Blogger Robert Scoble and Francine Hardaway were chatting about "obsolete skills" which led to a post and then to a Wiki web site, Obsoleteskills.com, which is compiling a list.
The first five items on Scoble's list:
1. Dialing a rotary phone. 2. Putting a needle on a vinyl record. 3. Changing tracks on an eight-track tape. 4. Shorthand. 5. Using a slide rule
What, no log tables?
If you want to quibble, you may not regard them all as "skills" and some are certainly not obsolete for everyone. I still have vinyl, for example. So do lots of young DJs. Still, you get the idea, so which skills do you no longer use?
Someone who has been a journalist for a while will have seen a long list of skills come and go. I once edited a school magazine that switched from using a "spirit duplicator" (commonly known as a Mimeograph) to Gestetner stencils cut on a typewriter. I handset books of poetry using metal type and a composing stick, and I edited a magazine that switched from waxing and Letraset to punched paper tape (I was always impressed by typesetters who could read punched tapes by eye). At one time, I could do whole print jobs from writing and 35mm photography to a final off-set litho plate developed using cotton wool soaked in Marathon. (The Marathon Plate was a great breakthrough.)
Of course, The Guardian used Linotype machines for decades, then (DEC PDP) mini-based Atex type-setting systems before finally switching to Macs. Lots of people had to learn lots of skills they no longer use, but it was always exciting. Somebody should do it as a tapestry....
Update: You can add your obsolete gaming skills to our excellent Games blog.
