Remember from before there were memes?

Cleaning out files and shredding lots of things in preparation for an office furniture move, because SWBO wants flooring/carpet replaced.

Among the stuff I found was material from a prehistoric age before the internet-- jokes were shared on pieces of paper, and in the closing portion of the era, circulated by fax and even something called electronic mail!

This one, found on the inside covers of an aircraft hardware catalog, was too good not to share.

I remember when we shared memes through the fax machine.

Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox.

I remember when we took all your base.  25 years ago now.

Way, way back early in my working career I worked in a torn-tape message processing centre (AFTN for the aviation aware people) that utilised ex WW11 Teletype machines. Telegrams and telexes used similar systems.

Basic operation was a message arrived and was punched out on paper tape. An operator read the address portion and ran the tape through a different machine to send the message to somewhere else.

Lots of humour floated around the place and tapes of the best ones were carefully rolled up and put in a "safe" place for future use.

  One 'feature' of the machines, still extant in ASCII code, was that Carriage Returns were separate from Line Feeds which allowed overtyping lines so you could build up different layers of black to produce artistic effects on the page. Our centre had a copy of a picture entitled "The Madonna and Child", supposedly composed by a US serviceman late in the war, that was about half a roll of tape and took a long, long  time  to print.

Cheers

R

There was a time, a long time ago, when I was possibly in or around high school, that my dad worked with a guy who was famously fond of himself. I may or may not have been tasked with blowing up a copy of the company logo and doctoring it to include the name of an unnamed individual who may or may not have been the aforementioned guy.

The resulting image, which you'd have a hard time proving ever even existed, may or may not have been faxed around the west coast to various local offices of the company, and it almost certainly never made its way to an office in an undisclosed location where said individual's alleged wife may or may not have been working. Some say she nearly lost her E36 M3 when, or so she claimed, it came over the wire. Apparently some feathers would have been ruffled.

Had this actually occurred, I'd have been asked in hushed tones to never speak of it again. But given it's been a solid 35+ years since I didn't do nothing, I figured it was safe to not mention it here.

RichardNZ said:

Way, way back early in my working career I worked in a torn-tape message processing centre (AFTN for the aviation aware people) that utilised ex WW11 Teletype machines. Telegrams and telexes used similar systems.

Basic operation was a message arrived and was punched out on paper tape. An operator read the address portion and ran the tape through a different machine to send the message to somewhere else.

Lots of humour floated around the place and tapes of the best ones were carefully rolled up and put in a "safe" place for future use.

  One 'feature' of the machines, still extant in ASCII code, was that Carriage Returns were separate from Line Feeds which allowed overtyping lines so you could build up different layers of black to produce artistic effects on the page. Our centre had a copy of a picture entitled "The Madonna and Child", supposedly composed by a US serviceman late in the war, that was about half a roll of tape and took a long, long  time  to print.

Cheers

R

 

This? https://text-mode.tumblr.com/post/49455353095/madonna-and-child-ascii-art-creative-computing

Appleseed said:

Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox.

The packaging plant I worked at a few years ago had been there since the 40's and there were parts of it that hadn't been used in years. One night shift I was snooping around through the old part and found an entire file folder of those old jokes, drawings, and rhymes. Judging by the material, it had to be from the 70's and it brought back a lot of memories.  I bet I still have it. 

Since I found these, here's another--

When I was cleaning out my parents house to sell back in 2020, I opened a four drawer filing cabinet Dad kept in the garage. In addition to treasures like all of his Air Force paperwork from the 60s, there were two full drawers of Xeroxed, mimeographed, and even typed jokes. Some probably dated back to the 60s.

Another, from the better, pre-merger days at Boeing--

This was an all-time favorite. 

Karacticus said:

Since I found these, here's another--

That has to be from a Side Glances column. Egan does have a way with words.

DarkMonohue said:

Karacticus said:

Since I found these, here's another--

That has to be from a Side Glances column. Egan does have a way with words.

Definitely Egan.  That's been sent around, author unknown, way too much.  That one has been altered from the original.  The 2by4 was used to lever the front spoiler of your Mustang off the jack handle after installing your new lowering springs.

Genius, anyway.

In reply to CrustyRedXpress :

Either that particular one or very similar  

There were lots of others but only the Madonna sticks in my memory.

ojannen said:

I remember when we took all your base.  25 years ago now.

That was an incredible work of art, especially for its time. I had that song pounding through my head last week, and again, thanks to you, today as well. 

z31maniac said:

Game....Blouses.  

Karacticus said:

even something called electronic mail!

Don't forget Usenet!  I miss rec.humor.funny.

Peabody said:

Appleseed said:

Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox.

The packaging plant I worked at a few years ago had been there since the 40's and there were parts of it that hadn't been used in years. One night shift I was snooping around through the old part and found an entire file folder of those old jokes, drawings, and rhymes. Judging by the material, it had to be from the 70's and it brought back a lot of memories.  I bet I still have it. 

I started collecting those things in a file folder nearly 50 years ago, and still have it in the back of my desk drawer.

I remember getting a cartoon from someone at work, and then a few days later my brother in law showed me a copy of the same one that he was given at a truck stop 500 miles away.  It made me wonder about just how many generations of Xerox copies there were, and who was the first person who drew it and made the first copies.  I thought the speed at which those things criss crossed the country would have been an interesting topic for a study.

Maybe also related: That Murphy’s Law poster.

I recall this one as a faxed sheet--

Flynlow said:

z31maniac said:

Game....Blouses.  

And then he served us pancakes.