, somewhere in the not so distant past, younger people, especially those in the computer field, started using it as a verb. Instead of returning something, you RMA it which I find rather irritating.