In another thread Arnott jokingly referred to the ‘ding’ you hear when you come to the end of a line using a typewriter . I tried to extend the joke by linking the typewriter reference (and by association Arnott’s age) to the TV show Mad Men, which occurs in the early sixties.

Although my attempt at humor probably missed the mark, it did get me thinking about the link between different ‘markers’ and a person’s age. In other words, what are some iconic things that would effectively date a person if you knew they had actually used/ experienced them? Not counting actual events (e.g., JFKs assassination, the moon landing, etc.), can we come up with enough things to construct a ‘timeline’ covering the period between, say, the early 1950’s and now?

I’ve got some candidates to kick this off, although I’m not exactly sure when each essentially became ‘obsolete’.

Manual Typewriter mid 70’s?
Electric Typewriter mid-late ‘80s?
Black & white TV early-mid ‘70s?
Rotary dial telephone early ‘80s?
Milkmen ?
Computer punchcards early – mid ‘80s?
Commodore computer mid-late ‘80s?
Atari Pong game late ‘70s?
Females weren’t called ‘dude’ and men weren’t called ‘b#*ch’ late ‘90s?
TV cigarette commercials early ‘70s
Cell phones weren’t common early ‘90s?
‘Regular’ gasoline ?

Please pitch in to see if we can create a list that more or less covers the entire 60 year time period.