How did you people who were alive in the 80's work without internet?

Question

You need internet and computers for almost every job these days. How did you people back then work without it? Would be interesting to hear if there are any of you still alive. 

Answer 1

If you think that almost all jobs need internet or a computer then you must be living in a very small world - limited to that 15 to 32-inch something of LCD you have in front of you.



For one, even when armed with a computer, you failed to realize that if a working person was at his 20's during the 80's, he would only be around 60 today, very much alive and still working at some capacity because way back then you live to work.



So how did we work during the 80's? We worked without computers or the internet. Simple as that. It may be slower but we got the job done. Some of us still do it the same way we did way back then because we find it easier. Why force us to re-learn the computer every time microsoft tells us to replace our windows or when Intel and AMD declare our computers obsolete? That's too much! It's a miracle we learned and understood win98 so leave us alone with our pentium 1's already.



The internet? Just like the very first Atari, it's a novelty item. Information age? Why are people dumber? Remember, those people who were working in the 80's handed down to you whatever technology you are enjoying today. 



Then again, 40 years from now, someone will ask how people today got by with dumb computers, so-called smartphones and a highly unreliable internet. The answer is simple. It didn't matter. They were just glad they had youtube and facebook.

Answer 2

Ever seen the Flintstones? It was exactly like that

Answer 3

I never had job that couldn't be done easy enough w/o  computer. I'm shocked by the electronic dependency people like you suffer.

Answer 4

Paper, pens, pencils, calculators, adding machines, typewriters and fax machines were all available. And there was one other thing that apparently you people who think the 80s was some sort of dark ages:  BRAINS.  

Answer 5

we worked hard and where happy without the net things where better ......

now media it has turned everyone into ZOMBIES  they cant be with out it

Answer 6

In the profession that I'm in, development, quite a bit of it is as yet managed without web and PCs.. Individuals do now utilize mobile phones and web however for correspondence and parts requesting, some for work status and following. Previously, that was finished with phones, inventories and people.

Answer 7

In the line of work that I'm in, construction, much of it is still done without internet & computers.. People do now use cell phones & internet though for communication & parts ordering, some for job status & tracking.  Before, that was done with telephones, catalogs & human beings.

Answer 8

We had this thing called "books". You ought to try them sometime....

Answer 9

Everything revolved around the telephone - and if you needed to send a document it had to be a posted letter.    During the early 80's fax machines for sending documents became available but not really in the home.    Without anything to compare it to at the time there was no sense of slowness. 

Oddly enough it all worked just fine.  Better than you probably imagine. 



I was 16 in 1981.     24 in 1989. 

Answer 10

Only the mindless need internet and computers to do many jobs. 

Answer 11

Working people, in the 1980's did just fine without the internet and cell phones.

I worked, in the 1980's, and we focused on our work and did the best we could do.  There were computers but only businesses had them.........very few of us had a home computer.  We used our brains and minds to solve problems.  There are still a few businesses left who still rely on paper receipts and doing inventory by hand.....they make fewer mistakes and they don't have to rely on a network to go down.

Answer 12

Very nicely and got along well without it, we sent man to the moon and had a great century of growth and the most productive generations ever all before the internet. The internet made communications much easy and technology has greatly improved, but has it made life better I guess the answer is in the eyes of the beholder.

Answer 13

INTERNET COMPUTER OK

Answer 14

How did we work prior to the internet? We worked more efficiently with better inter-office communications and production while having less sick/"mental health" days and better wages and benefits all while relying on our co-workers and our own experiences. Also, a lot of jobs that Americans used to have were manual labor jobs that required skill, intuition, integrity, grit and know-how. That's why we Gen Xers are so damn happy all the time. Well, that and we got to ride dinosaurs to the quarry every day! Now, get off my lawn, you're disturbing the Gnomes!!   

Answer 15

do you mean how do people work now a days with the internet?  A big distraction spreading rumors and lies?  Well they got a lot more done back in the day without going on facebook.



As for computers, without them there use to be a lot more jobs.  

Answer 16

I was working out at sea in the oil fields...

Answer 17

Pretty well.                                                                                                            

Answer 18

I see a little teasing in this question since the internet was around during much of the 1980's. there were already Millennials, very young ones. 

We didn't have podcasts and we had to get radio dramas on tape or vinyl and there was no Netflix so we had to go to a video rental store to rent VHS tapes to play on TV. We had to watch TV when it was broadcast.

Pinterest was just a billboard at the laundryman

Answer 19

Used telephone land lines and printed books. Relied on written documents

Answer 20

Things were much better & more organized then.  Now it's a fiasco.

Answer 21

Print. Mail, filing cabinets, fax machines.



Though it was hard for people who worked out of the office. They had to use pay phones and beepers.

Answer 22

Sent letters using stamps and relied on our individual intelligence. The net's made life harder as we dont mix enough, made us stupid and finding employment demoralising.

Answer 23

In absence of computers and internet most things were done by type Writers, Filings were done after and If we needed to get  some of those work on paper across to other companies, The courier guys come in handy to get the information across. Some things were done by pencil or pen drafted when type Writers didn’t type out fonts or symbols.if we wanted to show a design or blueprint.calculations were done by calculators or Abacus 🧮 . For some banking jobs. Overall lots of land line phone calls were made before pagers came much later in the mids before the bottle phones (Motorola) and call zone phones  which Allows a caller to make phone calls at a designated location only.  So very much of business was that much tedious but also lots of 80’s work class think out of the box or research stuff from a library or archive. Before information could be retrieved or sent over the Internet. You’d love the 80’s even if one thought it was boring. It wasn’t.

Answer 24

we worked much better than you stupid morns do now, we actually worked and could do things using our head

Answer 25

How could imagine nowadays somebody does sth. without a cellphone. Let alone without PC, LAN, INTERNET. It's a living style to hold a cell phone for hours per day. People won't go back. Keep moving on to catch up with the tide. 

Answer 26

People still worked without the internet well past the 80's because the internet dial up service was like making an expensive phone call at first and at least in my country there was no internet until 1992. Even into the early 2000's some businesses never had internet or a computer without internet, even a typewriter. It wasn't harder it was just slower. I didn't see internet at school until late 1998 and only one computer was capable, the rest were used without. There was always computers as long as I can remember but they were mostly made without a built in modem because it wasn't seen as something people would get interested in, even Microsoft thought internet would rarely be used which is why they made Encarta, mostly an offline programme even though it could receive internet updates.

Answer 27

Books, catalogues, telephones, going to the library, sending away for things, letters, postcards, other types of cards and mental arithmetic.  Plus we had the very strange task of going to the shops.



I joke slightly.  A lot more was done as an activity which the internet now provides a shortcut to.  It seems slow and impractical now, but back then it worked surprisingly quickly. 

Answer 28

we didnt we all died i guess , another waste of some-one not using there brain !!!

Answer 29

In 1978 I had been teaching college for seven years, and had no need of the internet.  Lectures were based on easy researched information from professional publications and the college library.  BTW I am 82 and very much alive.  My mother lived 1912-2010.

Answer 30

A pen, piece of paper (lots of) and a mechanical calculator. (which made a hell of a noise btw.)  Communication was done via landline and post. Took a while.   The fifties were much more exciting.....none of todays gadgets existed, except for the very rich.  Fridges, washing machines, radios Tv's, Microwaves, etc..

Peace.

Answer 31

They did real live work just like real life workers without bo internet

Answer 32

The internet existed in the 80s. It was the web that wasn't created until the 90s. 

Answer 33

Internet is not needed at that time, and maybe internet also is not available for public used at that time. They work as manual not with machine or robot. Maybe.

Answer 34

We had computers and could send faxes to each other so that was a form of instant communication.  

In fact the Internet has detrimental effects on my business. I'm a car dealer so there's too much competition these days.

During the 80s and 90s there were a long list of vehicles for sale in the local paper and if you were the first viewer you could often get a bargain,  whereas we now have online auctions with too many people bidding on the same car which drives up prices beyond a reasonable profit margin. 

I only do it now as a hobby because I'm 67.

Answer 35

We talked to people on the telephone, wrote letters on typewriters, looked things up in books.  We managed somehow.

Answer 36

My father had a computer. I was an 80s baby.



What will they say about you after there are robots to do almost everything? You had to work? Grandma spent several hours a week cooking because she didn't have a robotic chef?

Answer 37

It wasn't Flintstone-ish as suggested. I was working in "Data Processing" in the mid early 80s. We didn't use email, memos were the correspondence. I was in charge of retrieving point of sale data from 150 stores (256 baud). Mostly the data came in to a large IBM mainframe automatically but there were always 15-30 stores that failed every day so we had to make phone calls to each store to get them in transmit mode then call the stores (on rotary dial data coupler). We were using spreadsheets to provide daily sales totals. Mostly a lot of phone calls for support from the stores. Running reports off the mainframe. etc. Everything in house was connected via coax cables -(AR, Credit, etc) had to keep the GL accounts right and report issues to programmers.  We got a 'portable' PC (more like lug-able) with a 128k diskette drive and thought we were in heaven. When the data was sent from the stores at 1200 baud then shortly 2400 we thought we were in high cotton.

Answer 38

We had to do "library research". 

Answer 39

Well i might not have started working until the early 2000's/ new millennium but i can say originally ages ago unlike now we had no internet or even computers.



You had to go to an interviewer person and sign some stuff or whatever.



Then go to a training introduction kind of meeting and pass a test.



Then you go to one of the facilities and start training there.



That is what i had to do back then at least.



Not quite the 80's but still pretty old fashioned by todays standards and practices. 



I would imagine sending things in by mail was more common and even though there was no internet until i think sometime in the 90's from what i remember from when i was a kid in the 80's id imagine people could still use a computer for work.



Back then having gaming PC's id imagine would have been completely unheard of back in the 80's as well as i think that was not really a thing until the 90's sometime.

Answer 40

Phone, pen, paper. We got it done and made money. The 80's were the Decade of Greed. "Dallas," "Dynasty." Trump, Helmsley, Boesky, Milken, Icahn, Bloomberg all made money. You worked hard and wrote things down and saved your documents in files. No computers. Banking was done in person. We used Personal Checks. No Direct Deposit. The 1980's were the best time to make money and break into the Financial Services industry. There was money made. 

Answer 41

Good grief! I was alive in the 1950's and still going strong. Started work in the late 1960's. Used a Typewriter, pen and paper, actually spoke to co-workers, customers face to face and on the phone. It was called Communication, still is.

Answer 42

 Much the same people throughout all human history did zxj

 . . . . . . . . . .

🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳

Answer 43

I know it must seem strange to people who only know of computers and the internet. People ask how could you live without them? But just think, they're are things yet to come that people will be asking you the same questions, you just use what you have. Personal computers were just coming in when I was about to leave school. My friend did computer studies, without computers. They'd write programmes in Basic on pieces of paper, which were taken to the polytechnic. These would be typed in, and returned to the children the following week. I'm very aware, when watching films made in the seventies and before, that people's desks were a phone and perhaps a typewriter. I suppose the typewriter was the revolutionary tech of those times. Then there was that strange period when typewriters went electric and had a tiny memory. You could enter text and edit it before you printed it out. Then suddenly these machines were obsolete. I've watched the Steve Jobs presentation of the iPhone several times on YouTube, and it makes me smile. If you've not seen it, watch it. You'll see it and might say to yourself, yeah, so what, of course my phone can do that. But compared to the existing phones it shows you what a new technology can do. 

Answer 44

You are ridiculous.



I started work in 1972. We used typewriters and telephones; pen and paper. I didn't need a calculator but many people did; so they had one on their desk.

I didn't see a fax machine till maybe 1976; it was brilliant. Even  my elderly mother saw the advantages and had one installed in her house.My company introduced email in the late 1980s, and I began using a computer at about the same time.

You seem to think we all crawled around half naked scrawling hieroglyphs in the mud or chipping letters into stone slabs. Perhaps if you read a few books or watched a few movies or TV programmes set in the decades before you were born, you wouldn't come over as so abysmally ignorant.



EDIT to add: What Jewel Littlenuts said was right: it wasn't harder, it was just SLOWER.

Answer 45

In 78, I began working on Wall Street. I was 24 years old. We managed to do things quite well using pen, paper, fax and phones. I met all my floor brokers. I was put through each department in our firm. Taught how each operated and trained well. It is a relative thing. We had no cell phones, no internet. We worked with the latest technology we had. 25 years from now, your children will ask you how you worked with such Medievil tools. I worked at 120 Broadway..........many years later, the Wolf of Wall Street worked in the building, too.  

Answer 46

The internet wasn't a big part of business.  Home computers cost around $2,000 so we lived life with a different focus. 



'Still alive'?  Stop insulting people.  My father was born in 1929. He's still living.  They weren't riding horses back then or using outhouses.  

Answer 47

You can continue to ask how people in the past managed to live without each and every modern convenience people enjoy today if you want to waste time doing that, but to anybody with half a brain the answer is always going to be obvious. 

Answer 48

In the 1980s you had computers, manuals, books, fax, telephone; children were taught to memorize, hence making often quicker decisions instead of trying to find it on the Internet. Furthermore letters were written and pen and paper were being used far more often and recording devices like CD and audio cassettes.

Beside that, people communicated more and wasted less time in chatting with friends online and playing Video games (unless you were a child or teenager, but even they did not use as much time for this as contemporary youth).

Answer 49

we would go to Coffee shops and actually speak to our friends without being Rudely interrupted any a Piece of plastic



we used Mechanical word Processors (typewriters) slide rules and mechanical Mathematical Processors



Note I used to work on FA18 and never needed a Mobile phone

Answer 50

We did this shocking thing called 'talking to each other'. We did it a couple of different ways, predominantly we would stand in the same room and make words come out of our mouths within the hearing range of the other people, but if those people were not close enough that they could hear us, we used to use another magical thing called 'a phone'. It couldn't go from place to place, it was stationary, but it also was not surgically implanted into our hands, so we could actually cut ties with it when done with it, rather than have to take it where ever we went, risking being laughed at when we walked into a water fountain or a glass door. We also did this really crazy thing called 'writing'. It is where we would use two ancient tools called a 'pen' and 'paper', and we used to created a form of Hieroglyphs called 'the alphabet' in connected strings that someone else would decode and understand what we were telling them. Some of the really advanced of us used to be able to connect the letters and still understand what was being said. That was called writing, something people of this era have absolutely no understanding of. We would also use things like adding machines which could add numbers for us in a very quick and efficient manner, intercoms which would help to call someone into the office with you if they weren't already there, and something called a typewriter, which was a machine used to mechanically add glyphs to a piece of paper in a neat and orderly fashion if we needed to send a piece of correspondence via 'snail mail', which was where we actually took that piece of correspondence, once it had been put in an envelope and the destination added to the outside, to a place called a post office, and the item would be taken to the people who needed to see it, rather than having to do it yourself. Imagine the hardships we had to go through back then, and still managed to keep the world running. Amazing.

Answer 51

Who do you think invented computers and the internet?

Answer 52

Haha-------very funny...........yes, I once had a job in the World Trade Center , doing Foreign Banking Reconciliation.   



Believe it or not......all done painstakingly by HAND and sharp eyes, and a quick mind.  In Chinese Renminbi,    no less. 



In fact, I was hired,  because the guy who was doing it, was pulling his hair out, trying to make heads or tails of it.  I came in, and sorted out months of his mistakes. 



and then he got promoted, because he was a huge suck up to the boss. 

Answer 53

I'm guessing nobody cared because they didn't know what they were missing....

People lived without that stuff for centuries...

Answer 54

I went to the library to read books and magazines, and subscribed to fanzines for nerdy stuff like news about Star Wars and Star Trek. Later in the 80's I had BBS's to go to for things like email and usenet. As far as games went, I ordered Eamon adventures, a text based role playing game.

Answer 55

I miss those days so dearly, I never had an issue looking for a job. Now everything about you is public, EVERYTHING! You are judged even if it happened years, decades ago, from issues with the law, your medical history does not matter people will and do look at you differently and that is why laws have been inforced not to open certain private issue's. Due to the non-compliant of my former bosses son in law who has access to medical information my medical records were pulled up an people from so many agencies and depts that new better broke the law and I was judged but guess what the law comes in handy cause what they thought was not correct and I will make sure if I can figure this computer out and report it to the proper enforcement, I believe that when it comes to privacy, employment, pulling medical records, or criminal records, going to court or banking should be a face to face matter and that no computer, email, the text should take the place of something so serious. It is too easy now for people to illegally lie and take over yr life with employment, finances, and criminal activity that are lies. Miss the Library, enter acting with people, getting help from friendly people, meeting new people, learning different ways to pull up educational information and the brain is missing out from having to memorize everything.

Answer 56

Those days when we had to run around with 2 rolls of quarters in each pocket to call in if needed. Talk to some idiot who had no idea what we were talking about. Often not even what Country.  Call in daily to let the company know we were still alive. Reports by fax machine. sent in. A pager to let us know to call in if not dead. & they wanted to know ASP. do to news in the morning paper in the U.S.. But the pager only worked in the U.S.. & we were asleep at that time of the night. You were far more independent on the job. Having to call the U.S. to get a athorazation number to cash a com. check overseas. At a bank was fun. Or writing a company check. But back then it had to go threw Belgium to clear. So a all day wait. It was fun. I still wake up some times at night screaming.  Then we got IBM, think pads.  They were great.  & we could hook up a camera to it to show the office idiot what we were talking about. & dial up service at many finer hotels world wide. Or company apartments that had it. We still had to fax a lot. Saved carrying quarters many places if in the U.S. The mad rush to the phone stepping out of a plane. Often being able to set down & eat with out talking to the company at same time on a phone. & the first quad band cell phones that would work any were in the world were great Till you returned. Then accounting wanted you to explain the $1,500 phone bill you ran up. & other things. 

Answer 57

I was a plumber, plumbing is still basically the same

Answer 58

We had libraries full of books that had the all the information we needed, we had encyclopedias, we wrote stuff down on notepads and notebooks and we used pens, pencils, telephones, that kind of thing. Back in the 80's, if we wanted music, we had radios, blank cassette tapes to record Interviews, and we had stores that sold nothing but vinyl records, tapes and eventually CDs. The kids these days have it a lot easier with internet and computers, we worked to get things done. We didn't have laptops to write letters, we had pen and paper. Or sometimes a typewriter. 



As for fun activities, we rode bikes all around town, caught frogs and snakes, chatted on the phone, went to shopping malls and Department stores. We didn't even have Walmart then. Also, we didn't have debit cards or anything like that, we had cash and credit. Cell phones didn't arrive until the 90s, so we had wired phones aka land lines, and we had pay phones.



Sounds rough to kids these days, but that's what we had.

Answer 59

Because boomers are the best generation

Answer 60

The internet is needed for nothing but to sustain it's own existence.

Answer 61

We worked MUCH more "naturally" than today.



Among many other things,... you had to call people in the evening when you knew they'd be home, do other communication by mail and not expect an instant reply, carry a map in the car, go to a phone booth if you had to make a call away from home, go to a store to "shop" and see what's available, sometimes knock on a friend's door by surprise, do banking at the bank and mailing at the post office, and ask the teacher questions during office hours.

Answer 62

Well, first of all, we didn't have our heads buried in a cell phone exchanging worthless information with people we hardly knew. And didn't spend a lot of time gossiping on Facebook. As a matter of fact, I was on the ARPANET in the late '60s. Then in the early '80s, TCP/IP came along and allowed computers to talk to each other across different networks and ARPANET was converted to TCP/IP. It wasn't as bad as you probably imagine, and we didn't waste nearly as much time and we actually talked face-to-face with people.

Answer 63

Easy. I looked around and saw what needed to be done and did it. I still do, even with the internet. www is just one more tool, and not an end in itself anyway.

Answer 64

Most companies actually dont like the internet because the staff will use it to chat with thier friends all day.



I cant think of many jobs that actually need the internet unless they are long distance.

Answer 65

They wrote on actual paper. 

Answer 66

Hehehe bumhole.  I wrote my first computer program in 1974.  I first saw the internet used in the research department of a branch of ICI, in about 1980

Answer 67

Everything the internet provides was available back then.  It was just on paper.  Libraries, books, newspapers, magazines and catalogs.  Communication was telephone or in person.

All we have now is speed.

Answer 68

We got along just fine by using BRAIN POWER & facilities available back then that has already been mentioned here. Please think your questions through before you ask. I'm 86 & still alive & kicking. using the internet only reveals to me what I already knew in my head except it is now recorded so anyone can use or steal (private stuff). Sure the internet is very convenient & fast but, young folks seem to depend on it too much instead of using their brains & common sense. simply my opinion.

Answer 69

I think the working life was proberly better back then . In about 1987 I was promoted to produce manager in the suprmarket I worked at , at that time the tills were still electronic push button tills so none of this scanning and useing the scanned info.  At the end of each day I would take my large stock book and walk around the stockroom and the actual department and write the number of items down that was left and by doing the sums it allowed me to work out what had sold and what I needed to telephone through to the depot for the next delivery . Infact the stock book if kept accurately was the departments bible and from it I could accurately work out the departments monthly profit once I had the weekly till records .

Answer 70

We had libraries full of books and documentation.  We had experienced mentors teaching us how things were done.  We had the telephone, snail-mail, office memos, fax machines and daily printed reports about our business to share information.  And in the 80s we had online computer systems (including email) on which to conduct business - not the internet exactly but networked terminals and computers systems accessing common databases with real-time data input and access.  The internet is a great thing, but it's a tool, not a substitute, for expertise, mentorship, or the arts of communication and leadership.  

Answer 71

Then, the work was straight and simple which people used to do and nothing was dynamic and multi-task work. A person who was driver used to spend his life as driver only. But today a driver in day is Zomatoes rider in night and has been thinking of earning dual earning.

Answer 72

The internet and computers are not actually required, they are what is used by the majority of businesses to trace and track employees and potential employees.  I am surprised that you are so unaware about the computerization of the US and that there are many people who have no access to the internet or own a computer.   Oh and may of us from the 1960's are still very much alive and remember very clearly when we allowed a computer into our homes.

Answer 73

The printed word has been around for a LONG time.  And there were lots of technically astute books that actually had meaningful content that wasn't "for Dummies."  Modern web-article authors can't hold a candle against the technical writing skills of the folks in the 1980s.

Answer 74

What you don't know can't hurt.

Answer 75

We used chisels and stone tablets.

Answer 76

We used coal fired steam turbines to power our abaci.

Answer 77

Face to face, i'd meet them.

Play paint ball instead of Call of Duty.

Got tickets and my licence revoked instead of Need for Speed.

Chat room was the smoking pit at school.

Back in the day i went through at least my weight in paperwork per day

Power can go out, i still function.

Answer 78

"us people" did what was called "wor5k".We earned our things we didn't sit in mummy's basement demanding stuff.We had and have RESPECT,MANNERS,ETTIQUETEand BRAINS something that is SEVERLY LACKING IN YOU DIPSHITS BORN AFTER 1980.Life is funny that way,YOU EARN THE MONEY FOR THE THINGS YOU WANT.You MORONS will get that,hopefully,someday..:)

Answer 79

Showing up and punching the clock. Telephones, file cabinets, memos, mail.

Answer 80

Some of us were working in the 80s to build the computer networks that now make so many things effortless; like shopping, gossiping, emailing, banking, researching etc. I was first able to work from home about 1975 using a Teletype model 33 and a dialup phone line.

Answer 81

You sound very young or just plain immature if you think people are no longer alive from the 1980s, maybe you mean the 1880s?

Impossible to miss something you never had....... in work you used the phone, reference and instruction books and spoke face to face with people ( yes a new idea to those children born in the 21st century) we made and had REAL friends, some of us suffered from being shy but learned that you get over that with practice we didn't 'make a meal of it' give it a new name of 'social anxiety' so don't 'suffer' from that self inflicted and created mental illness, we talked about real things like what film we saw, where and who we went out with for a meal or what we had purchased when shopping with real friends or family so no need to boost our fagile ego with social media strangers you now claim to be 'friends', but these cyber people you have no clue about, will never meet and don't even know if they are who they say they are or where they live. We wrote letterrs with pen/paper stuck on  stamp and posted it, shopped, took time to select and  purchased birthday cards and sent them, same with presents, we visited friends, relations, spending time with them...

Answer 82

In the 1980s we only started getting computers and they were ludicrously expensive. It was cheaper to draw by hand and much better results than the early CAD programmes. As for things like typing, you made sure you got it right first time as there was not the facility to correct things.

Answer 83

Gee, I was born in the mid 90’s and I’ve watched enough 80’s movies to know how it all worked. 

Answer 84

Very easily.

We used our brains. And still do.

The 1980s were 40 years ago, which isn't all that long a time. There are many people who were alive then who are alive now.

Answer 85

Easily and no mobile  phones  either

Answer 86

I had a computer in the 1980s with a cassette tape drive, and before that offices had those hardwired Wang word processors. Punch card technology goes back to the 1800s, it just got more and more sophisticated until it became obsolete. On some databases today, one still has to go to "dark side" of command lines sometimes. To people in those days, that was just the new way of doing a card run. 



I recall as a child being in a card reader room. It was nothing like IBM promo material. Unwanted cards were just dropped to the floor, and so you walked on a layer of punch cards! The effect was akin to those bars where you just threw your peanut shells on the floor. 



You can see on old episodes of Dragnet when Friday does a card run to find a suspect in the 1950s. Railways, insurance companies, etc., have had IT for a long time. Pharmacists and doctors still use fax machines for privacy, and law offices still use typewriters for some tasks. The point is, the new gizmos were not a revolution-anybody who could send a telex could send an email. 

Answer 87

The others have told you many of the differences. I will tell you that thing that most appreciate about modern technology--- GPS. It used to be a nightmare to go to someone's house in your own city, with directions scribbled in unreadable notes. Worse was traveling across country- many a couple split up over arguments about how the map should have been read. 

Answer 88

I worked in retail and food service.  I didn't need the internet.

Answer 89

We had pens, pencils, paper, calculators, and landline phones. It was much harder and very tedious, but we struggled thru it.

Answer 90

we used land line phones, met in person, and kept paper records. watch some old tv shows. it wasn't the stone age. sheesh! you youngsters are so SPOILED!!

Answer 91

I was born earlier than 1the 80s and never missed what we never had One negative effect the internet has on sports stars are all prima donnas now and there was less advertising telling us that we deserve what we do not really need The best part  of the tele scene is the remote

Answer 92

Some of us were working with networks in the late 60's early 70's Ethernet was around 1 meg and dial up around something called 300 Buad (~150k) ?? of course those networks were generally in the military and colleges but dial up was expensive but available to everybody...



N.Shadows 

Answer 93

Go back even further for me, a 75-year-old woman and military veteran, to a time when there were only black-and-white TVs, no such things as cell phones, and unaccompanied young women were not allowed to go into bars.  I even remember a time when women were not permitted to vote, when a single woman could not put the name of her baby's father on the birth certificate, and the minimum wage was $1.25 per hour.  

Answer 94

Back then was different 

They managed it 

It was inconvenience but advanced tech was not there at that time 

Answer 95

Easily.  Very little of my work actually REQUIRES the internet.  Computers, yes, but a lot less needs the internet.



Considering, even in the business world, internet was only a small component of the work place until the late 90's or early 2000's, most in their late 30's or 40's could remember a time when internet was limited, there's probably a heap around who remember life without the internet... 

Answer 96

Just watch an old movie, although I doubt that will happen because no one gives likes for doing research.

Answer 97

There were computers in most workplaces and personal computers too but the world wide web wasn't developed yet until 1989. I believe the computer language was BASIC and Fortran. 



Actually the crude version of the internet was invented way back in the early 1960s by the US military. 

Emails did exist in the 1970s with colleges and universities where students could send messages to their lecturers. 



My first full-time job in 1980 was in a small architectural firm and in the office upstairs used computers because I recall seeing a staff member using one. My knowledge of real computers was limited and all I knew about them was watching computers on sci-fi movies and the Star Trek series.  



Those were the days where people would go to the local library for research and read many books about any topic. The rest was done manually with typewriters, pens, pencils, handwritten notepads, books, and heaps of paperwork.



I studied drafting and also had worked in an office where everything was drawn on tracing paper using ink pens and copied by a large printing machine. A coworker had told me about all plans, working drawings ( blueprints) in the future would be done by computers which in fact became Autocad in architectural offices in western countries. 



Those were the good old days when people worked hard to earn a decent age and I recall being paid on Thursdays with an accountant coming around handing payslips ( an envelope with cash) to employees. I was never paid by a cheque. 

Answer 98

Nobody needs the internet then or now.  Workers in the 80s were far more productive than workers today.  You can easily prove that with productivity reports.  Oh.  Sorry.  That won't work you.  Internet babies are not smart enough to do that.

Answer 99

The computers have been integrated into the jobs, though the jobs themselves weren't built around computers.  To many of us the internet is still a novelty and not a lifestyle.  Which means if the web went dark we could survive very well.

Answer 100

The internet was not the first long-distance computer network. We had both computers and computer networks long before the 1980s.

Answer 101

"If any of us are still alive"- bloody cheek! Anyway, we done it by saving all documents onto floppy disks and printing stuff out, taking stuff round the various departments of the company, ourselves, or having someone else do it for us, if we were the boss, and posting stuff to companies and customers outside of our company. 

Answer 102

It was better because everyone didn't hide in a fake virtual world.  People had much more face to face communication.  Also everyone had to be more patient- no instant answers by looking things up online.

Answer 103

The internet wasn't necessary for mathematical modeling and studies. We had other sources of intormation. We did use computers in my job.

Answer 104

I have never really needed the Internet for any job, and that holds true today for all the jobs I ever did.  I started working full time in 1977, and have 3 jobs now, none of which need the Internet.  Nor computers, even though I did Computer Science in university.

Answer 105

In the 80's we were still suspicious

of people who affected to converse 

with invisible people and also be so

instructed by that contact.  Unable 

to ignore those who shouted prior

history that included delusions and

demented intentions.  But, today, it

isn't suspicious to act like Q-Anon 

if it allows you to share delusion and

demented intentions ?

Answer 106

Life in the 1950's was sweeter. If we were lucky, we had a Black and white TV

Answer 107

Try doing your math before saying that it would be interesting to hear if there are still some of us alive.  If a person was born in 1980, they would be 41 this year.  Most people live way long than that.  I grew up without internet and didn't miss it because nobody else had it either.  As people have said, we used letters and phone calls and actually went to see people face to face.  Sadly, internet has separated us all a lot.  I have seen kids be in the same room and not a sound expect their phones because they are texting each other instead of talking to each other.

Answer 108

"would be interesting to hear of there are any of you still alive" - what on earth do you mean? what do you imagine the normal life-span is?

Perhaps you could look it up on the internet.

Answer 109

By bigBack then, most files were stored in folders in file cabinets. Doctors offices had entire rooms full of giant filing cabinets with every patient’s files. Restaurants required wait staff to write down their orders and calculate the bills by hand. People in offices communicated mostly by phone. They sent letters and faxes instead of emails. Computers were only really used for typing and storing data. 

Answer 110

With Filing cabinets and telephones. Most jobs now still don’t really require the internet......and computers existed in the 80’s

Answer 111

 we just sat around waiting for somebody to invent it



 (to try to educate somebody you have to have  baseline to start from

YOU are just so ignorant about so many things it would take days of education to even GET you to that baseline)

Answer 112

It was the best. You just met them and didn't have to go thru internet anxiety. You just usually knew in minutes. Look how much faster that is.

Answer 113

You certainly do not need the internet or computers for almost every job.

Just for your info computers were around in the 80's.

Just a few which do not need either

Lorry drivers,

shop assistants

Plumbers

electricians

photographers

artists

decorators

bakers

cobblers

dress makers

actors

bin men (rubbish collectors)

bus drivers

firemen

and many many more.



You must be about 6 if you think that people working in the 80 are probably all dead.

Answer 114

the army fought with swords and shields. tech workers worked on our wagons. we would order pizza by, get this, going to a phone in the wall.

Answer 115

THESE DAYS. It was different back then.

Answer 116

Letters on paper in envelopes with stamps, for one. Telephone calls, for another. Both were slower. Today, when you buy a can of beans at the supermarket, the computer that adds $1.29 to your bill at the check stand also tells corporate HQ that the supermarket has one less can of beans on hand. When the "On Hand" stock of that particular brand of beans in that branch of the chain falls below a certain level, the corporate computer will order another pallet of them from the Acme Bean company, automatically and instantly.



We did the same thing, sort of, in the 1980s but it was slower and not as accurate.

Answer 117

Happy birthday, youngster. Do you have a driver's license yet?



 In the 80s, I was either in the Army, washing dishes, or sorting boxes in a warehouse, depending upon which period you pick. None of these jobs required computers.

Answer 118

We lived for thousands of years without the internet and computers! i worked in the 60's, we used pen and paper to record things, we looked up reference books for facts, we did not miss out on anything! there were high street shops for banking, we had travel agents to book a holiday, we were fine. We had landline phones, we wrote letters.

Answer 119

The internet is mostly used for useless things these days just as cell phones are so we didn't miss it.

We saw our first computer when i was in college.It filled an entire room and you filled out magnetic punch cards ,hundreds of them ,to do simple math questions. You handed them to an operator and waited an hour.

Answer 120

In entered the job market part time in 1941, full-time in 1946. I first used computers in my work in 1970. I first had a PC on my desk at work in the mid-1980s. I first became dependent on them after I retired in 1997. I mis having a car I can handstart with a crank. I hate having a television controlled by a remote which I am always misplacing instead of by buttons on the set itself, and I never use my cellphone/mobile except to summon help in an emergency. I think satnavs/GPS should be banned while driving as a dangerous distraction like cell phones or (even more importantly) children on the back seat unaccompanied by an adult passenger to keep them under control. Ideally no driver should be allowed onto any road that they had not already made themselves familiar with (by cycling or walking it, or being taken on it by another driver). 

Answer 121

Telephones, faxes, computers, printers and bits of paper.  In school I had a Casio scientific calculator which was vastly over powered for what I used it for.  

Answer 122

A pen and the proper forms

Wrote all our case work in long hand

Wrote all patient notes in long hand

I started working in 1965 at age 14 worked until 2009 when I retired at age 58. Never used the internet at work.

I still do and always will file taxes using paper forms I fill out myself

I never haveconducted any buisness on the internet and never will

Got along fine and would if the internet disappeared tomorrow 

Oh, and it was faster to retrieve a paper file from a well organized file cabinet then it is to type in a command 

Answer 123

You are a joker!   What about the 1880's 🤣