Asklemmy

I guess my question for those older than me is: before computers, how did you learn to do something?

Books, radio, and TV. Also, learning from others.

Before the Internet (because computers didn't really replace any other information mechanisms before the Internet), if you wanted to learn something you might start by talking to someone more knowledgeable than yourself.

If there wasn't someone who knew more than you, or you needed to learn more than the people around you knew, then you'd go to the library or the bookstore. Where other teenage guys would fumble around in sex unable to find the clitoris, I'm enough of a nerd that I went to the library and found a book that gave me the info I needed.

There were also TV shows that would actually impart knowledge. Before the rise of cable channels in the U.S., Public Broadcasting would have shows that shared knowledge. News and history, of course. Science too. Back then, broadcasters took their responsibility to educate the public much more seriously.

I probably learned more about math and grammar from School House Rock during Saturday morning cartoons in the 70's than I was learning from school (Interjections [hey!] show excitement [yow!] or emotion [ouch!]. They are generally set aside from a sentence by an exclamation point or by a comma if the feeling's not as strong.... Conjunction Junction... Number Nine... Three Is a Magic Number...)

On TV you had shows like Nova which would report on science topics. There were, of course, cooking shows where the host would make recipes, not to win a contest, but to show the audience how to cook them.

I learned an enormous amount of what I know about home repairs from obsessively watching shows like This Old House and Home Time, and I picked up a lot about woodworking from a show called The Woodwright's Shop. I also watched [Nahm!] The New Yankee workshop.

I watched a lot of the original version of This Old House where they would spend a season renovating and rehabilitating one house. It's probably a big reason why my wife and I bought an old Victorian house.