Thursday, June 9, 2011

REMEMBER WHEN RESEARCH INVOLVED USING A CARD CATALOGUE
































First, here are some more photographs of Victoria Justice. Second, this was how school reports were written when I was a junior high student in the early 1980's and a high school student in the rest of the 1980's. First, you needed to use the card catalogue. No library has those anymore. It's these tiny pieces of cardboard that's placed in a small drawer that helped you find the location of a book. You could look up by subject or author or book title. The books needed for the report could only be found in the library and nowhere else. If the library is lacking, then so is your report. Now that you got the necessary books and articles, then you need to read. Yes, that portion of report writing never changes.

What changes is how it's written. You needed a typewriter. Yes, there were computers available, but not nearly as sophisticated as you see today. Depending on the typos, you could either use white out or you'll have to rewrite everything. What happens if the typewriter ribbon runs out of ink, then you need to replace the typewriter ribbon. If you chose the computer route, there's the Apple IIe. There were no Microsoft Windows nor Microsoft Office. The best computer for the 1980's was the Apple IIe. For printers, there's the dot matrix printer. Those tend to be slow, and the edges has to be torn off on both the left and the right side. If you hated dot matrix printers (Honestly, name one person who actually liked those things), you could use the typewriter instead. That's it. Take it or leave it. Anyway, the report is finally completed. It's tempting to listen to 1980's era dance music, but there's a math quiz to study for instead. Ah yes, the 1980's was an interesting decade. I guess you'll have to wear your sunglasses at night some other time.

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