I suppose it would be mostly practical skills, cooking, fixing things. Usually had to be done by people themselves.

Maybe also mental things like navigating (with or without paper map) and remembering their daily and weekly agendas.

What other things would be a big difference with the people today?

  • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
    76·
    3 个月前

    Navigating a paper map.

    You want to drive to a suburb of a big city. You have an address. The internet doesn’t exist.

    How do you get there? Well. You use a map. Almost every glove box would have a local and state map, if not a full map book like a Thomas brothers.

    • Dasus@lemmy.world
      3·
      3 个月前

      Actually a much better way was to use a street directory if you know your way around the town even a bit.

      Better even, and how we actually did it was giving instructions. “200m after the large tree by the field, drive on for about 400m, there’s 2 junctions before and mines the third one.”

      But I also know orienteering ofc as a Finn

      • Damage@feddit.it
        2·
        3 个月前

        Actually a much better way was to use a street directory if you know your way around the town even a bit.

        You generally only had a street directory of your OWN town, outside of specific professional settings.

    • SolarBoy@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
      41·
      3 个月前

      I wonder if it took quite a bit longer for people to reach their destination. Because not everyone would be as good at reading maps (compared to simply following gps instructions) Maybe that made it more common for people to arrive at different times. or plan longer trips because the driving would take up a bigger part of it.

      Also, when driving alone, I can’t imagine holding your map. So you would still have to stop from time to time for long trips. And actually memorize the big lines of how to get to your destination.

      • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
        7·
        3 个月前

        I wonder if it took quite a bit longer for people to reach their destination. Because not everyone would be as good at reading maps (compared to simply following gps instructions) Maybe that made it more common for people to arrive at different times. or plan longer trips because the driving would take up a bigger part of it.

        Oh it absolutely did. You would regularly have to stop (often after a turn or if you felt like you missed one) and reconsult the map. You just accounted for that additional time. Longer trips are often less of an issue, because its usually, you get to a big main highway and its cruise most of the rest of the way.

        And plenty of times, you might get lost/ not be able to find yourself on the map. You’d have to pull over and ask for help/ directions. You might write the directions down on a piece of paper, but that doesn’t do you much good if you missed a turn and didn’t know it.

      • Damage@feddit.it
        2·
        3 个月前

        As someone who travelled for work before and after smartphones, absolutely. You couldn’t just open Google Maps, search a business and go there, the problem wasn’t going city to city, but finding a specific place in or outside a city. If you got a request to go to X business either you already knew how to get there, or it would take some planning.

        Nowadays my company can receive a request from a customer in another country, and in 1 hour they can plan the trip, reserve the rental car, book a plane, book an hotel for the night. That just wasn’t possible in the past.

      • olduffer @lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        3 个月前

        The main maps I used for driving (back in the day, UK, 1986) were ‘books’ rather than large fold out maps. At local level, an A to Z. At national level, an AA road map, this has the format of a small newspaper, however in thicker paper.