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Would You Go Back To The 1970's Technology If You Could?

G

gearheadbill

Member
Over on the New Ag Talk site someone posted the question "Would you go back to the 1970's technology if you could?" Interesting question! I enjoyed it when I was a young man, but not now at my age. I love getting on my old 1960's tractors going on drives or piddling around, but wouldn't want to farm with them nowadays.
 
I have a friend who always says the 1950s was more high tech than now. Then he states a bunch of stuff that really was better and he kinda makes sense [ a little bit].
 
Still a lot of '70's technology still in use on today's farms. In a few minutes I'm going out and use a mid '60's and a1949 tractor.
 
By and large I never left it in terms of machinery around the farm. The way the fall has gone with some dank days the last couple weeks I would love to have a latest edition rotary combine as they can get the beans out of the pod without the pod being bone dry. Lots of guys running 25, 30 foot heads versus my 15 foot unit.
 
Not me.
Points and plugs in your car every 10k miles,valve jobs at 100k.
40k - maybe - on a set of bias ply pickup tires.
No cell phones, no computer so I can argue with you fellows who I like a lot. No Amazon, no live streaming videos, no youtube.
No scientific deer herd control - so no deer.
No air nailers, power miter boxes, no fantastic glues and adhesives for work.
No Tyvec house wrap, no (or few) insulated glass windows.
A lot if social things I would be glad to go back for and there were jobs then. But technology? Nope.
 
These conversations go round and round and round whats better what was better how this could be better if we went back to the 70s we wouldnt be having this conversation on here!
 
Some stuff yes and some no. Back in the 70s a computer was as large as your refrigerator and there was no internet so that would not be good today. Many laws from then yes and those since then many should not be but that is a whole lot more to that.
 
My newest tractor is an 82 and I make a living with them. Most that I use right along are from the 60s. I have a 51 that I use 7 days,365 to feed cattle. So ya,70's tractor technology works for me. The newer round balers are better than the ones from the 70s. I wouldn't want to go back to a sickle type haybine from a discbine now that I have one,but could I? Sure,if I had to.
What I really wouldn't want to give up though is the GMO corn and the herbicides that we use. That would be a giant step backwards.
 
Yes and no.

Just about anything mandated by those dolts at the EPA, of course.

On the other hand, until recently private sector innovation/progress is nearly always market driven. Such progress has been improving the standard of living of most people for millenia.

In the US, at least, it is only within the past 100 years or so, that the federales have hi-jacked/ham strung the private sector resulting incomprehensible waste of precious resources for merely political/PC reasons.

You doubt? Study history with an open mind for 50+ years and post back.

Dean
 
Yes, for the simplistic life without this instant news(mostly bad) from ALL sources, tv, cell phones, satellites, etc. No canbus that tells you what $1000+ piece that is not working but not that one certain wire connection is not making contact. We made money in 73-75 and the dollar was worth something in the early 70s.

Today's good is gps when it works, to make it easier and less tiresome to do our work. Cabs for clean enviroment and safety.
 
Yes and no. I can make do with late 70s tractors as long as I can bring my GPS and auto steer. Some of the seeding and tillage tools we use now were not in existent back then like no-till drills and air drills. I'd hate to use a round baler made in the 70s. I'd hate to be without swath control on my sprayer that does save money and inputs every year.
 
I mix old style grazing but newer style fencer and wire. When I raised corn old theory was cultivate on a hot day less use of chemicals. Some things were good then and mix it with today's technology it improved it.
 
Some of those people with the newer equipment and longer headers will still be paying for them for the next 10 or more years too. I run old equipment, it's all paid for. I don't make as much money but what I do is all mine.
 
I like the newer stuff until it breaks down and then I prefer my old 70's IH tractors. I've got a neighbor that has newer tractors that are 5 years old and newer. there were at least two times this year that he got his hay wet waiting for the tech guy to come out and run down a loose wire. His tractors are a lot more comfortable than mine and that means a lot but the reliability doesn't seem any better. I like most of the newer hay equipment a lot better than even in the 90's.
 
(quoted from post at 15:11:11 10/25/15) Yes and no.

Just about anything mandated by those dolts at the EPA, of course.

On the other hand, until recently private sector innovation/progress is nearly always market driven. Such progress has been improving the standard of living of most people for millenia.

In the US, at least, it is only within the past 100 years or so, that the federales have hi-jacked/ham strung the private sector resulting incomprehensible waste of precious resources for merely political/PC reasons.

You doubt? Study history with an open mind for 50+ years and post back.

Dean
Click to expand...

Very well put, and absoltely correct.
 
Would I go back to 1970s technology?? In some ways it was better, but in some ways we are batter off now.

Regarding engines, electronic ignitions and fuel injection are GREAT!!! Overcomplicated emission systems are NOT.

Electronically controlled transmissions are a big improvement over the older mechanical controls. They eliminated a lot of troublesome moving parts.

One thing I must say is that we have become too dependent on electronic gizmos to think for us. This can and does bite us from time to time. Like cashiers that do not know how to make change. What do you do when the power goes out?? Could you operate your farm or business without computers or the internet??? Many basic skills are becoming "lost arts" at the hands of technology.
 
i could, id miss a few modern things, but not much, i still like my old tractors, but i have noticed i cant run them all day like i used to, the claim was made that the cars and trucks then were poorly designed and made, i guess thats why i have 4 of them still on the job and still looking decent, if not new , not restored mind you STILL on the job, they did not have as much comforts in them as now, no doubt and there not so good fuel economy is noted, and maybe the body panels didnt exactly line up perfect, [ that can be remedied] but i'll still take there simplicity over newer tech stuff any day guess im just old lol
 
Oh, i bought a 74 Monte Carlo with over 300,000 miles, the spiral in the valve guides are still visible. and with less than 10 thousands cylinder taper !
 

In terms of automobiles , no . I work making movies and drive everything from Model A up . and would much rather drive newer stuff . Today we have more free time and enjoyment in life , just like posting this message . Yes sometimes repairs cost a fortune but everything is relative --isn't it ?

Larry --ont.
 
So what is "seventies technology"?

Electronic ignition, electronic fuel injection and catalytic converters were all available on vehicles produced in the late seventies. Microprocessors were in wide use in the seventies, although they didn't make have much penetration into automobiles until the eighties. By 1990 you couldn't buy a new car that didn't have multiple embedded microprocessors.

Here's some technology that didn't exist (for most people) in 1979:
Global Positioning System (started in the 1973, operational in 1993)
Cell phones (first available in 1983)
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (invented in 1971, first used for medical diagnosis in 1980)
DNA sequencing (developed in the seventies, but not widely used until the nineties)

So if you want to go back to "seventies technology", you're really saying you don't want to use or benefit from the use of these technologies. I think I'll stick with twenty-first century technology.
 

The Good Ol' Ways of the Good Ol' Days!

Yes both me and my husband would go back to the 70's in a heartbeat... We could care less about who has the latest greatest tv, cell phone, or vehicle.

The good ol' fashioned vehicles were able to be worked on by most everyone whereby today you open a hood and just cringe at wondering if you gotta remove motor mounts or drill holes through the inner fender just to change something so common as sparkplugs. My husband still owns a 1983 F-150 4x4 with a 300-6 and he actually sits on the inner fenders with his legs comfortably hanging down along the engine while he does a tune-up and all kinds of other work that we refuse to pay a mechanic 50.00 and up per hour.

We will also stick with our 1941 Ford 9n with original Danuser Dearborn posthole digger...although the n-series that followed the 9n had some improvements which we admire, we still love our good ol' tractor from the good ol' days when a mans word and his handshake was all one needed and the front door was left unlocked. Shame that now we have to sleep with a .45 1911 at our side.
 
I would go back for generators. The new ones are junk. One thousand hours is now the new standard for a high hour RV generator.3600 RPM screamers don't last very long. I have seen some of the old 1800 RPM units with over six thousand still going.
 
ARPANET was operational throughout the seventies. However, it didn't switch to TCP/IP (as used today by the internet) until the eighties. But since TCP/IP was developed during the seventies, it is fair to say the internet runs on seventies technology.
 
>The good ol' fashioned vehicles were able to be worked on by most everyone whereby today you open a hood and just cringe at wondering if you gotta remove motor mounts or drill holes through the inner fender just to change something so common as sparkplugs.

Oh, you mean like you had to do with a 1975 Chevy Monza?
 
(quoted from post at 17:44:01 10/25/15) >The good ol' fashioned vehicles were able to be worked on by most everyone whereby today you open a hood and just cringe at wondering if you gotta remove motor mounts or drill holes through the inner fender just to change something so common as sparkplugs.

Oh, you mean like you had to do with a 1975 Chevy Monza?
Click to expand...

Sorry but we have never even heard of a chevy monza.... we stuck to the more common models which more people were familiar with and therefor already had the know-how for when there was a problem with the vehicle it wasn't hard to diagnose it and work on it unlike more modern vehicles which takes a technician who demands 50.00 and up per hour just to stick a hi-tech computer on the car to tell you what's wrong with it and then gets to tell you that they also tack on a 20-30% fee on top of the cost of the parts.
 
Objects in the rear view mirror always look better than the originals.

The 70s were some of the crappiest cars ever built, took 20 years for them to get better.
 
Would I go back to 1970s tech and machinery? Sure! I mean, I'm not too far off...my newest tractor is an '85 IH 385. I've never owned a vehicle newer than my '79 chevy c10. My daily driver is a '68 Dodge Dart. dont know that the wife would be ok with getting rid of our home computer though...
 
Looking back on the 1970, I loved the people but I will pass on 1970's technology. 1970's Technology was not kind to old people, and I have now become one.
 
Don't go spoiling the fantasy with facts!
Actually, early 70's were still acceptable, then went downhill PDQ. 90's saw big gains but IMO domestics didn't get to proper quality levels until the mid 2000's.
 
No cars ran at most 100000 Miles today it is common to get 300000 to 400000 miles out of 1 without changing a tie rod or ball joint. Oil is so much better than the 1970's, tires are deffinatly far superior than back then. The only thing I can think of that is worse is the government.
 
What kind of technology? 8" floppy disks? 8 tracks?

For vehicle technology I think we're at the point of diminishing returns. Transportation is starting to get a little too complicated for the job that it does.

Day to day reliability is better; when you get in your car or tractor in the morning it's highly likely to start right up. But when it does go down it usually is done.

When one of my old tractors has quit in the field, I've gotten it going again in a few minutes. I know two full time farming operations that got burned this year by technology that quit and then took excessively long to repair. For one it resulted in hundreds of acres of lost crop due to a missed weather opportunity. With older tech stuff you can do farm engineered repairs and get something working and even if not perfect at least you can finish for the day or the season.

New tech does offer advantages _when_ it works, and hopefully it works better enough to pay for itself.
 
I'm still using a lot of the seventies and older technology. Feed cattle all winter with a sixties vintage tractor and front end loader. Combine my crops with late eighties combines and a 1971 grain truck. My 81 GMC pickup gets the job done for me.
 
I don't care what you all say.........I have been here from 1942 to present & the best were 50's & 60's. So stick that in your corn cob pipe & smoke it! Yep, I was only 10 to 20's, but those were the best.
 
I love some of the comments. "Most people in the 70's knew how to work on their own cars" is just great and about the biggest farce I've ever heard. I made a lot of money in the mid to late 70's and beyond working on other soldiers cars that about the best they could do was an oil change on their own! I'm not talking officers. I'm talking enlisted and NCOs. But I saw diminishing knowledge of the everyday person about auto and home repairs in the 60's.

And the 70's cars being simple to work on? Heck by the late 70's many were so bad you couldn't even see the engine because of vacuum lines and EPA mandated stuff. What a pain to do even simple things!

Rick
 
>Sorry but we have never even heard of a chevy monza

If y'all don't remember the Monza and its infamous hole saw spark plug change, I have to wonder how well you remember the rest of the seventies.

Most folks who wax nostalgic about the Good Old Days don't remember them very well.
 
Still do many things just the way we did in the 70's with some 60's and 70's tractors, and things still get done. That said I don't want to give back my three year old round baler or my one year old 4x4 loader tractors. When it comes to barn work not much has changed , maybe auto-takeoff milkers , but field work has changed . And cars and trucks are better.
 
(quoted from post at 02:48:50 10/26/15) >Sorry but we have never even heard of a chevy monza

If y'all don't remember the Monza and its infamous hole saw spark plug change, I have to wonder how well you remember the rest of the seventies.

Most folks who wax nostalgic about the Good Old Days don't remember them very well.
Click to expand...

Most who are nostalgic about the good ol' days actually remember them quite well. What's actually pathetic are those like you whose replies only show how naïve they are to jump the gun and run their mouth before knowing the facts...

so you need to do your homework and educate yourself to know that not all cars were sold in all areas thus not all people in all areas would have had a particular model of car in their area for them to get called out later on for not remembering them therefor implying our lack of credibility... it's a COMMON FACT that car manufactures did their homework even back in the 70's by sending out scouts to different areas in different states to see what areas would be more or less likely to buy their particular models, and so our area WAS NOT one of those areas which chevy had found that most people weren't dumb enough here to consider buying it if it had such problems doing something so common as changing spark plugs.
 
depends....
would I know what I know now? if I would, then no, 'hotplace' no.

just live the 70's again with no future knowledge? sure, so I could marvel at all the modern stuff again...compared to the decades before..

Can I go and come back? ok, I want to go back and buy a couple brand new Ford F-250's (either body style), and bring them back with me. :)
 
As for me the 60's & early 70's were better, Meaning we were better off as a people.
I think you can still farm well enough with equipment built in that era because it would
be paid for, for the smaller farmer. Some of the modern day electronic tech. stuff is OK
if it's used correctly, the problem is today most isn't used correctly. Pants on young men
would still be up at the waist & not at the knees. Most of these tattoo's & piercing we see
today make so many look unemployable. I don't like what the future holds for so many young
people with MOM's & Dads working outside the home to make enough to keep up with the Jones.
This is where the problem started with turn key children without parents at home when the needed
to be. Granted it all depends on the parent & the individual child to make choices. Our problem
without supervision the wrong choices get made. Time spent with youth, important values planted
in our youth will lead to rewards someday. I Hope...
 
Medical technology has advanced a lot since the 1970's. Back then if someone survived a heart attack or got cancer most seemed to be dead within three years. Now surviving another ten or twenty years is common.

I don't miss the 15+ percent mortgage rates and the stagnation either. When did Nixon impose the phased price controls on retail goods, 1971? That put a damper on the hog market and other commodity prices.

People still had fun and enjoyed life then too.
 
I miss my 72 Chevrolet Chevelle Super Sport. 454, 4 speed, 3.73s.

But I still drive, and scare the bejesus out of my grandkids, with my 1962 GMC PU with 305V6 and 4 speed! Good fun!
I'm its 2nd owner.
If you have fuel, fire, compression, and timing is right, she goes! There is no computer checking sensor parameters that might shut you down and leave you stranded.

Scott
 
>...so you need to do your homework and educate yourself to know that not all cars were sold in all areas thus not all people in all areas would have had a particular model of car in their area...

Your flawed and fanciful memories prove my point better than anything I could say. Maybe if GM had done market research and paid attention to it they wouldn't have lost most of their west coast market share to imports. But no, the Big Three took their market for granted back then, and the Monza was sold in Chevrolet dealerships across the American heartland. Including, I'm sure, at the dealership in your own home town.

Now if you've truly never heard of the Chevy Monza and its notorious spark plug change, then tell me this: What OTHER car were you thinking of that requires sheet metal surgery to pull the plugs? Certainly nothing built in the past thirty years; if automotive engineers learned anything from the lamentable Monza, it was that you need to ensure that a tune-up is possible without pulling the engine.

Maybe you should re-acquaint yourself with this prime example of GM automotive technology from the Disco Era. It has the key traits shared by all 1970's Detroit iron: It was underpowered, overweight and poorly engineered.
The Almost Muscle Car
 
>Her parents were probably living in a commune called Spahn Ranch and never saw a car.

Well, I wouldn't know anything about that. But I do know there are no car dealerships within a one hour drive from Ballarat.
 
(quoted from post at 18:19:42 10/26/15) >

cvpost-markb_mi said "Your flawed and fanciful memories prove my point better than anything I could say. Maybe if GM had done market research and paid attention to it they wouldn't have lost most of their west coast market share to imports. But no, the Big Three took their market for granted back then, and the Monza was sold in Chevrolet dealerships across the American heartland. Including, I'm sure, at the dealership in your own home town.

Now if you've truly never heard of the Chevy Monza and its notorious spark plug change, then tell me this: What OTHER car were you thinking of that requires sheet metal surgery to pull the plugs? Certainly nothing built in the past thirty years; if automotive engineers learned anything from the lamentable Monza, it was that you need to ensure that a tune-up is possible without pulling the engine.

Maybe you should re-acquaint yourself with this prime example of GM automotive technology from the Disco Era. It has the key traits shared by all 1970's Detroit iron: It was underpowered, overweight and poorly engineered.
The Almost Muscle Car
Click to expand...

We rather not call other people names but in this case it's CLEAR that you're just a blabbering fool...

You said "Your flawed and fanciful memories prove my point better than anything I could say. Maybe if GM had done market research and paid attention to it they wouldn't have lost most of their west coast market share to imports"

Our Reply: Huh What! This doesn't even have ANYTHING to do with what was the point... we said that the marketing research was done by car manufacturers in order for them to have better ideas on where not to sell their vehicles because they would see ahead of time where they wouldn't sell very well and our area was one that they didn't sell them in but all you can do is just come back avoiding the point with blabbering on how we somehow prove your point with you going on to say " Maybe if GM had done market research and paid attention to it they wouldn't have lost most of their west coast market share to imports"

You also said "Now if you've truly never heard of the Chevy Monza and its notorious spark plug change, then tell me this: What OTHER car were you thinking of that requires sheet metal surgery to pull the plugs?"

Our Reply: As for this irresponsible reply which you also jump the gun to run your mouth on, go back and ACTUALLY read any of our comments and you will see that WE DIDN"T EVEN MAKE A POINT BASED ON CARS....WE MADE THE POINT BASED ON TRUCKS

...and so all of this because you don't pay attention to what others wrote.

You can come back and blabber on with whatever other ridiculous replies you want....you're not worth trying to have a mature discussion with.
 
If I could be 21 again, yeah, sure, "In a heartbeat". But if I have to be a sorry old man I guess I'll stay with the modern perks.
 
MarkB_MI- ya, but you always got Rocky Novak and his dogs, Potlicker and Brownie to visit with. LOL!.
 
>We rather not call other people names but in this case it's CLEAR that you're just a blabbering fool...

Anger is a natural reaction when you realize your memory is failing. But I should caution you that name-calling is one of the offenses which can get your posts here deleted. You learn these things after posting here for fifteen years, as I have. And should you stick around that long you'll probably grow a little bit thicker skin.
 
Mark, It should be noted, the Vega was much easier to service. The inner fenders were rusted away before the first plug change was due....eh.
 

'70s technology was already beginning to incorporate electronics and other wizardry that could only be replaced, and never repaired. I would much prefer going back to '50s and '60s technology, and incorporate some of today's "creature comforts" into it.
 
(quoted from post at 02:15:49 10/28/15) >We rather not call other people names but in this case it's CLEAR that you're just a blabbering fool...

Anger is a natural reaction when you realize your memory is failing. But I should caution you that name-calling is one of the offenses which can get your posts here deleted. You learn these things after posting here for fifteen years, as I have. And should you stick around that long you'll probably grow a little bit thicker skin.
Click to expand...


Lol...there's clearly no anger here whatsoever and people will see this has nothing to do with memory if they go back and read everything in order to see the true context here, and saying you are a blabbering fool was the result after you were continuing on and on with frivolously discrediting our comments by twisting our words around, taking what we said out of context, as well as other immature reactions.

and please put the whole quote of what someone else said instead you only putting just part of a quote in order for trying to get more attention for you side of things.

Here is our whole comment " We rather not call other people names but in this case it's CLEAR that you're just a blabbering fool...

You said "Your flawed and fanciful memories prove my point better than anything I could say. Maybe if GM had done market research and paid attention to it they wouldn't have lost most of their west coast market share to imports"

Our Reply: Huh What! This doesn't even have ANYTHING to do with what was the point... we said that the marketing research was done by car manufacturers in order for them to have better ideas on where not to sell their vehicles because they would see ahead of time where they wouldn't sell very well and our area was one that they didn't sell them in but all you can do is just come back avoiding the point with blabbering on how we somehow prove your point with you going on to say " Maybe if GM had done market research and paid attention to it they wouldn't have lost most of their west coast market share to imports"

You also said "Now if you've truly never heard of the Chevy Monza and its notorious spark plug change, then tell me this: What OTHER car were you thinking of that requires sheet metal surgery to pull the plugs?"

Our Reply: As for this irresponsible reply which you also jump the gun to run your mouth on, go back and ACTUALLY read any of our comments and you will see that WE DIDN"T EVEN MAKE A POINT BASED ON CARS....WE MADE THE POINT BASED ON TRUCKS

...and so all of this because you don't pay attention to what others wrote.

You can come back and blabber on with whatever other ridiculous replies you want....you're not worth trying to have a mature discussion with."

and so you never made a direct response as well as other replies you made to us, you only replied with saying" Anger is a natural reaction when you realize your memory is failing. But I should caution you that name-calling is one of the offenses which can get your posts here deleted. You learn these things after posting here for fifteen years, as I have. And should you stick around that long you'll probably grow a little bit thicker skin"

We can only say how ridiculous this is trying to have a mature discussion when people like you who are troll-like in their behavior where by you don't read everything of what someone else said before you reply, even when you do read everything you don't pay enough attention to keep things in the context which they were written, you avoid the point in order to carry on with your discrediting of others, and on and on.

So with that being said, we just hope others including the administrators on here will actually read all of the comments and not just the times you replied only quoting the parts of our comments which you're trying to use to take the attention away from how you display immature behavior. Feel free to report us...you are just a blabbering fool and if that light of language being used to define you angers you, then it clearly shows you haven't grown the thicker skin that you're pointing the finger towards others for
 
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