Old Tech thread

[Vertigo]

Gas Jokeys

A filling station attendant or gas station attendant (also known as a gas jockey in the US and Canada) is a worker at a full-service filling station who performs services other than accepting payment. Tasks usually include pumping fuel, cleaning windshields, and checking vehicle oil levels. Prior to the introduction of self-starting vehicle engines, attendants would also start vehicle engines by manually turning the crankshaft with a hand crank.

Americans probably corrupted the Canadians.

Horrible people those Americans.

Well, as I say I used to be one. And yes we were expected to fill the car and offer to clean the windscreen and check the oil, but I'm not old enough to have had to crank the engine as well

 

[Ursa major]

I thought the job was sometimes called "Petrol pump attendant" in the UK.

 

[Vertigo]

Thinking along the same lines, I wonder how many people remember using one of these:

 

[Rodders]

I miss Hi-Fi seperates.

 

[Vertigo]

I miss Hi-Fi seperates.

By separates, do you mean tuner, amp, cd player, tape player, LP player?

 

[Rodders]

Oh yes, very much so.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Found this looking for a new home today...

Valves!

 

[Ursa major]

Some day in the future, someone will discover that there were once valve radios...

...and wonder why radios had to be plumbed in.

 

[Vertigo]

Oh yes, very much so.

Ah well I still have mine, bought in the '80s. The tuner is pretty much redundant where I live - virtually no radio or TV reception - and I don't use the tape deck any longer but the amp (Rotel), CD player (Rotel) and speakers (Mission) are all still going strong!

 

[hitmouse]

I miss Hi-Fi seperates.

Still going. There are several dozen Youtube audio review channels. Quite addictively nerdy.

 

[Pyan]

My first system was all separates: a Garrard SP 25 deck, a handmade Sinclair Z-30 amp and a pair of Wharfedale Laser 60 speakers. Happy days...

 

[dask]

When analog was still astounding:

 

[Dave]

^^ Not quite as exciting as a coast-to-coast aeroplane but my father was once given a tour of a new public house on the day it opened about 1982. One of the selling points made to him was that these toilets had built-in ceiling speakers which meant that they could now pipe popular music throughout the entire pub.

Personally, I think that was the least of it's attractions. It was also built with a stage for live music, but they later took that out in order to fill the pub with ever more 14-year-old underage drinkers. Most very old pubs in towns and cities used to have some kind of stage for music hall or musical performances. Now, even if there is a band, it is stuck in some corner where you can hear them but never see them.

 

[Ursa major]

One of the selling points made to him was that these toilets

I may have mentioned this before, but one of the men's toilets at the company site where I worked two and a half decades ago had motion detectors fitted.

 

[Pyan]

I may have mentioned this before, but one of the men's toilets at the company site where I worked two and a half decades ago had motion detectors fitted.

So you were OK if you only needed a Number One?...

 

[Ursa major]

No: as long as one didn't aim straight up (and with an exceptional degree of force) no motion would be detected in the stalls.

 

[Dave]

They have motion detector in toilets with so called "eco-lighting" so that the lights will go out after one or two minutes if you don't move. I tend to take longer than two minutes, especially for... well you know, and waving your hands about while sitting in the cubicle is hard work. I once also had to do that in a shower on a campsite too. I had to keep opening the shower door and putting an arm out to keep the light on! All I can think is that the person that designed these things never used them.

 

[reiver33]

My first time flying was the 6am ish Edinburgh to Heathrow shuttle and then on to TSB in Andover (an IT client), which was also their main training centre, where I was to stay while on site. Long, demanding, day and dog tired by the end. Got to my room but decided I needed to shave now ahead of tomorrow’s early start. Communal (male) toilet block down the hall, but shaving in the sink was hampered by the 2-minute timer, or thereabouts. Struggled through it, back to my room to unpack. Opened the wardrobe - to find the en suite...

 

[JunkMonkey]

They have motion detector in toilets with so called "eco-lighting" so that the lights will go out after one or two minutes if you don't move. I tend to take longer than two minutes, especially for... well you know, and waving your hands about while sitting in the cubicle is hard work. I once also had to do that in a shower on a campsite too. I had to keep opening the shower door and putting an arm out to keep the light on! All I can think is that the person that designed these things never used them.

If you have a wall mounted detector switch like this:

It might be worth having a bend down and look underneath it. We just had them fitted at a place I work and the ones there all have little turnable adjusters underneath to alter the duration, light level, and sensitivity. We're still tweaking a few to get it so the lights don't go off when people are half way up the stairs and not yet in range of the detector at the top of the stairs etc.

 

[Ursa major]

so that the lights will go out after one or two minutes

When we moved to a different site from the one with the motion detectors in the gents, the lights in the office areas operated as you say (albeit with a timer that waited longer than two minutes).

A motion detector monitored the area where I worked but I was hidden from it by a support column. If I was working late, but no one else was there, the light would go off unless I got up and moved to where the detector could, well, detect me.

I got fed up with this, so arranged it so that, by pulling on a piece of string leading from my desk and running along the top of a partition, I could move a business card taped to the partition that moved enough to get the detector to switch the lights back on.