The world in 1975 (2007)

http://www.ranprieur.com/misc/1975.html

by apsec112 • 11 years ago

69 55 11 years ago

Isamu2• 11 years ago

Radio stations played a great variety of really good new music.

Please. The lack of variety in the public sphere is exactly what led to the "underground" music scenes. In the 70's the new unheard music was punk and the like.

When I left for college in '79 it was an absolutely jaw-dropping, exciting experience to find an entire music store filled with this "alternative" music that no one played (outside of college stations, which played anything. Even then, some of the college stations still played Top 40. What was the point of that?)

Most Americans had never heard of espresso.

True, although if you were paying attention to the movie, "Shaft" ordered espresso. I noticed this but still didn't understand what it was supposed to be.

Doomsayers were worried about something they called the "greenhouse effect".

To be fair, early in the 70's it seemed to some researchers that the historical trend was downward and we were headed into a new ice age. This was widely reported. Later on more work was done to get better global temperature proxies and it was decided that the trend was upwards.

whitie4• 11 years ago

"Later ... it was decided that the trend was upwards."

Between '65 and '79 there were 6 times as many research papers predicting warming. That was even despite increasing knowledge of Ice Ages.

"The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus" http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1

Isamu2• 11 years ago

Not trying to be controversial or anything ... just that the reporting on the ice age thinking had traction in popular press.

Nor am I saying that this represented a consensus view that later changed to another consensus view. I think, however, that it took time before the ice age faction gave way.

Meanwhile, in reading popular science reporting of the time, I think it is not too subjective to claim that the ice age notion took hold for bit in the public imagination before global warming did.

ArkyBeagle• 11 years ago

So compare it to present-day Top 40 radio. There is no contest.

There really was a great variety of good music. Check the Top 100 lists through the decade. There was a lot of utter dreck as well. Even that might have been at least somewhat interesting.

Punk wasn't exactly evenly distributed. The only reason I knew about it then at all was from people writing about it, which made it appear to be an artifact of journalism.

stevefolta• 11 years ago

Also, in 1975, punk was just getting started, and it wasn't yet clear that radio was not gonna play the Ramones.

I remember hearing "Bohemian Rhapsody" on the radio for the first time, and thinking they'd never play it again, 'cause it was just too weird.

kazinator• 11 years ago

It could be there was a lack of variety in mainstream broadcasting, but that doesn't mean it was bad. Underground music scenes weren't necessarily about quality; a lot of is is about rebellion and self-expression. Being able to express certain ideas lyrically as well as musically.

The Top 40 crap then was better than today, simply because it used real musicians and vocalists. Music wasn't put together like Lego blocks by some computer geek working with a music workstation. Let's not even get started on pitch correction of vocalists, good grief!

I was just cycling home in the dark and deliberately went the wrong way into a one-way street. The "One Way Ticket" Eruption song came to mind, man. I haven't heard that in over 35 years probably. Completely forgot about it. I didn't even speak English; now I understand what it's about, listening to it on YT.

dang• 11 years ago

A discussion from 2009: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=503640.

vermooten• 11 years ago

There were no DVD's or even VCR's -- movies could only be seen in theaters, or older movies on TV. You could also buy a super 8mm film version, probably not the entire film though.

13of40• 11 years ago

My parents used to check out a movie projector from the library. Can't remember anything we watched, though.

Allegrippus2• 11 years ago

We did have video tape recorders, though. Setting up and running them for classes was part of my college work-study job around 1971-72. The units I operated were made by Ampex and were about the size of a suitcase. They used a wide tape which had to be threaded onto the take-up reel, similar to an audio reel-to-reel tape recorder. The tape head had to be cleaned with alcohol between each use, and there was a tracking control which you often adjusted to avoid getting a stripe across the picture.

pbhjpbhj2• 11 years ago

I think they're using DVD and VCR as references to the media and not the machines, I know it's not correct language but have often heard people in the UK say "I have it on VCR" when they mean they have a video cassette tape.

Also they're clearly saying "no" in the context of a seven year old's view of domestic life. Obviously TV stations had recording equipment.

flyinghamster• 11 years ago

Not only that, but there were definitely VCRs in 1975. In particular, the Sony U-Matic was released in 1971, and Betamax dates to 1975 (with a November release in the US). Of course, the early VCRs were either used in educational or industrial environments, or else were toys for the rich.

There are plenty of other nits to pick with this article, as well. Pong wasn't the only video game, even if it was by far the most common (and yes, pinball dominated the arcades then). Dynamic range compression on LPs was certainly a thing, but producers didn't go overboard with it back then the way they do now.

Still, it's funny how some things never change (like media fearmongering).

11thEarlOfMar2• 11 years ago

"There was no pizza delivery. Even supermarkets had much less pre-made food, so people had to at least try to cook."

Eau contraire, in 1976 I was delivering J&B's pizza to save up for college.

And our freezer was filled with TV dinners. We had 'TV Trays'. Today, we have trays for our notebook computers: http://www.aliexpress.com/popular/notebook-computer-stands.h...

Allegrippus2• 11 years ago

I always hated when the apple cobbler or other sugary dessert bled over from its section of the tray into the main course of salisbury steak and mashed potatoes or whatever. Of course, thinking back now -- the mashed potatoes always tasted awful like cardboard, so perhaps I shouldn't have cared that the stuff was getting all mixed :-)

carlob• 11 years ago

Nitpick of the day: it's au contraire, eau is just water, au is roughly at the. ;)

11thEarlOfMar2• 11 years ago

Thanks! Haha.

sabujp2• 11 years ago

You payed by cash or check

You can still do this using a debit card. I'm not 100% sure how your credit is affected if you never get a credit card though. I know there are other ways to build up credit. Also, credit cards make products more expensive, there's probably a transaction fee for debit cards too.

There were no ATM's. To get cash out of your account, you went to a bank teller, and there was no fee.

But you could only get money out of your own bank? You can now get an account at many banks/credit unions that waive atm transaction fees.

Only rich people had credit cards. If you had debts, a credit card was harder to get.

100% agree that we need to bring this back. If you don't have good credit, 760+ you shouldn't be allowed to have a credit card with high interest rates.

Nobody went into debt for college. You either saved money in advance or worked your way through.

Why is college so much more expensive now? Even online/"low cost" programs.

There was no pizza delivery. Even supermarkets had much less pre-made food, so people had to at least try to cook.

Really, no pizza delivery?! Well I guess with oil shortages that's believable.

The work week was five hours shorter. You can still see this in the old phrase "nine to five." People actually did work nine to five, with a paid hour for lunch.

There are many people who work multiple jobs to make ends meet and the vast majority aren't doing what they want.

Tapping a phone was difficult, both technically and legally, and you could safely assume your phone calls and letters were private.

Everybody was afraid of "crime" (illegal acts by people of lower social class) and "terrorism" (political violence outside a state monopoly).

Yup, more of that now even though we're safer now than at any other time in history.

Doomsayers were worried about something they called the "greenhouse effect". They said if we didn't reduce our carbon emissions soon, the world would heat up and we would have ecological disasters.

Not just doomsayers, but looks like oil companies knew about it too but decided to keep it hidden.

There was an oil shortage, and people responded by driving less, in more fuel-efficient cars.

I saw the first Hummer H2 I'd seen in years a few weeks ago costco pump in the bay area when oil prices were ~$2.15/gallon. It all boils down to economics.

ZanyProgrammer• 11 years ago

"Why is college so much more expensive now?" there's only a bazillion posts on HN about this, look up student loan threads.

sabujp2• 11 years ago

i realize it's "easier" to get a loan now so they jack up the prices, so it's just that greed?

mcculley2• 11 years ago

> You payed by cash or check You can still do this using a debit card.

His point wasn't debit versus credit. It was that one had to have the actual paper cash or a checkbook handy when stopping at the store. It's a lot more convenient now.

macintux• 11 years ago

I still remember my mother using a credit card (probably ~1980) and the cashier pulled out a phone-book-sized list of known stolen CC numbers. I told my mom "I hope she finds it in the book" (not knowing its purpose) and she replied "I hope she doesn't".

Anyway, even credit cards were slower then.

TheOtherHobbes• 11 years ago

There were no digital watches. And wind-up watches were cheap.

LED digital watches arrived at my school in 1974/75. LCD watches arrived about a year later.

Headphones were giant things you used in the basement to listen to Pink Floyd.

I had a pair of 424s in 1975. They sounded pretty good.

http://www.tonepublications.com/old-school/sennheiser-hd-414...

There was no portable way to listen to music except transistor radios.

Like a lot of people, I had a battery/mains cassette player/recorder. It wasn't an iPod, but it would have done the job. It's more accurate to say there was no tradition of personal music players. In-car players were very common.

Cashiers punched in all the prices by hand, but it was only a little bit slower.

It was horrendously slow. And every single individual item had to have its own price sticker - which often fell off, holding everyone up.

It's interesting how many of these simply haven't been checked or researched, just patched together to create an "It was better in the old days' narrative.

I don't remember it being better. I remember it being very different. Many things now - smoking bans, health awareness, the public Internet - are huge improvements.

kuschku2• 11 years ago

Regarding of the speed of cashiers: ALDI is the only store where actual tests showed that the speed has gone down since the introduction of scanners — but all prices of all products had to be known by all cashiers, and there was always only one product of each type.

intopieces• 11 years ago

I have a feeling that inventory control, price accuracy and the ease of training cashiers are considered reasonable trade-offs for how long it takes to ring customers.

Falkon1313• 11 years ago

It was horrendously slow. And every single individual item had to have its own price sticker - which often fell off, holding everyone up.

One of my first jobs was at a store where we manually keyed the prices (and produce code numbers). We often got comments from customers surprised that we were quicker than the stores that used scanners. Missing stickers for unusual products could of course cause a slowdown (same as a product that won't scan). But for most things, you typed them in so many times per day that you could just glance over the pile of things as they were being unloaded onto the checkout counter and by the time the customer had put everything on the counter, your hand had already keyed all the prices/codes in by muscle memory. Things that were sold by weight had to be weighed, but otherwise it was quick.

It took longer to wait for the response from the credit card processor than it did to enter prices for a whole cart full of groceries. That gave us time to bag the groceries. When someone paid cash, there was no need to wait for the credit card (or wait for someone to fill out a check), so that's when we had to call one of the clerks over to bag.

zeveb• 11 years ago

Many things now - smoking bans, health awareness, the public Internet - are huge improvements.

IMHO smoking bans have been a terrible thing. It's nowhere near as pleasant to listen to music or hang out in a bar or pub without the blue haze of tobacco smoke making the place feel comfortable and happy. I miss it terribly — and I don't smoke cigarettes!

jgh• 11 years ago

Tapping a phone was difficult, both technically and legally, and you could safely assume your phone calls and letters were private.

Wait, couldn't you just listen in on someone's line from the telephone box outside their house?

pbhjpbhj2• 11 years ago

Depending on the exchange, in the UK, I think the "operator" may have been able to listen in too?

Crossed lines were a thing I think [in movies they were!] - induced signals in a different line that allowed you to hear someone else's call?

mcculley2• 11 years ago

To fly on an airplane, you just had to walk through a metal detector, and if someone was there to meet you or say goodbye, they could go all the way to the gate without a ticket.

Also, you could meet somebody for lunch at the terminal during a layover or have a meeting right in the terminal at a restaurant. I had a boss before 9/11 that had direct reports all over the country. He would sometimes fly out and have lunch with one of his reports at a restaurant in the terminal and fly right back out. None of this is practical now with the security hassles.

smikhanov• 11 years ago

    None of this is practical now with the security hassles

In North America with TSA, absolutely. When I need to do a stopover in one of the efficient airports in Central or Northern Europe, I often go out to arrivals area (even if it involves going through passport control) and then back through departures. This way I can spend time doing some shopping for brands I don't have at home. CPH and ZRH are very good for that, CGN less so, ARN is not worth the hassle. Security in the departure area is always incomparably better than the same in America and with a layover of 1.5-2 hours you can do it at almost a leisurely pace.

jhallenworld3• 11 years ago

There was once an hourly air shuttle between Islip and DC. You just walked onto the plane and bought your tickets.

proc0• 11 years ago

Also, there population of earth was 50% less (3.8 bill according to my quick search). Everywhere you go there would be 50% less people. Imagine that.

hueving4• 11 years ago

Not really. Some places would be completely undeveloped while others would have been about the same size or even larger (think of industrial mid west cities).

api• 11 years ago

I read it with an eye to what got worse, since most things got better. The thing that truly leapt out to me was how awful pop music and the radio are today. There is good music, but nowhere near a radio. You really have to dig in obscure places for it. Pop is with very few exceptions loudness enhanced vapid junk that all sounds the same and that and oldies are all the radio will play.

Only a bit of actual inspired music has broken through in the past decade... basically m83 and a bit of decent hip hop. Compare this to the early 90s, the last time popular music was decent. There were literally dozens of amazing new bands and several whole new styles in a span of 5 years. That was I suppose before the marketers took over and figured out how to endlessly push junk.

I don't always cheer for disruption, but boy would I celebrate the total ruin of that industry. What a joke.

jegoodwin3• 11 years ago

Mostly on base -- but no mention of the exit from Saigon? 1975 was the year the '60s ended.

Also, in 1975, one heard a lot more about 'the coming ice age' than global warming. The concept had a brief reprise in the 80s with 'the Cold and the Dark' (Nuclear Winter).

harel• 11 years ago

I still don't get the whole 9 to 6 thing. 9 to 5 seems more reasonable (considering past norms. I don't believe were productive 8 hours a day sttaight). I think, at the very least the song lyrics should change, or better yet, we go back to past norms.

oldmanjay• 11 years ago

This is not a very good article. inaccuracies aside it is also not well written and I'm not sure what the point is supposed to be. Misremembering the past isn't really an end unto itself in my eyes.

bootload3• 11 years ago

In '75, Vietnam had finished. I remember asking my Dad was this the war that'd been going since I was little? Man no longer went to the moon. Woodstock was Snoopys friend.

Towns were more compact. There were no traffic lights in my town, no traffic lights until you hit the inner suburbs. Shops had limited hours. 9-5 weekdays, 9-12 Saturday. Except banks. They opened 10-5 and were closed weekends. No Sunday shopping existed. Everything was cash only. Supermarkets hardly existed. Towns had grocery stores, big towns had markets. You got up early on Saturday and shopped for the week in the limited hours available.

Food had to be prepared. There were no fast food outlets. Fast food was limited to fish fingers and frozen vegetables. I could never imagine bread being a dollar a loaf. Milk came in bottles. Milk, bread and the paper were delivered to the house.

News arrived by radio, newspapers then TV. Newspapers printed several times a day. TV was limited to four channels and black and white. Radio was AM. There were a lot of stations but only a few rock stations. Lots of 50's and 60's music on the air. Vinyl was king. 45's were less popular than LP's. 78's was old music. Stereo was affordable.

Cars got smaller, a lot smaller due to the oil shocks. Petrol contained lead. Most families had one car, maybe a second smaller car. Divorce was a new word. More women were moving into full time or part time work. Finance was restricted. Most people aspired to buy a house. Housing and land was affordable. Asbestos was deemed safe to use as building materials.

The difference between the fit and unfit was less. A lot more people smoked. Drinking was institutional. Fat people hardly existed. Diabeties was an old people disease. Kids died in droves on the road. The road toll was more than double what it is now. Men retired at 65 and died soon after.

It was a lot colder and a lot wetter and greener in the winter time. University was free. The library was the place to find out new ideas in books. Calculators started appearing. I heard about time-sharing for the first time. A scientist I knew worked with computers. His username was "Stout".

markc• 11 years ago

Where? Much of this stuff you describe was true in the mid-60s where I lived (suburban MN), but not in 75.

Woodstock was Snoopys friend.

And a famous '69 music festival.

In 75 my parents had credit cards (as did all of their friends). We shopped at a supermarket and shopping malls. We ate tons of pre-packaged food like TV dinners and spaghetti O's - far more than people do today. Fast food was MacDonalds, BK, etc. Milk came in cartons from the supermarket.

Newspaper once a day. TV had been color for many years and we got at least a dozen channels. Radio was FM for music AM for news/sports. 8 track tapes and cassettes were everywhere. Most people had touch-tone phones.

University was not free. I had been programming computers at school (junior high) for several years via dial-up time sharing.

I guess changes come to different parts of the country at very different rates.

bootload3• 11 years ago

"Where? Much of this stuff you describe was true in the mid-60s where I lived (suburban MN), but not in 75."

Aus. In a lot of ways the US was far more advanced than the rest of the world in '75. You can see that in the every day technology. There's another cause, I lived right on the outer fringes of Melbourne [0] and to give you an idea how small, most of the kids I went to school were delivered by one of two local doctors. [1] The thing that strikes me re-reading my post, then yours is how shockingly fast the Australian caught up and passed the US in a lot of ways.

As a kid the US sounded like a large and interesting place. Somewhere you might be aspire to move too. Now? not a chance. Aus has mostly free medical care and education, little gun violence, less advertising, advanced technology [2] and I'm asking myself, "what the hell happened in the US from '75 to now to make it as it is now?"

Btw, this isn't a criticism of the people of the US. What caused the structural tangle of politics, violence and religion that makes the country a place to avoid?

"And a famous '69 music festival."

Duh, where do you think Shultz got the name? The point I'm making is the concert here was better known by a weekly comic strip than the music on the radio. Certainly available on LP though.

[0] Remember "Melbourne is the artichoke end of the world" ~ http://goonmail.customer.netspace.net.au/

[1] http://seldomlogical.com/profile/

[2] Unaffordable housing, world #2 obesity rate, higher working hours, some political instability.

jhallenworld3• 11 years ago

On Long Island, NY:

I just barely remember something called "Watergate" (but I was 6 in 1974).

House had asbestos shingles. "Regular" leaded gasoline was a convenient cleaning solvent: you just siphoned some from your car (suck with your mouth to get the gas going through the hose).

Chlordane was used to control termites- it worked great!

In 1975 people were really starting to dump their tube electronics. This was a great source of parts. Also Lafayette electronics was awesome. TV service was still common.

You helped your dad with replacing brake shoes on the 1972 "Super Beetle".

We still had milk and eggs delivered. But you could also pick some up from the drive through Dairy Barn: http://patch.com/new-york/portwashington/the-barn-a-new-spin...

Grandparents soon moved out of the city to avoid the crime.

Touch tone phone service cost more!

Girls had strange spherical radios: http://long70s.tumblr.com/post/86188100212/the-panasonic-pan...

chiaro• 11 years ago

To fly on an airplane, you just had to walk through a metal detector, and if someone was there to meet you or say goodbye, they could go all the way to the gate without a ticket. If a flight was longer than a couple hours, you got a free meal, sometimes two, and it wasn't bad.

Still largely true in Australia.

jhallenworld3• 11 years ago

Pretend you are shopping for Christmas...

http://www.wishbookweb.com/

martin1b• 11 years ago

Great trip down memory lane. Thanks!!

The world in 1975 (2007)

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