Hello everyone. Last weekend, my son and I visited the "Summers before the Internet" exhibition at the Museum of Science and Technology in Belgrade. The exhibition was for children, but I also had a great time reminiscing the old days when I was a child. 😊
It's incredible how many technical devices and toys that we used in the past have been replaced by just one today - the phone and a bunch of apps.
The idea of the exhibition was to present to children how life used to be without the Internet. It was very fun to watch the surprised and amazed children's faces while looking at technical devices such as the old landline phone where you turned the mechanism with your finger in a circle to select the desired number.
The landline was a real miracle. 😊 It was amazing that using the wire you could chat for a long time. In the past, the telephone was located in one place in the house and everyone had to make calls from that place. It's hard to imagine nowadays when we're all walking and talking on the phone.
The voice pipe was very interesting to us. It was the predecessor of the telephone. My son stood at one end of the long pipe and I at the other, and we communicated.
Another interesting invention was a typewriter. My son was delighted with the buttons and the letters that are typed on the paper.
He had the chance to make his own movie, disguising himself and appearing on television. 😊
Television was the invention that connected the sound and the image. The children fantasized and thought about who actually lives in these magic boxes and how did all those little people get inside.
In the past, children used to write much more instead of using a mouse.
Letters were written by hand and the answer was awaited with impatience and excitement.
We saw the zoetrope for the first time. It is device that contained pictures that were very similar, but each of them differed just a little bit in order to show the next phase of a movement.
One we spin the drum, mostly by hand, and look inside through a slit, our eye would perceive these separate images as one animated picture. In this way, from just a few ordinary pictures we get an animated film.
Children's imagination could make a stick into a sword or rifle, sand into towers and various plants and mud into cakes. They always found a way to have fun.
They used roller skates, slingshots and toys made from natural materials.
Although children spent most of their time outside, they often played social games at home. The card games were played at each family gathering, summer or winter vacation and the children learned to be patient and think ahead by playing chess. Games rules, tokens, cards, dice, and laughter were always associated with playing board games. All those games helped cultivate the spirit of sportsmanship, taught children to be dignified in both victory and loss and developed creativity and quick thinking.
Music has always been an integral part of children's and people's lives. As the years passed, it was reproduced through various devices. Phonograph was the first device that could record and play back the sound.
Record player or a gramophone was one of the first steps in the change of the way in which we listen to the music and which has created the world as we know it today. My son was particularly interested in the jukebox, a large device that can play songs from our collection.
Pinball machines were also very popular.
As well as video games. I played them a lot as a child. 😊
Photos used to be great even without photoshop. The process of developing camera film on photographic paper is fascinating.
It was not at all easy to develop the photos.
Over time, cameras became more and more modern, and now we mostly use phones for photography.
I hope you enjoyed my weekend journey through time. It was fun without the Internet, although that is hard to imagine today.
Thank you very much for reading.
The images and writing are original and mine.
Greetings!
Jelena