Is it true? Did you old farts have it this bad?

[svxistentialist]

Originally posted by Ron Mummert


Ron (fondly remembers TV test patterns).

I suppose most of them nowadays would assume Horizontal Hold and Vertical Hold are ways of grappling with the opposite sex.

Test patterns, huh?

Well, here in Ireland,we did not have Black & White televisions. Our pictures were grey, because we could not afford enough black ink for the extra contrast.

And we only had one channel. Which also woke us up with a tone.

And test patterns. The station could not afford test patterns. We had to knit our own, or stitch them up from old patchwork quilts.....

You guys had it really easy in the States.



Joe

[lee]

Originally posted by svxistentialist

...
And test patterns. The station could not afford test patterns. We had to knit our own, .... You guys had it really easy in the States.



Joe

Maybe, but our TVs weren't as cozy. We had to let the set warm up for a few minutes (until the transistor came along). Who knew we could just as easily have put all the little old ladies in a room and....

[CigarJohnny]

I still have a large coffee can in the basement with a pile of perfectly good tubes in it of various sizes. I should probably dig them out and see if they are worth anything on eBay.

Johnny

[svxistentialist]

Originally posted by CigarJohnny
I still have a large coffee can in the basement with a pile of perfectly good tubes in it of various sizes. I should probably dig them out and see if they are worth anything on eBay.

Johnny

That's very thermionic of you Johnny.

Dab a little gold paint on them, feign innocence, and say you think they may be from a hi-fi system or something...

Your fortune is made

Joe

[svxfiles]

High Flight
John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.



Note: During the dark days of the Battle of Britain, hundreds of Americans crossed the border into Canada to enlist with the Royal Canadian Air Force. Knowingly breaking the law, but with the tacit approval of the then still officially neutral United States Government, they volunteered to fight Hitler's Germany.

John Gillespie Magee, Jr., was one such American. Born in Shanghai, China, in 1922, Magee was just 18 years old when he entered flight training. Within the year, he was sent to England and posted to the newly formed No 412 Fighter Squadron, RCAF, which was activated at Digby, England, on 30 June 1941. He was qualified on and flew the Supermarine Spitfire.

Flying fighter sweeps over France and air defence over England against the German Luftwaffe, he rose to the rank of Pilot Officer. At the time, German bombers were crossing the English Channel with great regularity to attack Britain's cities and factories. Although the dark days of the Battle of Britain were over, the Luftwaffe was still on the job of keeping up the pressure on British industry and the country.

On September 3, 1941, Magee flew a high altitude (30,000 feet) test flight in a newer model of the Spitfire V. As he orbited and climbed upward, he was struck with the inspiration of a poem — "To touch the face of God."

Once back on the ground, he wrote a letter to his parents. In it he commented, "I am enclosing a verse I wrote the other day. It started at 30,000 feet, and was finished soon after I landed." On the back of the letter, he jotted down his poem, "High Flight."

Just three months later, on December 11, 1941 (and only three days after the US entered the war), Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr., was killed. The Spitfire V he was flying, VZ-H, collided with an Oxford Trainer from Cranwell Airfield while over Tangmere, England. The two planes were flying in the clouds and neither saw the other. He was just 19 years old.

History from www.skygod.com

[svxistentialist]

That is very poignant.

One of no doubt thousands of stories of loss in that war, in all wars.

John had poetry in his soul. No doubt God remembered his touch on His face when John's flight came to an end.

Originally posted by lhopp77

Anyone ever remember seeing a TV with a ROUND screen other than in the museum? Now that will tell your age.

Lee [/B]

Yeah, a round screen with a square picture in it. I am NOT old! Anyone remember the Cheech and Chong skit - "Just watching a boring movie about indians"

Huh,
What you call old I call life in the back yard of Montana.
TV - Sure it's color but we only get CBS and PBS is so fuzzy it may as well be black and white.

Only place to work is the gravel drive way, them rocks don't feal so good on the back and the jacks seem to shift on you.
Uphill bothways you say! puff, I've seen hills before. But try up a mountain bothways in 10ft of snow.