When Dungeons and Dragons was first published, the world was slightly different than it is today.
For example, Microsoft did not exist then.
Microsoft did not exist because there was no such thing as consumer computer software.
There were no home computers.
There were no microchips.
There was no DRAM.
Pac-Man, now only remembered by older folk, was a fantastic innovation of the far future, back then.
There were no home video games. There were no video games, period. Arcades were filled with pinball machines (and even they would be hardly recognizable to today's generation.)
There was no Internet. Spam was a kind of food. Mail came by truck, and the only thing e stood for was a failing grade.
Cash registers rang you up. Big numbers stuck up mechanically, and with a ring the drawer popped open.
The clacking of manual typewriters filled offices, along with the frustrated groans of those who made mistakes, and needed whiteout to cover them up (the idea of backspacing, which we take so for granted, was an unthinkable dream.)
Gasoline was 30 cents a gallon, in the United States.
The European Economic Union was only 7 years old.
The Soviet Union dominated central Europe, which was at that time called Eastern Europe, and the idea of German Reunification was an impossible dream.
The idea that the Soviet Union would one day be a junior member of NATO, would have caused many sour laughs - the Cold War was raging, and in Vietnam the war had just ended.
The Khymer Rouge were on the rampage in Cambodia.
Iran was an ally of the West.
Iraq - where was that? What was that?
Television was in color ... usually. Black and white programs were still occasionally the staple of the main broadcasters.
Cable ... uh, what was cable? You mean the power lines outside?
Fiberoptics? A new kind of eyeglasses?
Compact Discs? Huh? The best music is on the new invention, cassette tapes.
Laserdiscs ... a secret government project?
Digital Video Discs? The word Digital, could not be looked up in the dictionary, for the digital world of 1s and 0s did not exist yet.
Solid State was becoming the norm, finally. Those vacuum tubes had always been problematic.
VHS tapes? Wasn't VHS a part of the television spectrum?
Nobody rented VHS, or Beta, tapes, and if you wanted to see a movie you went to the theater (we take Blockbuster Video for granted ... imagine a world without any video rental stores!)
Remote controls for a television?
You walked to the television, pulled the knob, and the television came on. You chunked your way to the channel you wanted, or tuned it in on the higher frequencies - if it was a bad day, you dealt with a lot of snow in your reception of the station (or if you lived very far from the transmitter.)
Push button telephones? Huh? You dialed people back then. And phone calls were 5 cents, from pay phones.
Automobiles were gigantic back then.
However, the interstate system was incomplete. Forget driving from Michigan to Florida, unless you wanted to drive on two lane roads through the mountains.
There were 3.5 billion people in the world then.
AIDS did not exist then.
The Beatles had only just broken up.
Nixon was president of the United States.
And card games were card games. Poker, blackjack, euchre, bridge. There were baseball collecting cards, though.
At that time, airport security was very lax.
After all, the idea of mass travel of the public by jet aircraft was only around 10 years old. Airports like O'Hara or Hartsfield had all been built or upgraded quite recently.
The World Trade Center had just been built.
Everyone, including me, thought the World Trade Center would be standing for all time, unless the Soviets attacked the United States with nuclear weapons.
Even the Civil Rights movement was young, the Voting Act of 1965 was only 7 years old, and the Riots had occurred only 5 years in the past.
The Kent State Massacre was only a year in the past.
The famed revolt of the young, in the 60s, was a fresh memory in the minds of all.
The only Madonna then, was THE Madonna.
MTV was a yet unrealized dream.
The words Star and Wars did not occur, usually, in the same sentence.
C3PO and R2D2 were yet to become American Icons.
ET had yet to phone home.
Star Trek was still a young series.
Of course, I Love Lucy was very popular. So was Lost in Space (gads!) He-haw. Bugs Bunny.
Nobody EVER said the word (insert your favorite expletive here) on the Tonight Show, or on any other show. Only a few years back, the word Watercloset had been edited off the air, much to the consternation of a certain celebrity.
D&D has endured for only 30 years, so far, but an awful lot has happened in those 30 years.
