Friday, January 2, 2015

The story of Lois the 1930s taxidermy freshwater crocodile


A few months ago, I bought a taxidermy freshwater crocodile at a church jumble sale. Paid $5.

She had needle-point teeth and a warning look in her eye. Nevertheless, I took her home but could not bring myself to display her as an ornament on my lounge room shelf: there was something near living about her, and at some primeval level, I feared that, at any moment, she might snap out of her coma and bite me on the ankle.

So I put her up for sale on ebay.

I named her Lois and, through ebay, she received a few propositions.

When I first posted her on the ebay site, I mistakenly listed her as a saltwater croc. Wrong. Salties are an enormous animal over three metres long and way too big to send through the post. Lois is 90 cm long, and weighs a dainty 800g.

Someone was quick to correct me. I received an email saying: 'Lois, you are a freshwater croc.'

Here's how Lois described herself for the ebay auction.  She opened her listing with this arresting title:

'Pay ransom to free 1930s taxidermy freshwater crocodile

Please buy me! My name is Lois, and I am a genuine freshwater crocodile (taxidermy) and I am being held against my will.

Only a generous ransom will set me free. So – bid up.

I can understand why anyone would kidnap me. I have gorgeous come-hither eyes, but if you come near, I also have very sharp teeth.

My tail curls like a whip, and people travel for miles just to come and admire it.

If you pay up, I will be very grateful. I will come and live with you and make you happy.

Although I am actually 91cm long, I am set in a very becoming curve, so I will require about 60cm of shelf space, preferably white, with a white background, to show off my particularly fine crocodile skin.

I don’t care to share my shelf space with anything else, although I would not object to a fish tank stocked with a variety of juicy meals.

Although a lady does not like to talk about her age, I would guess I am from the 1930s or 1940s. I have been preserved for future generations through the miracle of taxidermy, the details of which I will spare you. Enough to say that I have a scar along my belly, with stitches, to prove that my innards were removed and replaced with something more hygienic.

NOTE FROM OWNER: Lois is prone to exaggeration (although not about the fish). She will not admit it, but the years have taken their toll. While the texture of her back is as superb as any handbag, the complexion under her chin and around her neck is not what it was when she was in the wild. You can see a few ashen patches in the photos, around the neck and chin. However, she would not be averse to a little restoration. And yes, like all taxidermy crocs, a few of her toes are loose.

DELIVERY: Lois is fragile. Pickup would be good, and I could arrange to meet the buyer for delivery in Sydney. If she must be posted to other cities or countries, Lois would like to talk to her new owner about how she will travel. She will tell you that she only flies first class.'

END OF SALES PITCH.

The next day, an email arrived for Lois.

Hello there!
I am living with George, a male freshwater croc who is constantly nagging me about some "female friend" he can chew his Barbies with. George arrived safely via Greyhound from Queensland, nicely wrapped up in bubble wrap. George (being 135 cm long and weighing around 3 kilos) travelled for 19 Dollars, and according to him, it wasn't "too bad at all".So I wonder whether mildly spoiled Lois would object to being treated the same way, to be met by me and George in Darwin, in case she'd choose to live with us? Marlene






MY REPLY TO MARLENE WAS AS FOLLOWS:

Marlene,
Lois is over the moon that she would have a companion, especially a big hunk like George. She is much smaller than George, weighing in at 800g, and I think that registered postage Sydney/Darwin would be around the $20 mark. Packaging would be free, as I already have a box (and lots of bubble wrap) which will contain Lois, although she is pouting because it does not have a bar fridge.
Lois sends her warmest regards to George.
cheers, wandagirl


MARLENE REPLIED BY RETURN EMAIL:

Hi wandagirl,
George is simply besides himself (in a male, understated way), he wants me to let Lois know that he actually has a bar fridge (he suggested I send it down for her journey, but for various reasons I had to disappoint him).
Now have to work on MY strategy to make sure Lois will be living with US very soon.
George says "HI".
Marlene

NOTE: Marlene's bidding strategy did not work. The winning bid ($92.09) came in a few seconds before the auction ended, and Lois went to Melbourne to live, I hope, in the luxury she felt she deserved.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Dollars and sense: remembering pounds, shillings and pence


On Sunday 12 February 2012, my story - how Australia changed old money for new - was broadcast on ABC radio's Ockham's Razor.

Here's the transcript...





Sunday 12 February 2012 9:45AM


How Australia changed old money for new

On 14 February 1966, Australia changed to a decimal currency. Writer and social
historian Robin Robertson takes us back to that time with some amusing anecdotes of
how the population felt about this change.

Transcript 
Robyn Williams: What does February 14th, next Tuesday, mean to you? Not
Valentine’s Day I trust, or anything so soggy. For me it means one thing, in a word:
money. That’s when I and a few others, including Mark Scott’s granddad, Sir Walter
Scott, back in 1966, helped Australia to go decimal. Mark is now Managing Director of
the ABC and is also keen on decimal currency and keeps asking Canberra to give us
more. But back in 1966 it all seemed too much for some Australians. They were used to
pounds, shillings and pence and, if they owned delis or newsagencies or milk bars, they
were worried about getting funds in time to convert their cash registers. And that’s
where I came in, bending the rules to help Luigi and Rosa to have the till fixed.
Now, 46 years on, it all seems so distant. But for social historian and writer Robin
Robertson, February 14th, 1966, shines on as a date to remember.


Robin Robertson: It seems that Australia is about to meddle with its money again.
There’s a rumour that it is going to withdraw the 5 cent piece because it is too small to
matter. This coin, being the smallest denomination of our currency, is about to go the
way of the one cent piece which, to be honest, no one misses.

The loss of the 5 cent coin is small change really. When it disappears it will not be a
trauma as it was when Australia ditched one system of money and replaced it with
another. Few remember it now but until 1966 Australia paid its way with Imperial
currency, a system of money inherited from mother England.

Then in a brave bid for independence, the Federal Government did away with pounds,
shillings and pence and replaced it with the decimal system, being dollars and cents. Not
that we were willing. Money was the basis of all transactions and we felt that changing
our system of currency was somehow changing the rules. What would happen to the
price of sausages, or to our savings, or the value of our house? Indeed, what was wrong
with that most worthy of money – the pound, the shilling and the penny?

That was when money was really money. It was called the Imperial system and it was
divided by 12. Not like this wimpy decimal currency which divides by 10. Indeed, the
system of twelve had a certain elegance. For instance the number 12 could be divided
into thirds and quarters and still be a whole number. Ten could not. But this advantage
was no match for the march of progress.

It all started when we realised that nine-tenths of the world did not understand our
money system. They could not see the logic of 12 pennies to the shilling, 20 shillings to
the pound and 21 shillings to the guinea. Sometimes we couldn’t see it either.

Here’s an example. If we bought five items at five shillings and seven pence each, what
did that add up to? We needed pen and paper to do the sum. First we multiplied the 5
shillings by five which gave us 25 shillings or one pound, five shillings. Then we
multiplied the seven pence by 5 pence to give us the 35 pence. We called 35 pence two
shillings and 11 pence. Are you still with me? Then we added the lot together and the
final bill was one pound, seven shillings and eleven pence. As you can see there was
plenty of room for error.

On the other hand decimal currency was the science of money for idiots. If you bought
five items at 56 cents each a quick mental calculations gave us $2.80. This of course was
long before cash registers could add and subtract. At that time cash registers only served
to store cash. The rest of the transaction was left to the shopper and the shop assistant
who both had to do the sum then agree on the answer.

So we formed the Decimal Currency Board to organise the change to dollars. A threeyear
publicity campaign preceded it, so people could decide well in advance that they
didn’t like it.

Mercier, the cartoonist, showed how people felt about this change. He did a drawing of a
woman leaning out a window talking to a friend. In the background a man lay on a bed
'I can’t get any cents out of him,' she said, ‘he’s been in the dollardrums since we started
on that new dismal currency.'

The Decimal Currency Board tried to cheer everyone up by explaining how simple it
was. Just double the pounds to give dollars and halve the dollars to give pounds. Ten
shillings equalled $1, one pound equalled $2, five pounds equalled $10 and ten pounds
equals $20. And this is when inflation was invented. On 14th February 1966 all incomes
doubled.

Some shops were accused of taking advantage of the conversion to raise their
prices. Others could not convert some goods to an exact decimal equivalent, so they
stopped selling them in single units. Instead they sold them in lots of three, or ten or
twenty to bring the combined dollar equivalent to the old price. This is why, even to this
day, we are forced to buy a packet of 10 picture hooks when we only want one.
Some people thought the government was bluffing. The Sydney Morning Herald
reported a conversation between two elderly ladies on a bus. 'What do you think of this
decimal currency business, or whatever they call it?' 'Look, I’ll give it about a month and
I’ll bet we’re back to pound notes again.'

But this was no bluff. People realised this when the banks closed their doors for four
days in a row. No one knew what they were doing in there, but it was suspected they
were pulling the ha’penny, the 10 pence and the 11 pence keys, like teeth, off their
accounting machines and tearing up one pound notes.

A Molnar cartoon showed two priests standing outside a Commonwealth Bank, a sign on
the door said ‘Closed for Conversion'.

On 14th February, 1966 the banks reopened, changed from a duodecimal caterpillar into
a decimal butterfly. And, to everyone’s bewilderment, all they had was foreign money
called dollars. The banks insisted it was Australian legal tender.
People took the insult personally. They said 'This money is fit for kids’ games and
nothing else.' 'Except for the publicity, it would be hard to believe it was genuine.' 'I
don’t like it, I prefer my own money.' 'I’m really worried, I tried to give it to a shopkeeper
near my place and he wouldn’t take it. He was Greek. He kept saying it couldn’t be real
money.'

There was a changeover period of two years with the two currencies circulating side by
side. All currency, even clearly marked pound notes, was called dollars and
cents. Column 8 in the Sydney Morning Herald reported a sign outside a suburban
hardware store that said ‘both currencies spoken here’.



Four years later, in 1970, we decided to convert our weights (ounces and pounds) and
measures (inch, foot and yards) to the metric system. Legislation passed without dissent
through both Houses of Parliament. A new board was appointed: the Metric Conversion
Board.

This board had no regulatory powers. It was an advisory board to guide government
bodies that did have regulatory powers. So, the Weights and Measures Authorities
within each state, conforming with advice from the Metric Conversion Board, made
their own binding regulations.

In addition, the board convened meetings with sections of industry who then drew up
their own guidelines for the change to metrics. Metrics were to be gradually introduced
and allowed to seep slowly into the system. Thousands of pamphlets were distributed
throughout Australia and soon people were reading about it. But they did not like it.

Metrics were up against the fundamental human trait—a resistance to change. These
pamphlets told people they were going to lose their very dear friends the inch and the
foot. In 1972 the first metric Melbourne Cup was run over 3,200 metres, carrying a
kilogram handicap. The cricket pitch was changed from one chain to 20.12 metres.

Then the weather went metric and Fahrenheit temperatures dropped to Centigrade. We
learned a new word—Celsius—the media sang jingles about the ‘tingling 10s’ the
‘temperate 20s’, the ‘thirsty 30s’ and ‘flaming 40s’.

At first the weatherman told us both the Fahrenheit and Celsius temperatures so we
could ignore that new fangled Celsius. One day he told us only Celsius temperatures. It
jolted us into wondering how cold 20 degrees Celsius really was, and did we need a
coat?

The next conversion involved our wallets. In 1973 letter and parcel postage was paid for
by the gram. Criticisms of metrics were raised when some people felt that the new rates
favoured the Post Office.

In 1974 rain fell in centimetres, in numbers that made us feel a lot wetter.
Emotions were starting to run high in the butcher shops, where the price of meat,
expressed in kilos, seemed much dearer. One lady went on record ordering a kilometre
of sausages!

Our roads went metric too. All our road signs were in kilometres. Suddenly it was a lot
further to anywhere. Sydney to Perth was 3,412 kilometres instead of 2,100 miles. And
petrol was now sold by the litre, like milk, and you couldn’t work out how many miles
you did to the gallon.

Gradually metrics penetrated the supermarkets. The first metric packet of sugar
appeared in 1971 and soon all other packages and tins were marked in rounded metric
quantities. Some goods were in 450g quantities—an approximate conversion of a pound,
while others were in 250g, 500g, 70g or one kilo packages. Price comparisons of the
same goods were a mathematical somersault.

Meanwhile the calorie became four times bigger, then size codes for clothes went metric
and waistlines were bigger too. Then nuts and bolts went metric and your Imperial sized
spanner didn’t work anymore. Followed by oysters, and a dozen oysters on the menu
sometimes meant 10.

But in this turmoil of change one measurement was untouched—oil flow was still
measured in barrels. Nowadays, that is all that is left of the Imperial system. The rest has
gone.

We have lost the endearments of the old system: we don’t have the florin, zak, tray, quid
or bob any more. Nor can we write songs about walking a million miles for one of your
smiles, or loving you a bushel and a peck, because nothing rhymes with the exact metric
equivalent.

And the kilowatt and square metre will never have the same visual impact of ‘horsepower’ or ‘square foot’. Finally, lost to the world forever, is the ten gallon hat. It is the 43.5 litre hat!


Robyn Williams: Can you have a metric cowboy, with a five shooter instead of a six
shooter? Sounds un-American doesn’t it? Strangely enough, after a stint in the ‘Dismal
Guernsey Board’ in 1966, my first job on joining the ABC 40 years ago this month, was a
series of metric conversion: explaining joules, millimetres and kilos. I even had the
temerity to go to David Jones to ask shoppers for their bra size in centimetres. One bloke
got quite cross. The ladies were just puzzled.
Robin Robertson is a writer and social historian and lives in Sydney. Next week: another
anniversary of the birthday of veterinary science. You’re on RN, your world unsalted. I’m
Robyn Williams.


PresenterRobyn Williams

Producer Brigitte Seega

Robin Robertson
Writer and Social Historian,
Sydney



Comments (11) Add your comment


Is there a podcast for this programme, or is pre-decimal currency not compatible with digital technology?
BWD


margaret chaldecdott :
12 Feb 2012 11:16:44am
at the time of decimalisation of things all and sundry, there was a rather obstroperous union leader.
A letter in one of the dailies was simple -
Metricate Halfpenny
(that was the surname of the unionist)

Meredith :
12 Feb 2012 12:44:51pm
Hi
Thanks for another entertaining and informative programme - interesting to see that your spell check hasn't
changed to program!:)(please do correct my spelling if need be...maybe there is no spell check on this site)
Having been born in 1962 some of these changes occurred when I was very little, but I do recall the "Federal"
brand of matches had on thier boxes educational advertising with the change to dollars. Likewise the later
debate as to how to pronounce kilometer.
Now that I have been learning to fly and to navigate the "6's" and 12's make a lot more sense in terms of time
zones, latitudes and longitudes and nautical miles. Tens are much more easy to calculate but to navigate my
world while I still have trouble flying the plane and doing the mental arithmetic when it comes to nautical miles at
so many knots...then 6's work very well

Ross :
12 Feb 2012 10:32:20pm
Robin asked how would a cowboy go with a 5-shooter.
I refer him to the Smith and Wesson 642 that comes standard with 5 round capacity.
And, as for his assertion that there is only one remaining Imperial unit, I submit the use of thousands of feet, the
international standard in aviation for altitude.

Frances Lemmes :
13 Feb 2012 5:08:04pm
Most interesting,the conversion to dollars and cents 46 years on may seem so easy but it also took alot of the
fun and challenge out of shopping.

Ken R :

13 Feb 2012 9:00:42pm
Decimal currency killed my grandmother. Her diary records that she couldn't work it out so she died eleven days
after it was introduced.

Stephen :
14 Feb 2012 6:09:02am
Jazz music by Kilometers Davis.
The US auto industry is totally metric. It's fun to hear two engineers talking as if "16 inch wheels" is a product
name, and then metric measurements.
In addition to ditching horsepower and BTU, which need to be converted before any reasonable use, i'd like to
ditch parsecs. Light Years will do.

Allan Gardiner :
23 Aug 2012 2:04:32pm
Your finale's fairly pointed Stephen, but, in a word, and as distant as it may seem from the topic p_un'der
discussion, parsecs help put things into parsepecti..err..perspective, and aspectually aid a body in looking at
things from a different an_gle'aned. "Light Years", on the other hand, if they were f_ad'opted as a p_un'iversal
p_un'it of mere marginal measurement...merely introduce a paradoxi_cal'culating para_lax'ity!

Christopher Murray :
15 Feb 2012 9:31:02pm
In Britain and Ireland, decimalisation came five years and one day later.
In Ireland in 2002, we started using banknotes and coins of another decimal currency (the Euro), which had a
conversion factor of 0.797854. It confused a lot of people, and somebody said that because it particularly
confused the elderly, we should have waited until all the old people had died!
In Ireland, we are also more-or-less fully metricated now (unlike Britain), but it is not unusual to see produce or
meat priced per 0.454kg.

Patrick McGeown :
16 Feb 2012 5:10:26pm
I remember cream buns at school being 4d. But 4d became 3 cents overnight. So my threepence and 1 penny was
not enough to make the purchase. But three pence on its own was three cents. So I exchanged my threepenny
bit for 3 cents. Exchanged the 1 penny for one cent. And I got my cream bun. I thought I was so clever.

Allan Gardiner :
23 Aug 2012 6:16:55am
The Decimal Currency Board -- at any time, even circa 1966 -- would have failed miserably in any attempt at
trying to cheer people up in explaining how simple it was to make the conversion from pounds, shillings and
pence to dollars and cents if they did indeed say, as Robin Robertson did, in her 10th paragraph:
"Just double the pounds to give dollars and halve the dollars to give pounds (sic)."

One must actually halve pounds to get dollars and double dollars to get pounds! 1 pound did -- even at that
economically-equivocal epoch -- equal $2.00, ergo, half of 1 pound must equal $1.00! It's so simple, but if one
doesn't watch very carefully -- which Robin clearly didn't -- what one is trying to promulgate, then all hell can
break loo_se'quentially, and most often does. I'm very surprised indeed -- given the fact that Ockham's Razor is a
very popular program -- that no one until now has brought this error to light.


Letter to the editor:

'There was this bloke who bought a farm in 1966.  When the money changed to dollars and cents, his overdraft doubled.  Then they brought in kilograms and his woolclip dropped by half.  After that came Celsius, the weather changed, and there's been no decent rain since.  When hectares came in, he ended up with half the farm he formerly had.  They brought in litres, and his petrol cost more.
'Depressed, he decided to sell out.  However, the agent told him that since the change to kilometers, he was too flamin' far out of town!'
Mrs B. Cummins, Berowra Heights, NSW. 

The QWERTY keyboard - here to stay?


Here's a transcript of my radio broadcast on the ABC's Ockham's Razor.  It explains why we are stuck with the clunky QWERTY keyboard.

Broadcast on Sunday 29 July 2012 9:45AM


There is no sense to its layout. Touch typists have wired their brains for the qwerty keyboard. Despite some attempts to introduce other layouts, qwerty has become part of almost every digital device which requires human input. The qwerty keyboard seems embedded and immovable.  Robin Robertson discusses the history of qwerty and the power of touch typists.







Robyn Williams:  When did you learn to type? We all do it now, don’t we? We have to. I learned to type (or really to hunt and peck) when I was 12. My mother had organised several hundred envelopes that needed to be addressed and there was no question of making mistakes, so I spent untold hours, over several days slowly pecking away until some muscle and eye knowledge of the keyboard got sort of wired in. It’s been there ever since, the bad habits have become engrained.
And the first thing you notice as the patterns become familiar is that they are nuts. None of it makes sense. This is even more apparent when you go to Japan or Italy or some other place where the A seems to have gone feral or the @ disappears somewhere. Why is there no consistency? Why is it all so bizarre?
Here with some answers is Robin Robertson, social historian, from Sydney.


Robin Robertson:  The keyboard for typing has never had it so good.  It is everywhere, taking centre stage on any desk and always with its sidekick the computer.  Even if there is no desk, we’ll still find a keyboard, ready and willing in our mobile phones and laptops.
The keyboard is the public face of our computers, mobile phones and digital toys and is the only way we can speak to them.   Indeed, it is the core of all communication in a cyber world and without it we’d be struck dumb.
We’ve had a long relationship with the keyboard.  It’s been around for about 140 years and it has never let us out of its sight, although, if the truth be told, we have long since moved on.  The problem is the layout of the keyboard.  It is clunky and illogical.  It is as outdated as carbon paper.  Why is it still with us?
This layout has a pet name.  It’s called, fondly or not, after the first six letters on the upper row – QWERTY.  QWERTY is the love child of touch typists.  They are its steadfast disciples because it is the secret of their command of the keyboard. Without touch typists QWERTY would have been trampled by the march of progress – but more about them later.
QWERTY started life on a mechanical typewriter, then hitched a ride on advancing technology into the computer and mobile phone.  Nowadays QWERTY has a worldwide following.  It tops the list of any product to be collectively adopted despite the fact that it offers no technological advantage.
Isn’t it time we ditched it?
Well, I don’t think QWERTY is going away any time soon.  It has technology over a barrel because it is as deeply embedded in its systems as the alphabet.  But did you know that QWERTY’s clumsiness was a deliberate part of its original design?
The first keyboards on a mechanical typewriter were laid out in alphabetical order.  However, under the control of a competent typist, this layout caused the type bars to entangle as they hammered towards the one small target and arrived at the same time.  To solve this problem, a mathematician was called in to do the sums; he calculated the odds when typing the English language, on how often each key would be called into action.  He then dazzled everyone by creating what he called the ‘scientific’ keyboard in an arrangement that spread the more popular keys as far from each other as possible.  This was designed to slow the typist, while also sharing the load over most of the fingers.
QWERTY’s career was launched, although the layout varied slightly to accommodate differences in language.  For instance in French speaking countries, the layout is AZERTY.  Nowadays, QWERTY typists can be roughly divided into two schools of thought.  There’s a hunt and peck school that relies on seeing the keys and the touch typist school that relies on not seeing them.
Hunt and peck can tell you where the ‘u’ key is by sight.  They are sometimes called ‘biblical typists’ meaning “Seek and ye shall find”.  Speaking as a touch typist I can assure you that hunt and peck requires no training or finesse, is primitive, slow and prone to errors – but I digress.
Touch typists take a certain pride in the fact that they cannot tell you where the ‘u’ key is.  They can only find it by muscle memory.  After months of rigorous training and long hours of practice they are conditioned to set their fingers on the home keys.  From there the index finger of the right hand automatically seeks out the ’u’ which is up one row and slightly to the left. In fact, the mere sight of a keyboard unsettles touch typists because they know it will interfere with their programming.
Their skill, being the creation of words, is buried so deep in their subconscious that it is, curiously enough, beyond words.  It lies dormant and is mostly harmless – unless someone tried to take it away from them.
Being QWERTY androids, touch typists will not listen to sweet reason, that the mechanics of a superseded typewriter are irrelevant to the computer keyboard, in a cyber environment there are no keys to jam, that QWERTY has lost its justification for cluttering up the keyboard, that it should be replaced by a logical layout.  This is not a new idea.  Many have tried to replace QWERTY – all have failed.
One serious challenge to QWERTY arose in 1932 when Dr August Dvorak patented a simplified keyboard layout.  A battle for dominance between keyboard layouts ensued and it was clear that a single standard had to be set.  Many had a financial stake in QWERTY
First and most intractable were those touch typists who had been created in the millions by both their education and typewriter manufacturers.  Large manufacturers were also reluctant to risk an investment on a new layout as typewriters were expensive machines. 
And bringing up the rear were colleges for secretarial studies, where typing training was almost always with QWERTY for two reasons – to meet expectations of the industry and because it was already familiar to most teachers and trainers.  In this way, history conspired to lock in QWERTY.
Dr Dvorak died a disappointed man, never to know that his keyboard was not a complete dud and that it would one day become a standard option in many computer systems with a switchable Dvorak/QWERTY keyboard.  In fact his layout was used by Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer.
Here’s how Dvorak’s layout works.  The most popular letters take pride of place on the keyboard and become the new home keys on the middle row.  They are A, O, E, U, I, D, H, T, N, S.  The less popular ones P, Y, F, G, C, R, L are at the top and replacing QWERTY and the also rans Q, J, K, X, B, M, W, V, Z on the bottom row.  Dvorak proponents claim this layout uses less finger motion than QWERTY, reduces errors and we could also type 35% faster.
The world typing speed record holder for 1985 Barbara Blackburn used the Dvorak keyboard to clock a peak speed of 212 words per minute on an electric typewriter.  She could maintain 150 words per minute for 50 minutes.  The winner in the Ultimate Typing Championship final in 2010, American Sean Wrona, used a QWERTY computer keyboard to achieve sprint speeds of 256 words per minute.  You can check it out on YouTube.
But for our daily general input, do we want to type so fast?  Computer keyboards are not designed for quick data entry. They are intended for filling in forms or making comments or witty quips in emails, tweets or facebook, or simply ticking the box. For the longer format, beyond one paragraph, the computer keyboard is ideal for visual thinking.
Moreover, typing is no longer the exclusive domain of purpose-built typists, a skill that enabled many to earn a respectable living from the 1930s onward.  In the lost era of mechanical and electrical typewriters, touch typists were employed in offices with a strict division of labour, those who typed and those who did not.  Those who did not type were management and their function was not clear except that they were climbing the corporate ladder and typing was not in keeping with their status.
Enter the computer with its flashy screen and email links and a generation later, typing is hot. Now everyone types. It is the new handwriting and is the only way to get your message across.  In fact, it is now the primary tool of personal communication.  And the latest technological developments are now signalling a new direction for the keyboard.
For instance, the mobile phone keyboard has now been shrunk to fit and only allows texting with two very small thumbs.  Speed does not enter into it. Then there’s the virtual keyboard on the flat touch screen of a tablet computer.  QWERTY appears invitingly on the screen ready to do your bidding.  But make no mistake, this keyboard is designed for the hunt and peck school.  If, as a touch typist, you rest your fingers on the home keys, the screen erupts into a nonsense of letters.
In a reversal of established typing conventions, the virtual keyboard is insisting that you back off, do your thinking elsewhere and return when you have something to say.  The QWERTY keyboard, which was custom designed for touch typing, is now untouchable.  Is this where the next generation of keyboards is heading?
As your hands hover over the flat touch screen, do you accept its conditions of use and just get on with the job? Or will you reject it as yet another tyranny of the keyboard that has a strangle hold on the future?
Of course you still have the option of old technology.  You can circumvent this virtual keyboard and buy a detachable and touchable keyboard (which is so last year) to plug into your tablet computer.
Resistance to change is not new.  It has always been with us.  One of the first concepts for a keyboard was copied from the past; the black and white keys of the piano.  If you could play the piano and many did in those days, you could make yourself useful and type.
When the first typewriter went into commercial production in America there was no market for it.  Remington & Sons took it on when demand for guns dried up what with the end of the Civil War and all.  Production of typewriters replaced guns in the factory.
Next was marketing.  Typewriter manufacturers were giving consumers what they wanted before they knew they wanted it and over 100 years later, Steve Jobs did the same with the computer.  It was a new invention and useless unless someone could operate it.  Manufacturers trained women to type and more or less ‘marketed’ them along with the machines.  In effect, the typewriter was the hardware and the typists were programmed as the compatible software. From then on QWERTY was in safe hands.
In later years, the push to introduce a more efficient keyboard layout and ditch QWERTY had to contend with these women.  They controlled the keyboard and by extension production of the written word.
And believe me, you come between a touch typist and QWERTY- at your peril.

Robyn Williams: Robin Robertson and some typing history.
And wouldn’t it be nice to take away all those guns from wild-eyed young men and to give them typewriters instead, like the one I’m using right now? Dear thing, it says it’s Jurassic.
Next week we go to southern New South Wales where Mark Whittaker has a field full of cattle. Are they really farting us into oblivion, or are there green cows as well?

Guests

Robin Robertson
Writer and social historian
Sydney

Credits

Presenter
Robyn Williams
Producer
David Fisher

Comments (6)

  • Sue-Ellen Harris :

    29 Jul 2012 10:18:25am
    Fabulous, Robyn. A covered QWERTY keyboard, and my fingers fly..cheers sue harris
    • robin robertson :

      01 Aug 2012 12:26:13pm
      Do you remember those wooden covers for the keyboard while we were learning touch typing? They ensured that we could not peek.
      And yes, Sue, I agree: us touch typists can sure do speed.
      cheers Robin
  • Alan :

    29 Jul 2012 10:33:23pm
    I made the switch to Dvorak many years ago (at the age of 32) and learned to touch-type at the same time. I have never looked back! These days, you can easily toggle between Qwerty and Dvorak on almost any computer operating system. One-finger typing on a tiny Qwerty touch screen does not interfere with two-handed touch typing on a Dvorak keyboard because the two modalities are so very different.
    • Inalinablewrights :

      09 Sep 2012 8:09:59pm
      Yes Dvorak is the much better system. I should have stayed with it but pitched it when things like the password to get into my lap top caused problems because I would set the PW in Dvorak mode but when you log in you are still in QWERTY mode. Almost got locked out a few times. :-)
  • Allan Gardiner :

    21 Aug 2012 4:23:02pm
    Even a simple Morse key, though only a single [shades of Alan Turing's "Singularity"] key, still has a board[p_underneath it, and of course, folk still "backing" its effica_cy'bernetics too]. People may ideate that Barbara Blackburn's [212 WPM] and Sean Wrona's [256 WPM] speeds are fantastic but it's easy to type text -- at speed -- which you've already read visually from a printed page. Compare this experti_se'minal with that of American Ted McElroy who was able to both soundly [pun intenTed] decipher Morse code at a speed of 75.2 WPM and type it down.

    Another American, Harry Turner, a radio amateur, with but a simple "straight" [not an electronic double paddle] single Morse key, was decidely deft enough to send Morse code at a record still-standing speed of 35 WPM, and given that a (st)rife-standard keyboard has 26 alphabeti_cal'ibrated letters, inter alia, just imagine what speeds Harry could've knocked out with 25 more kept kindred keys to play with simultaneou_sly'ght-of-h_and'roidic...It doth simply bogg_le'tter the m_ind'ices!

Back yard cricket: that great Australian tradition.

Last summer, my story about backyard cricket was published in Reader's Digest. The setting is anyone's back yard on a fine summer evening...

(Note:  click on the page to enlarge)








Thursday, September 5, 2013

My radio broadcast on Radio National's Ockham's Razor on 1 September 2013.

This story (written and recorded by me) was broadcast on Sunday 1 September 2013 on Radio National's 'Ockham's Razor'.

ABC radio then loaded it onto its website, where it attracted 222 'likes' and 25 comments - so far (5sept13) along with 29 tweets (copied at end of article).  

Update:  227 'likes' (as of 8 September).    

The early years of the mobile phone in Australia

Monday 2 September 2013 11:01AM
Robin Robertson

In 1989 historian Robin Robertson saw her first mobile phone on a bus in Sydney. She wrote a piece about her first impressions which was published in a newspaper, and later incorporated into the high school curriculum of NSW. Read her article and sit the comprehension test to discover anew the impact of these ubiquitous, intrusive devices.


The mobile phone has been with us for 40 years, but it took a while to get up to speed.  In its formative years it kept a low profile and was rarely seen in public.

In 1989, it had been around for 16 years when I first saw a mobile phone in action on a government bus. And, along with about 35 other passengers, it had my undivided attention.
I felt I had seen a pivotal moment in technology, so I wrote an eyewitness account and sent it to a mainstream newspaper.  A few days later, it was published.

At that time, the mobile phone was not just a novelty, it was a luxury item, retailing at about $2,000.  That’s over $4,000 in today’s money.  Although it had a battery life of a mere 75 minutes, subscription and call charges were very high.

So you can be sure that most of the newspaper’s readers were not mobile phone subscribers. Only six in every thousand had one in 1989, compared with today, where there are 1.3 mobile phones per person.
A ringing phone brings out the primitive human reaction: fight or flight - depending, of course, on how the phone has treated you in the past.  If you can't run away from it, you stand your ground and argue with it.

Robin Robertson, historian
But back in 1989, the mobile phone’s scarcity simply added to its status, ensuring that it only kept the best of company with top executives and city traders.  It later proved to be not just a pretty face, and became a vital business tool for travelling salesmen and delivery drivers, but was still far too expensive for personal use.

Which is possibly why my newspaper article hit a nerve and took on a life of its own, as it was picked up and reprinted in a high school textbook on Themes and Issues.

The textbook’s title was The Future, and my article had become a comprehension test for students.

You could find my article on page 73, followed by probing questions on page 74, searching for its deeper meaning.

No answers to these questions were supplied so I am none the wiser, and certainly would have failed the test.

See how you go with the comprehension test. But first, here is the story on which you will be tested.  Again: the year is 1989, and the action takes place in the central business district of Sydney, Australia.


The headline set the scene:
'A mobile man makes his mark on captive audience'

Then continued:
'I was on a bus travelling down George Street to Central Station when the phone rang.  About half the seats were occupied, and we all looked around for the phone, which isn't a part of government bus issue.

'A ringing phone brings out the primitive human reaction: fight or flight—depending, of course, on how the phone has treated you in the past.  If you can't run away from it, you stand your ground and argue with it.

'I, for one, went on the alert.  I itched to answer it, if I could find it.  But the man two seats away beat me to it.  It was a cellular phone that he carried in a square shoulder bag.  He flipped up the lid and out came the phone.  We all watched, hoping perhaps it might be for one of us.

'I suppose the conclusion was foregone.  It was for him.  The caller didn't have to ask: 'Is Jim there?' because a cellular phone precludes any such foreplay.  The question really was:  is the phone there?  And it was, because Jim answered.

'And, right there, in the middle of a government bus, Jim struck up a business conversation.  Nice and loud so we could all listen.  Well, we weren't doing anything else at the time.

'Jim told his caller—and us—that he was on his way to Central Station, where he intended to catch a train to Katoomba, and a nice day for it too, and he had been meaning to get in touch—we all knew he was lying, because people always say that when they have no intention of maintaining contact.

'He went on to express his indignation that the account had gone to another advertising agency (which he named) that was nowhere near the standard of the caller's agency (we assumed the caller had an agency).  It was a damn shame, he said—and we knew he didn't care two cents.

'In general, we didn't take kindly to Jim, or anyone, really, who carried a cellular phone on a government bus.

'Phones should stay put—on the kitchen bench or the office desk.  People go to phones.  Phones do not go to people.

'It is an intrusion that phones should go on an outing and be allowed to ring in public places.  Unless, of course, it is for me.

'On the other hand, Jim didn't have to go to Katoomba by himself.  He could, at the first twinge of loneliness, phone all his mates.  On the down side, his enemies could hunt him down in a government bus and force him to tell lies while the rest of the passengers sat in judgment.

'The phone call was made all the less ordinary by the background noises.  As Jim talked, the bus had a near miss with a truck.  Our attention was then divided between Jim's conversation and the bus driver shouting fruity abuse at the truck driver.  Both were stopped at the traffic lights, the truck a few centimetres from the bus.

'The bus driver's vocabulary was specific and expletive and drowned out Jim's conversation. He then further defended his honour by leaning out of his window and throwing a punch at the truck driver who, hanging out of his passenger window, was a sitting target.

'The lights turned green, the bus driver sat back and drove on. Jim talked on, his image in tatters, as the caller now believed he had just been involved in a bar-room brawl.

'Why, we wondered, was Jim on a bus?  If he could afford a cellular phone, surely he could also afford the car to go with it.

'That was the missing component—the car.

'In his car, no one could listen in.  He could drive through peak hour traffic, talking on the phone and onlookers from other cars with no phones could imagine he was making decisions that would turn the economy around.

'Furthermore, they would be impressed that he was so vital he could not be out of contact for even a short car trip, and did he take calls in the shower?

'A cellular phone is a badge of corporate approval.  Everyone wants one, if only to be seen with it...'



That was the article I wrote in 1989. Now you have no doubt some questions of your own.

We should continue with the school text and deal with the comprehension questions that followed the article.
With the benefit of hindsight, you may know the answers.  Then again, you may not…
1. In what ways do you notice technology intruding into more areas of our lives?
2. What are the benefits, and what are the drawbacks, of these technological changes which you can see?
3. In a small group, locate and list all of the criticisms the author made about this telephone call in a bus
4. Now compare your list with other groups.
5. How valid are these criticisms, in your opinion?
6. What warning signs are there in these criticisms for the future of technological communication?
7. 'People go to phones.  Phones do not go to people.' What is the warning message behind the author's comment?
8. Are there any drawbacks you can see in the ways telephones, fax machines, video-phones and computer bulletin boards allow people instant communication with other people?
9. The author hints that face-to-face talking would not allow so many lies to be told in this bus-telephone conversation.
10. How is face-to-face conversation different from electronic communication?
11. How do people still manage to hide their true feelings in face-to-face conversation?
12. Is it harder or easier than when on the phone? Why?
13. Try a back-to-back conversation in class about a current school topic and then compare this with a face-to-face conversation.
14. What are the different communication techniques used on the telephone?
15. In what ways are human relationships enhanced, and in what ways are they inhibited, by technological advances?
16. If we look into the future and see computer/video watches, computer screen school books and Walkman TVs, how can we make sure that these inventions are for the benefit of our children, the people who will have to use them to live a 'normal' life in the future?
And that concludes the comprehension test. Over to you.
This article is an edited transcript of Robin Robertson's Ockham's Razor.

Comments (25)

  • CDR :

    02 Sep 2013 12:29:15pm
    I can remember in the early 1980's when my mother (who was working for a politician) received a phone call from the motor dealer Ron Hodgson. He informed her that he was calling from his car phone, which was quite a novelty back then as there would have been about half a dozen people who had one back then.
      • Eve Stocker :

        02 Sep 2013 2:44:35pm
        At the time when the car phone was such a status symbol, for a joke we put an ordinary home phone into our old car (Reno S) and blue-tacked it to the dashboard. Then when we were stopped at red lights we would pick up the handset and pretend we were talking on the 'car phone'. People in nearby cars would gawk. We were also often tempted to beckon a driver or passenger in a car stopped next to us at stoplights and hand them the handset saying "it's for you!".
  • Leafygreens :

    02 Sep 2013 1:02:22pm
    And manners for using mobile phones in public haven't improved a jot since this excellent observation was written.
    New hazard when walking to or from said bus is colliding with mobile device focussed zombies.
      • freak me :

        02 Sep 2013 2:19:43pm
        the ultimate ludicracy is the wireless bluetooth headset, and walking around the street talking with one on ...
  • Chris McGuire :

    02 Sep 2013 1:08:11pm
    Wow, 1989, same year as my first experience with mobiles and very similar situation. I was 18 and on a train in London. A phone rang and the first thing you thought was, "how could that be" We were trained that phones ring in a stationary place, not "Mobile".

    The guy who answered was very similar. Traveling standard class and not first class, which was available on the train. And seemed very bored with the conversation. Maybe both our gents were listening to the time signal!!
  • Oosh :

    02 Sep 2013 1:29:38pm
    In a similar vein I remember the wonder induced in the family when my father brought home a Macintosh Portable computer in 1990.

    We almost felt sorry for the thief who stole it months later. They probably slipped a disk running away with it.
  • Roadie :

    02 Sep 2013 1:42:29pm
    It was sometime in the mid 80's when I was helping friends in a band play at the local primary school when we needed some food. As it was after hours on the weekend the admin was closed, however two of the band members' dad was there and as he worked at Telstra somewhere in upper management he had a mobile brick connected to a briefcase and wanted to show off to us teenagers. He went ahead and ordered pizzas to be delivered, (another newfangled thing) but had trouble with the ordertaker as the phone number & address wasn't a normal one. The pizza delivery guy had to see this for himself when he turned up with our order later on and said it was the first time anyone had ordered a pizza that way with them. Us teenagers felt pretty chuffed at the whole affair, as it was something to brag about to our workmates on Monday morning. How times have changed!
  • MrScruffy :

    02 Sep 2013 1:56:31pm
    1989 - It wasn't without precedent! Maxwell Smart had his shoe phone back in the late 1960s!
    RIP Don Adams.
  • William :

    02 Sep 2013 2:02:56pm
    I remember seeing my first car phone in 1984. I was 8 and was with my dad who was buying a new VK Commodore at the local Holden dealership. The phone was in a Holden WB Statesman Deville that was the main attraction inside the showroom.
  • Wes :

    02 Sep 2013 2:17:57pm
    A wonderful snapshot of an historical point in time.
    My father was born to a world in 1891 when walking was the custom and a horse a luxury, a wood fire or kerosene lantern were the only way to light his way after dark, and that curiosity called the telephone was as alien as a time machine. While there was electricity for a few, it lacked today's ubiquity, and even simple electronics was unknown. Yet to be developed were the radio, the amplifier, the TV, broadcasting, flight, and of course cars. While the pace of change has accelerated since his time, I still feel the same sense of wonder and curiosity that he must have felt with technological change. By the time he had died, rockets were carrying men into outer space.
    He must have wondered what future social and political change would be thus wrought. As do I now.
  • Deana :

    02 Sep 2013 2:20:05pm
    At the time I heard of a lady observed walking down the main street of Port Augusta talking very earnestly into her new mobile brick. Problem was, Port Augusta had yet to be connected to the mobile network.
  • blax5 :

    02 Sep 2013 3:29:34pm
    Where we lived before (2000 - 2006) there was quite a bit of pedestrian traffic and I can't say I enjoyed these one-sided conversations coming into the house. It's a relief that there's not a lot of pedestrian traffic here.

    I read about one incident in Hamburg, Germany, maybe between 1995 and 1999 where a man was actually killed in a restaurant because he did not stop talking on his mobile phone. Is that unique?

    We hardly use our mobile. If there were still phone boxes, I wouldn't even have one. People don't seem to mind to check email, SMS, and voice mail in addition to the letter box, but I personally feel the message retrieval thing has gone too far and is too time consuming. We don't have voice mail or SMS.
  • Hassa :

    02 Sep 2013 3:59:08pm
    I have a term for the Ipads ,Iphone users I call them Ipad masturbaters because they get their jollies off by playing with their phones all day.

    This phenomenon is a blight on social skills and productivity .

    Where is it going to end?
  • Farne :

    02 Sep 2013 4:31:46pm
    Early in the mobile phone area a gent one Sunday afternoon at the Country Club was walking around the bar holding his brick so all could see he owned one.

    My friend who was with me turned to me and said "He's trying to look important, if he was important he would have someone answering for him back at the office."

    How things have changed.

    Farne
  • Jon Rothwell :

    02 Sep 2013 4:45:21pm
    I had my first 018 car phone in 1989, I also had a 007 system portable which weighed over 10kg. Later I got my first 018 brick which cost $1200.00 second hand. Having a mobile allowed me to set up a contracting business even without a house phone, suddenly clients could get in touch with me whenever and wherever.
    People I knew were sometimes very rude about me using a mobile, even a family member told me I was fooling myself.
    I have never been without a mobile since, and today we do not use a landline. We have two smartphones plus two mobile tablets for anywhere internet and voice calls.
  • Sharyn Loller :

    02 Sep 2013 5:37:02pm
    I was working for Telecom in the mid 80's and was involved in some testing of mobile phones. They had HUGE battery packs back then. In 1986 we sent a bloke off on a Manly ferry with a phone and called him on it. He then went up to a bloke that he new, handed him the phone and said "It's for you". The ferry passengers were highly amused as was the bloke!
  • Telstgra Old Timer :

    02 Sep 2013 5:51:09pm
    I worked @ the International Telephone Exchange in the the Sydney G.P.O. in the 70s & one of the calls we connected were to & from in car handsets. These mostly belonged to Doctors & Lawyers.

    There were only 4 circuits available & some customers used to hog the lines to the extent that we had to limit calls to 3 minutes on some occasions.

    These phones were a sign of the affluance of the user &
    some of the conversations would have made the papers @ the time.

    In those days all international calls were connected by operator & were very expensive. Now you can buy a phone card & the calls cost less than 1 cent a minute.

    I always remember this when people say things never get cheaper.

    Simpler times indeed & great memories.
  • Diana :

    02 Sep 2013 5:59:39pm
    I'm glad they were very expensive; It may have saved many people from brain tumors, if u believe the Neuroscience of today? - 1994 I worked where we saw solicitors conveyancing clerks all had cell phns all mostly very young females; lodging conveyancing docs; they were on their cell phns constantly - i often wonder how they all did + how many may have been afflicted with brain disease? - I am not a fan of cell phns; only use in an emergency.
      • Rob :

        02 Sep 2013 11:05:07pm
        "Overall the studies published to date do not demonstrate an increased risk within approximately 10 years of use for any tumour of the brain or any other head tumour".
        http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19593153

        Nor is there a plausible mechanism by which they could cause harm. Fear not!
  • scan :

    02 Sep 2013 7:03:23pm
    At about that time, I thought that mad men, who stood on the nature strip yelling and clutching the side of their heads, suddenly seemed able to afford much nicer clothes.
    One of the first times a mobile rang on the bus, near Leichhardt, the owner was clearly a drug dealer. Despite talking in 'code', it seemed he planned to meet a customer at their place at 6 o'clock that evening with a sample of heroin. Creepy.
      • birdy :

        02 Sep 2013 10:47:53pm
        Like many of your respondents I recall that there was a lot of "showing off" of mobile phones in those days. I recall being in Adelaide airport and seeing a man talking very loudly on his phone to make sure that everyone noticed that he had one - and then it rang. He was extremely embarrassed and tried to put it away as quickly as possible.

        On the other hand there is a well known story in SA of a leading politician who asked his wife to put his phone in her handbag as he was expecting an important call but didn't want to be seen answering a phone in a restaurant. ( A real no-no at the time)

        The phone duly rang later on, and after much argument between him and his wife about who would answer it, he did and was greeted by his daughter, who had overheard the earlier conversation, "Hi Dad, how does it feel to be an idiot answering his mobile phone in a restaurant?" (The said politician used to tell this story against himself in later years many times)
  • Joal :

    02 Sep 2013 9:24:26pm
    People's knee-jerk reactions to a phone in a public place certainly haven't changed in all of those years. As can be seen from some of the comments. One person reading a book on an i-pad, another reading email, a third listening to music, and a fourth playing a game, and somehow it's a scourge on society.

    I can definitely understand people being annoyed by a loud conversation on a bus, but the mere fact of someone holding an electronic device in a public place seems to drive some people crazy. We should have a comprehension test on that.

    Sadly, I would fail.
  • Tom Tuddenham :

    03 Sep 2013 12:49:02am
    In the late 80s a group of engineering students I lived with and myself used to be able to inadvertently pick up mobile phone signals. The conversation almost always ran along the lines of "I'm in the car", or "I'm on my way home." or, from the new phone owning braggart, "I'm in the driveway, have a look out the window and see".
  • fred :

    03 Sep 2013 8:23:23am
    I remember, way back, seeing a guy standing in the middle of Collins St with a phone attached to a box he had sitting at his feet. All us pedestrians had to walk around him. I thought he must be very important. It was the first portable phone I had seen.
  • Phil :

    03 Sep 2013 9:30:44am
    I remember when a certain tradesman had his phone installed in his truck and wired to his horn. When the phone rang his horn blared until he climbed down from the construction site and ran to his truck, waking up all the neighbours! It would have been fun to ring him a few times and hang up just as he was getting to his truck.