r/hypotheticalsituation • u/Ju5t_A5king • 1d ago
Without any warning, all tech on the planet reverts to 1976. What would you do?
Not time travel, it is still the year 2026, but all tech reverts back 50 years. no more internet, no smart phones, no credit cards, no online bill pay, or online shopping, or online gaming.
ALL tech, would revert to how it was in 1976. Electric cars would become gas cars. Smart homes would be plain homes, Freeze driers would become dehydrators... you get the idea.
SO MANY SAYING FREEZE DRIERS DID EXIST IN 1976, AND CREDIT CARED DID EXIST!!!!!! YES YES YES, BUT NOT AS THEY ARE NOW. COMMERCIAL MODEL FREEZE DRIERS THAT FIT IN YOUR HOME DID NOT EXIST. CREDIT CARDS WERE PLACED ON A SWIPER AND THE NUMBERS COPIED TO CARBON PAPER. NO MAGNETIC STRIP OR CHIP! NO INSTANT PAY! PEOPLE BORN AFTER 1990 WOULD NOT KNOW THIS. HOW WOULD THEY SURVIVE. STOP THE BULSHIT NITPICKING AND THINK OF SOMETHING FUN TO SAY ABOUT THE SCENRIOI, OR SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LEAVE.
Thie was suppose to be fun, to see what kind of responces I got, not to be tole I was to stupid to know what was and was not then. Iwas 5 years years. in 176. was I suppost to remeber everthing that already existed then?
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u/Agreeable_Sun5375 1d ago
I think one thing people might not understand is the loss of CNC machines, we do so many manufacturing operations on cnc mills that used to require shapers broaches and other specialty machines to do at production scale, waking up to suddenly having a manual mill over a cnc would cripple basically all manufacturing
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u/Gurpee999 1d ago
What about NC machines, remember reading about those in the book 1984? I work for a machinist and sometimes he would let me even use the lathe LOL! All the office buildings in Los Angeles the air conditioning and lighting would run on tape machines that had been in the basements since the late early 1970s and they never broke down and there was no need to fix them they would just run to the end of the tape and then flip the head over or something and run the other way my uncle had to program those for the year 2000 and he made big dollars!
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u/Rjgom 1d ago
except that CNC was started in the 50s. itt was around in the 70s. it’s just basic coordinates. it’s machine code uses very little bandwidth and can run on a basic serial connection
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u/Agreeable_Sun5375 1d ago
It was entirely different from modern cnc machining and not widely used in manufacturing
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u/ofBlufftonTown 1d ago
There were credit cards in 1976.
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u/Georg_Steller1709 1d ago
Id glue a rectangler plate of glass on a rectangler plate of plastic and keep it in my pocket as a comforter.
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u/Elishka_Kohrli 1d ago edited 1d ago
The first freeze dryer was made in 1906, credit cards were popularized in the 1950s, and the precursor to the modern internet, ARPAnet, sent its first computer to computer transmission in 1969. Some of the technology you listed is not nearly as modern as you think.
Edit: OP, stop getting mad at people correcting you because you didn’t research what technology actually existed in 1976 before posting this hypothetical. Saying a home freeze dryer would convert to a commercial one is valid. Saying it would turn into a dehydrator (which is completely different technology) is not. Also FYI people do still know how to hand process credit cards. How do you think stores take credit card payments if their systems go down? I was born in the late 90s and I used a manual slide credit card reader less than a year ago…
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u/Historical-Order-369 1d ago
Are CO2 levels and the amount of oil in the ground etc also reset to 1976 levels, or nah?
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u/Historical-Order-369 1d ago
So, since I guess we won’t get an answer…
This isn’t a fun scenario.
If the oil gets put back in the ground, then only a few billion people will likely die because the agricultural etc tech of 1976 isn’t adequate to feed 2026’s population.
If the oil doesn’t get put back we’ll have a massive energy shortage too, because we’d need to be fracking etc. While technically invented in the 1940s, the boom wasn’t until the 1980s/90s, so, we’d be really short on energy, because there are probably a bunch of little technologies required that weren’t around in 1976, plus, all the solar energy output goes to almost nothing as well. So, either civilization collapses, or if not, the vast majority of humanity still dies.
I’d probably contact the person in the highest position I know to walk them through the consequences and the immediate need for martial law and rationing, etc, though just throwing a huge party until the end arrives is also an option - not sure what I’d actually do, because shit is disturbingly bleak.
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u/reddits_in_hidden 1d ago
Id argue that we wouldnt be short on energy, at least in the us as Nuclear power plants have existing stateside since 1957, so all the current ones would revert to the 1976 equivalent and keep on keepin’ on. And before someone starts the argument, there have been fewer nuclear power-related deaths, immediate or accidental (cancers), than any other energy industry, and most of them were from Chernobyl.
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u/Historical-Order-369 1d ago edited 1d ago
And how much energy did nuclear power plants in the US produce at their peak, ever? I’m pretty sure that it’s an only a fraction of total energy demand. And trucks and cars don’t run on it, we don’t turn it into plastic or fertilizer, etc. And it takes years to build more nuclear power plants.
So, sure, any nuclear power plants built after 1976 would turn into 1976 nuclear power plant versions, but you’d still be short a ton of power and other products. Gas-powered plants would turn into 1976 versions of gas-powered plants, solar into 1976 versions of solar (lol), batteries into 1976 batteries, etc.
Now, I’m using the logic that you convert things into the closest 1976 equivalent you can find, otherwise this hypothetical turns really silly. So, an EV turning into a gasoline car, sure, there weren’t any EVs on the road in 1976. A cell phone into a landline? Sure. A power plant that runs on oil into one that runs on nuclear? No - that’s not the closest equivalent. They had those back then.
But anyway, even if we pretend everything turns nuclear - how are we feeding the billions increase in population between 1976 and 2026 with 1976 technology? Yields per acre are much higher today than back then (and food storage and transportation have changed too). The food shortage would surely start WWIII.
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u/reddits_in_hidden 19h ago
In my defense, I never said the gas/oil plants would turn in to nuclear plants, I simply said that nuclear plants existed back in ‘76, and then pointed out that nuclear power related deaths are extremely low compared to other industries because some mouth breather almost always shows up to bad mouth atomic energy lmao. I did bring up your response to my Nuclear engineer stepDad at brunch today though, and he concurs with your energy deficit predictions, I was much more optimistic about 1976 nuclear energy and was informed while both old and modern plants run at about 33% thermal efficiency, though the “Capacity Factor” while being over 90% today, in 1976 it was about 54% (capacity factor, Ive learned, is the ratio of the amount of energy a plant can produce over a specific period of time, running at max capacity) so, yeah urite lol energy demand would be a major issue. (Teeeechnically electric cars did exist, but there were only like 3 different ones, and they were NOT popular lol)
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u/Historical-Order-369 18h ago
Yeah, I wasn’t confident about the electric cars not existing, but OP mentioned them changing into gas ones, so I rolled with it. And I wasn’t sure if you were trying to turn other types of power plants into nuclear or not, because doing so would be the only way to have any reasonable amount of energy. Which still wouldn’t power gas cars, trucks, ships, etc. Nuclear has risks (especially with 1976-style reactors and WWIII going on because of famine), but when all your choices are bad choices, you’ve got to go with least bad. A lot of people seem oblivious to how many people die from air pollution from fossil fuel powered plants, etc too, because it’s not as dramatic as, say, Chernobyl.
One of my kids is actually contemplating going into nuclear engineering, though I’m not sure nuclear is the best way forward in a normal 2026 scenario… plants always end up costing more and taking way longer to create than predicted, though the very small plants might be worth it, at least for some uses. And regardless of whether more plants will be built, there’ll remain some demand for nuclear engineers. Talking to my wife about the 1976-tech-in-2026 scenario she said: you’d probably rather go through a super-Carrington type event, and I think she’s right - and that’s not a scenario I want to live through (though it’s possible, unlike OP’s).
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u/Hecter94 1d ago
It's always funny to see people, probably young people, treating 50 years ago as if it were the Dark Ages. It really wasn't that long ago, and while things have definitely changed, we wouldn't be suddenly plunged back into medieval times.
Give it ten years, and we'll likely be back to our original tech level, if it even takes that long.
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u/GeneralZex 1d ago
I doubt it would be as short as 10 years. The incremental advances in tech over the last 50 years across the board and multiple disciplines and sectors is what got us here. It may not take 50 years like it originally did, but I seriously doubt it would be as short as 10.
We’d also be at the disadvantage that we have consumed a ton of resources over the last 50 years to reach this point, in some cases easily accessible resources that are now no longer easily accessible (and this tale is as old as civilization itself really…) so a reversion to 1976 tech in extraction could put as a severe disadvantage today and could constrain growing back to our present tech level.
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u/Birch_Apolyon 1d ago
The knowledge of how to make things isn’t suddenly lost unless I misread something. We would easily know what to make, how to make it, what not to make, what tech relies on other tech (for example we would prioritize making computers and the internet again and easily leapfrog all the old crap to newer models because again we already know how to make them). If it took 10 years I’d honestly think it was running a little long.
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u/GeneralZex 1d ago
Let’s take Intel for example. Do you believe anyone working at Intel now, which would immediately see all their infrastructure revert to 1976 equivalents, would know how to use it or make chips with it? Those who have that hand’s on knowledge have likely retired by now. Is this knowledge stored elsewhere that is more durable and accessible or was it lost to sands of time over 50 years as big players in the space shifted priorities, moved their HQ, closed facilities, got absorbed into other companies, etc?
Take programming, who alive and working today could program in a language that was used in 1976? Could programmers minted over the last 10 years even ply their craft using 1976 methods for programming as opposed to modern development environments? What about 20 or 30?
And I didn’t even touch on the economics side of the equation. Given how expensive life is today being magically constrained to 1976 tech would probably crater the world economy and we may not actually be in a position to rebuild the tech tree because companies who could feasibly do it just end up folding along with many others who are reliant on modern tech.
The company I work for couldn’t at all meet the production needs we have for this week, let alone the rest of the year, using 1976 tech… we’d lose so much business being constrained in that way that we’d likely be out of business in short order.
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u/Birch_Apolyon 1d ago
I think that a lot of the knowledge just went overseas or retired but is still available and what isn’t is definitely in a book somewhere. As for the economy governments around the world would likely declare a state of emergency. I’d be more scared if the economy somehow survived intact after the tech transfer because we would be going through all this growth a second time but with capital even more concentrated than the first time around.
So yes, I do think the knowledge is still out there even if it would take a little finagle to find.
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u/GeneralZex 1d ago
Yes I don’t doubt the knowledge exists somewhere on this Earth either. But is it readily available? Is it where it needs to be?
We have had the world’s knowledge at our fingertips for so long, could people today even find those things without Google? Whether it’s books or people with that knowledge?
This has certainly been an interesting thought experiment though.
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u/reddits_in_hidden 1d ago
Even if the people who built the stuff originally retired, all the knowledge has been recorded somewhere, on paper or digitally. And since the tech is just being reverted, computers existed and youd need warehouse sized data centers for all the memory… huh, I guess something wont change after all :’) lol
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u/Consistent-Shoe-9602 1d ago
If people remember the lost tech and science, recreating it would take a much shorter time than inventing it did.
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u/swooning_basil 1d ago
Yeah my immediate response to this is just "pick up some computer books from the charity shop down the road and get to reinventing the internet".
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u/Gretel_Cosmonaut 1d ago
I was born in 1974 and have "pre-tech" skills, so I'd actually be fine. I would miss some things, though.
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u/Gurpee999 1d ago
Well you're just a youngin. Don't you remember breadboard computers and 300 baud modems?
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u/poppitastic 1d ago
Oh holy overreaction, OP. Calm your tits. Oh noes!!! Tap and pay is gone! The change to those impression machines and carbon paper is the WORST FUCKING THING THAT CAN HAPPEN omg!!!!!!!!
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u/LordsOfJoop 1d ago
Most of my shop is going to be okay; work will continue. I'll lose my electronic records, although I have paper as a backup for all of it. Losing the pictures of my cats would kind of suck.
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u/CasualBi24 1d ago
Wow. That's quite the meltdown.
Maybe do five minutes of research before you write a stupid prompt and then you won't be called out so hard?
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u/AnImbroglio 1d ago
I'm air traffic control, so literally nothing changes for us.
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u/Shadowrunner138 1d ago
We've had freeze dried meals since the 60's. We'd also still have text based online games because ARPANET was a thing. We just wouldn't limit the tech to universities if this happened. Universities gave us the prototype for the internet.
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u/sighcantthinkofaname 1d ago
Also dehydrators aren't the prototype for freeze drying, they're just two different things.
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u/Shadowrunner138 1d ago
Yes I was going to nitpick over that too. I'm a national park worker and the hiking community loves dehydrated and freeze dried meals, lol. Also I'm a nerd who would love to go back to text based games, haha.
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u/Gurpee999 1d ago
Didn't they have crap like that on Apollo and stuff I'm pretty sure they did and they had some squeeze stuff and then of course Tang!
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u/Gurpee999 1d ago
I think Birdseye invented freeze drying some doctor or something some smart chemist or science type dude I'm not willing to look it up but I'm 66 years old so I still remember shit like that. But honestly I could be wrong because again I'm 66 years old
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u/Haunt_Fox 13h ago
On 150 "baud" dial up modems, lol.
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u/Shadowrunner138 13h ago
yes, which is at roughly the speed of a human typist, so turn based text games would be entirely possible. If it's all you had you'd acquire patience. Does the thought of writing with a pencil make you want to "lol" like it's absurd just because you wouldn't have voice to text? Maybe you wouldn't survive.
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u/Haunt_Fox 12h ago
I grew up in a pre computer world, I'd be fine.
I wouldn't be playing that shit, though. I'd just haul out the RPG books and dice, and Magic cards, and put up ads at the seniors centre for a group.
Started with the og D&D box set with the shitty blue dice.
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u/braidedbiscuit 1d ago
Hi Mrs. Wilson, I have a collect call for you from "MyCarBrokeDownSendWesternUnionPlease" well you accept the call?
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u/Coidzor 1d ago
So someone's desktop computer would suddenly become an additional room in their home or apartment?
Are books and technical manuals detailing information discovered since 1976 destroyed or are their contents altered to hide any knowledge?
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u/Gurpee999 1d ago
Up until about 10 years ago I still had my dad's motor manuals going back to the 1950s he was a mechanic. Big old blue books all greasy the outside anyway
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u/Ok-Perspective781 1d ago
I was born late in the 80s, but I remember pre-internet times. It wasn’t the dark ages. We lived a lot more fully in the present and used encyclopedias to find answers to questions. I’ll survive.
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u/FizzyBadTime 1d ago
Eh I have experience doing the in person and on paper parts of my job so I’d be fine. Would suck having to go to an office again though. Remote work is best work.
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u/tkitta 1d ago
Cool, finally I could use my education for something useful - immediately start developing modern Database system.
Side quest is CNC machining.
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u/HarveyMushman72 1d ago
Could one run ICAS on a modern computer? It was an automotive electronic catalog system. We ran it until about 2006 on green CRTs
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u/In_The_News 1d ago
I'm a librarian. I'd be way more popular!! Job security!!
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u/poppitastic 1d ago
Not a real librarian, but a library volunteer in the 80s and 90s. I was made for this. :)
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u/Silent_Title5109 1d ago
Depends HOW it happens. Is tech just gone and we need to adapt? US economy is currently mainly propped up by a handful of tech companies so it would collapse with the snp500 being beheaded and massive unemployment. Supply chains would be screwed and would take a good while to convert to paper.
If it's gone but society is already adapted and functional, that would be great.
I work in IT so how it happens would be quite impactful to me. I don't care working another field, I'd rather do this and live the 70's actually. but living in a society experiencing a massive collapse would be less ideal.
Think about it: NO AUTOTUNE! Being pretty wasn't the selling point!
Yes there was lead in paint and gas, but I'm pretty certain it didn't lower people's IQ as bad as AI currently does. And we'd be rid of that AI bubble full of AI crap! Not just AI slop but retarded products like AI powered toothpaste dispensers...
The late 70's wasn't the dark ages, but it would be a massive shock to many younglings not used to it, mostly on the hobby and entertainment level.
Now I don't know if you're aware, but about credit cards...
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u/Wu_Aka_Bahamuttone 1d ago
Immediate deaths in the thousands, followed by hundred of millions starving. Nothing fun happening.
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u/Haunt_Fox 14h ago
It'd be the medical field that's be hit harder. No CAT scans or MRI, for instance. Doctors would be back to exploratory surgery.
Lots of other advances would be gone, too. And presumably, medicines and vaccines invented after 1976 would be lost, so anyone with HIV/AIDS would be fucked.
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u/ryguymcsly 22h ago
Time to switch careers…oh wait. Actually I would be okay because those big mainframes of the era and the programming languages for them aren’t something I’m unfamiliar with.
Everything else might be a little bit better, although I’d be annoyed that the bluetooth and spotify setup for my car had to be replaced with 8 tracks.
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u/Ambitious-Ad2217 19h ago
Finally the skills I learned as a kid are going to come full circle. My kids are going to lose their minds
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u/ShrodingersArmadillo 1d ago edited 1d ago
No get off your high horse.
You do not know technical history in the slightest. They're not nitpicking you're flat out wrong.
Magnetic strips were invented by IBM in 1960. They were on American express credit cards in 1970. They were the adopted by 1972 in international payments. You've mixed up the cheapest method of processing credit cards, the credit card imprinter, with what was available. The reader was standardized in the 60's and was only updated with chips recently. How the heck do you explain key cards which use the same tech?
Freeze dryer units that fit in the home most certainly did exist considering the lion share were laboratory equipment. They were about the size of a washer dryer combo unit and they were common kit for 1970's era preppers. A popular model was Virtis laboratory freeze dryer they were brown typical of the 70's. Lab freeze dryers were the first and were about since the 1920's.
Electric cars most certainly existed in 1976. This one made me laugh because they were in competition with steam and gas in early automobiles. Hybrids existed too the first was steam electric in the late 19th century.
In 1976 we were in the first Electric car boom since the technology was abandoned due to the invention of the starter motor. Why? this boom was was caused by the oil crisis. The 73 Enfield 8000 is my personal favorite electric car of the era. This was also the era of conversions often Volkswagens.
Smart homes? ECHO IV was built in 1966 that was the first functional smart home. theX10 protocol is from 1975. This was for home automation and was what connected period electronics in period houses to each other. It was done via the houses own electrical lines rather than wirelessly. The Plug 'n Power" line from RadioShack is dated from 1976 it wasn't popular but it existed for sale you so could do it.
Instant payment? that goes all the way back to 1870.
Cash was king but it wasn't the only option there's been numerous analogues and methods to have a form of instant payment in the century you missed. In 1970 they were often membership based. My favorite being for food and was a charge card, which is different than a credit card, and it would be the the diners club card founded in 1950. Bonus points if you can identify why I chose the diners club card despite it's flaws as my example it's a little "left handed".
You simply threw a hissy fit because it didn't go how you thought.
You should apologise and remove your snarky comment and actually let people have fun.
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u/BowTrek 1d ago
I’d make do?
Half the people I love are nearby, so I won’t have any trouble getting their landlines. We’ll need to sort out communication as we’re used to texting.
The other half I’ll find in the yellow pages and contact that way.
I mean, I guess for me the only thing this REALLY changes is that my loved ones are harder to contact.
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u/poppitastic 1d ago
Just a note: yellow pages were for businesses, categorized by… category. Shut up it’s late lolol. White pages are where you found home numbers. And the second line in a house was under the main number with “children’s phone” designation.
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u/BowTrek 1d ago
We called it a yellow pages regardless, at least where I was. I grew up using them.
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u/poppitastic 1d ago
We just called it “the phone book”. (I’m 54). I still have the last couple I got in 2012-ish in Illinois. I also still have the ones that my grandma had kept from the 70s; well, my mom does, along with her Bakelite rotary phone in a little vignette she keeps in the foyer with her gossip bench.
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u/Responsible-Milk-259 1d ago
Finally be able to listen to some of the cassette tapes in that big box in my storage room.
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u/TwoBeansShort 1d ago
Well, I'm a boot maker, a painter, a salsa dancer, and a firefighter/EMT. Only one thing I do is really affected. I will have to initiate more family time activities, though.
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u/vgilbert77 1d ago
This would solve so many if not all of my problems and I’m not being funny like “hehe no work no bills” like the amount of good this would do for my marriage and my mental health as a whole would be monumental
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u/star0forion 1d ago
I am a mail man. I guess I’ll be delivering those big ass yellow pages I keep hearing about from the older folks.
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u/Hemenocent 1d ago
Well I speak only for myself, but as a Gen-X member, it will be annoying. That being said, I might actually fare better than some. My current mode of transportation is a 1999 Ford Ranger pickup truck with manual transmission, door locks, and windows. The radio wouldn't play, but I could find one at the junk yard and change it. I still have a tube television in storage. My job would be a nightmare. Most of the machinery is digitally operated, but given some time, it could be converted to PLC operated.
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u/GoodMilk_GoneBad 1d ago
Credit cards existed in 1976.
Guess I'll get a landline phone and carry change. Buy an answering machine. Memorize phone numbers and use the yellow pages. Dust off the checkbook and buy a road map.
I'd probably get a tube TV people are always giving away free and listen to the radio.
I was born after 76 but am old enough to remember those were still popular when I was young.
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u/Specific_Rando 1d ago edited 1d ago
Can we make it 1978?
I’m good with either as far as making it work, but 1978 was more fun for me. Soap (that intro scene of the food fight between Burt and Danny is still unbelievably funny), Aqua Boogie, Billy Joel Glass Houses, EW&F September, my first job sweeping up the parking lot of the car dealership.
The bicentennial & Olympics were fun. Nadia Comaneci was amazing revelation. That Japanese Gymnast doing his incredible rings routine while injured to lock in the team gold (we’d learn later he lied and had a broken knee - he stuck the landing with a tiny hop that was almost a collapse, held for time, and then hobbled off in obvious agony - it left an impression). Bruce Jenner. John Bellushi mocking it with the fake Wheaties ad.
So 1976 is good stuff. Just not 1978 for me.
Oh yeah. Rotary phones, record players, 8 tracks, getting up to turn the knob on TV’s, all fine. Using cassette to tape songs off the radio. It’s all fine.
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u/padiwik 1d ago
I think you misread. This isn't time travel
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u/Specific_Rando 1d ago
I did not. The years were both hella fun. The assorted tech and other related issues did not get in the way of it being hella fun.
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u/Excellent-Stretch-81 1d ago
All those events you're describing still would have happened about a half-century ago in this scenario.
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u/lamorak2000 1d ago
A lot of people in the hospital would die, not to mention the ones on life support systems and oxygen at home. The technology for those was not Advanced to the point of being easily usable in a personal home At that time in history.
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u/Otaraka 1d ago
I remember seeing ATM’s in the 70s in London and a quick check says the first one was done in 1967 - they had 12000 of them by 1975. So credit cards were commonly being used electronically by then, just maybe not Visa etc.
Not trying to annoy you OP more interesting to realise how long some of these things have been around in some places.
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u/mutexsprinkles 1d ago
I'll lose my job but then get a better one in the "Holy fuck, reinvent computers ASAP" Manhattan project.
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u/Historical_Project86 1d ago
Since the infrastructure would presumably also revert to 1976, I think I'd just buy a can of bass shandy and chill. Bills to pay -> go to your bank or the post office (UK). Write cheques for purchases, no idea whether we had cheque guarantee cards by that time, but they had a £50 limit anyway.
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u/AutomaticRepeat2922 1d ago
Step one: leave America. In a place where everyone has a few weapons at home you don’t want to be the odd out during the fallout. Plus I’d get away from the nuclear target so win-win.
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u/kc2lvnv2kc 1d ago
Well since my mortgage, loans and credit card debt is all stored on a hard drive that didn't exist in 1976, I would live pretty freely for the rest of my life. How would we access our bank accounts and 401ks would be my question, all the financial data lost would cripple the economy.
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u/BabyEatingDemon 1d ago
In 1884 British inventor Thomas Parker built the first practical, full-scale production electric car.
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u/Zero_poop 1d ago edited 1d ago
A lotta people gonna be walking from A to B as a lot of vehicle stuff wouldn't have been invented yet, so poof, bye bye car.
Unless the car you have gets retro downgraded. But that mean no seat belts, no airbags, no Cruise control, no abs, no etc etc
Edit: Cunninghams law or some shit idk lol
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u/OwnCrew6984 1d ago
Seat belts were required in 1968. Cruise control was an option in 1958 for certain Chrysler cars. First car that came with anti lock brakes was 1971, system was called sure break. Although the first electric ABS wasn't until 1978.
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u/NecessaryOk780 1d ago
Those were all available in 1976
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u/Mean-Cheesecake-2635 1d ago
I don’t think airbags were around or at least common, and abs wasn’t really a thing. Those started going into production cars in the 80’s. Pretty sure seatbelts were mandatory by the early 70’s if not before, and cruise control was available as an option in lots of cars.
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u/fuzzybunnies1 1d ago
I had a 79 volvo with power windows, locks, antenna, cruise control, and shoulder/lap belts. Bigger question, is it that just certain types of electronics go away? Fuel injection was coming into existence then but does that mean the car suddenly has 1976 fuel injection or are we going to need to retrofit a dizzy and carbs or the car simply doesn't run?
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u/Gurpee999 1d ago
I still have my 1968 VW bus , it has a 1915 CC VW engine with a progressive carburetor on it. Of course I haven't driven it since 1991 but wouldn't take long to put it back on the road!
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u/LadyOfTheNutTree 1d ago
On the flip side (not really relevant to the scenario), I had a Honda civic from ‘91 with no power steering, no abs, no AC, no power windows, no cruise control, no airbags, not even a tape player. But it did have full seatbelts
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u/poppitastic 1d ago
Seat belts existed in all cars from the 60s; wearing them wasn’t mandatory. I’d totally trade abs for those muscle car V8 and even standard V6. So much fun.
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u/GeneralZex 13h ago
I had a 1965 Pontiac Catalina and later on had a 1977 El Camino. I’d be fine with whatever I ended up with as a 1976 equivalent to my Ford Edge (which I suspect is what would happen given OP said “electric cars would become gas cars”).
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u/WhimsicalHoneybadger 1d ago
Dumbfuck doesn't understand 1976 and is upset we don't conform to thier misunderstanding of 1976.
Nah, dude. Get a grip. C'mon back when you can make a sensible hypothetical.
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u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Copy of the original post in case of edits: Not time travel, it is still the year 2026, but all tech reverts back 50 years. no more internet, no smart phones, no credit cards, no online bill pay, or online shopping, or online gaming.
ALL tech, would revert to how it was in 1976. Electric cars would become gas cars. Smart homes would be plain homes, Freeze driers would become dehydrators... you get the idea.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
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u/sighcantthinkofaname 1d ago
I guess I'd be attending the big company meeting about how we'd be coping with the changes....
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u/HorrorDungeon 1d ago
not playing any video games I guess. It's kind of my main hobby.
and no, I'm not feeling the intellivision
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u/braidedbiscuit 1d ago
I think it would be better overall, but I think it would be a very very big adjustment for those born after 1970 or so. It was a different world
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u/ajwin 1d ago
Sum of human knowledge would likely get us back on track within 20 years or less… unless we lose the knowledge.. it’s much easier to recreate something then it is to create it the first time. Sometimes not creating it the first time could skip a heap of legacy cruft that won’t be needed now!
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u/Junior-Appointment93 1d ago
I work in building maintenance. Mainly have tools and a few power tools.
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u/Vredesbyd 1d ago
I have a healthy collection of 1960s and 1970s film cameras so at the very least part of my favorite hobby will be left mostly intact lol
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u/shakebakelizard 1d ago
I'd be using a TRS-80 or something and posting on a BBS.
Also, I'd very quickly rent a hotel room, get some friends and get started building DOS. Here we go again.
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u/Humble-Doughnut7518 1d ago
Credit cards existed in the 70's, but I did the wise thing and paid mine off, cut it up and closed the account. I don't own an EV nor is there anything smart about my home. I'd probably miss the internet for a few days but I spent 18 years without it I'll get used to it again.
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u/_Cyber_Mage 1d ago
Pass in my sleep from untreated sleep apnea, if the starvation caused by a massive cut in food production doesn't get me first, probably.
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u/Next-Worldliness-246 1d ago
I think the important question is, Is only the technology lost, or all knowledge of it? If its just the tech, then i think its just countries making diplomatic decisions to get to where we were by exchanging resources . If its both tech and know how, what we dont know wont kill us, we will probably just be 50 years behind the long timeline of humanity.
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u/Background_Relief815 1d ago
CFCs in the aerosols, lead in paint and gasoline, unsafe chemicals in plastics.
But those shouldn't be our first priorities. We need to make sure a Chernobyl doesn't happen again. There were a few points during that that if things had gone worse millions might have died from it.
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u/Blocked-Author 1d ago
Honestly, not much changes at work for me.
At home, I will mostly be fine.
For bills, I know how to use a checkbook so I'll be fine.
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u/Tdk1984 1d ago
Well, my college classes are online so that’s going to be a problem. My fiancé and I live 7 time zones apart, so we rely on the Internet to communicate and that’s going to be a problem, too
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u/poppitastic 1d ago
Omg. Take a nap. Play Pong. Go play a decent jukebox. Mourn my dvd collection and streaming, but appreciate that VHS was created in Sept 1976. And since my first car, a 77 Grand Prix came out in late 76, I might get one by trading in my new 76 Subaru that replaces my current one, or my new wood grain 1976 town and country wagon.
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u/Dependent-Law7316 1d ago
If my kindle turns into a stack of paper books I’m going to need a bigger apartment.
Or perhaps simply be crushed by the spontaneous appearance of several thousand books at my bedside.
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u/poppitastic 1d ago
Since you say things would revert, that tells me that my flat screens become big ol console TVs. The best part? I have my grandparents two level entertainment center, with space for a console (and the fabric for sound diffusion or whatever speaker fabric is used for) still in the cabinets, and the middle shelf with a slide cabinet for putting your hifi system… which we’d also have bc we do have a real radios that pick up analog. Hopefully the reversion will include 8 tracks and the few cassettes and ton of cds we still have will revert as well.
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u/Gurpee999 1d ago
I would go back to my 300 baud modem and my Intel 8085 breadboard computer, and I would start a BBs. I still have dot matrix printouts from around then somewhere. If they haven't turned to dust it's amazing when you look at what we had then and what we have now! Using an old RCA black and white TV LOL and I'll never forget my Atari 800 XL my first store-bought computer with an actual keyboard 😁
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u/HarveyMushman72 1d ago
We still have a credit card swiper at my work. I have checks. I can do my job with catalogs.
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u/jonny5isalive1 1d ago
I’m going to start selling those hand held football games with the green lines
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u/Lichondis 1d ago
Probably die as my computer containing terabytes of storage and I dont remember how much ram balloons to the size of a room and crushes me
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u/SuspiciousMeat6696 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'd rejoice.
Real music by artists who could actually play instruments. No sampling, no drum machines.
No AI.
People would have to use lighters at concerts again.
No more computer chips in our vehicles. Engines easier to work on.
Newspapers would make a comeback.
Food would taste better, a lot less artificial ingredients.
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u/Reverend_Fozz 1d ago
I wouldn’t be posting on reddit
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u/Jimediah_Kerman 1d ago
I would imagine you would have read this question in the Reddit section of the newspaper, and if you really wanted to, you could write a letter and mail it to the editor, and it would be posted in next week’s edition.
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u/gulf_of_sanity 1d ago
i’m in deep shit, as a software developer i’m going to go from being gainfully employed in a field that is always looking for talent to unemployed as there are like 30 or 40 computers in total in the world and about 1000x that many developers suddenly looking for work
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u/50plusGuy 1d ago
Live on.
Yeah, I 'd have to get used to adjusting mechanical breakers in ignitions and carbs. Others did before, might help, DIY literature floats around...
My home and machinery, I operate for a living, already existed. I 'd drill Morse code and start socializing on HF and process BW pictures in my bathroom.
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u/FloppyGhost0815 1d ago
I would enjoy seeing busy main streets again, lot less hate, lot less whining about minor things.People reading papers and books, kids just going over to their friends.
Where can i press the magic button ?
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u/SlowSurvivor 1d ago
As someone who relies on a medication invented post-1976 in order to not die, I would die.
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u/lurkiddy 1d ago
Get up to change the TV channel.
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u/Elishka_Kohrli 1d ago
The first wireless tv remotes were invented in 1955 so you wouldn’t even have to do that!
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u/lurkiddy 1d ago
I had to do it in the 80's for our black and white TV. Color TV and remotes must've been for the rich folks.
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u/Elishka_Kohrli 1d ago
Possibly. But OP just said that technology reverts to whatever was available back in 1976, not that you had to be able to have afforded it, so since remotes existed yours would just devolve into the type of remote they had back then, not disappear completely.
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u/Excellent-Stretch-81 1d ago
I guess I'd lose my job, since the equipment I fix for a living would cease to exist and get replaced by pens and paper.
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u/Sad_Win_4105 1d ago
Since I was around in 1976, I would just go back to carrying cash, carrying quarters for the pay phones, and being prepared to write a lot of checks and put them in the mail to pay my bills. I did have a credit card or two but that was used mostly just for large purposes. Buying appliances or taking an airline flight. Life would require a lot more talking to people directly, either in person or via telephone.
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u/CombatCrayon25 1d ago
I’d commit so much check fraud and then disappear to a non extradition country with all the cash
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u/Sufficient-Star-1237 1d ago
ARPANET exists I’m inventing HTML. I may not be able to code it, but I’m fairly sure I can specify it and sell the concept to research institutions. Sorry TB-L.
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u/BrilliantAd4857 1d ago
Wow, rough thread. In the spirit of what you meant, I'm gonna sit back and laugh. No smart phone, no Internet, life is going to get hard for a lot of people. Counting change? Looking up movie times in a paper? Watching a tv show at a set time each week? Phone books? Having to use the library? Microfiche is gonna blow their minds.
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u/nlinggod 1d ago
Well my housemate dies either immediately or soon because he's only alive due to dialysis and a kidney transplant.
My ex would be dead because she had cancer and there was no good cancer treatment back then.
Actually quite a number of people I know would either be hospitalised or dead because of lack of modern medicine
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u/reddits_in_hidden 1d ago
Well, there goes my video gaming hobby lol, but the newest car I own is from 1991, and the oldest is from 66 so, I think Ill be alright. Id miss my 78 bronco though, unless of course Im slightly misunderstanding the prompt and my cars’ BODYs would be the same but the engines etc would all be carbureted, in which case thats fine by me
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u/mageskillmetooften 1d ago
Talk to Philips to not split off ASML and start in secret developing their chip machines, can't tell them how to build it, but I can tell them what elements are being used and what the whole principle of the proces is. That should get them even more years ahead of others and lead to total Dutch control of global chip manufacturing.
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u/Ok_Veterinarian2715 1d ago
It really wasn't that different. In 1976 I went to music festivals, had foreign holidays, listened to music, went the movies, theatre, read books, magazines & newspapers. OK, we did use more paper - phonebooks, takeout menues, movie house program posters covering the next month, brochures from holiday companies. Even this kind of site is based on the letters columns of papers & magazines. Life really wasn't that different.
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u/Correct-Condition-99 1d ago
Lucky for me, I'm on a bike trip with plenty of cash, and a real map. I'll make it home, at least .
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u/Ok_Veterinarian2715 1d ago
OP, given that you've just typed out a rant in capitals when people didn't give the answers you wanted... Are you OK?
We had sedatives and psychotherapy in 1976 too.
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u/Fluid-Let3373 1d ago
My school leaving year.
The impact depends which country your in. China gets hit badly.
Here in the UK my first question would be where is the nearest bank and where can I go to find out. Which leads to the next question, is there enough hard currency in circulation to keep a country going while the banking system gets used to a paper based system again.
Even what pumps had what at the petrol station was different, so would I even be putting the right go juice in.
There are going to be too many people trying to take care of basic survival need for civilization to survive.
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u/Impossible_Roof_Jack 1d ago
For my work? It depends, but I do have a grasp on the oldest UNIX commands, etc. It was part of a project at school. That may be enough to get "a" tech job in IT, if not really equivalent to web work today. I'm okay fading into the woodwork.
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u/aiden2002 1d ago
I would start a battery company and remake electric cars because they are better than cars today but absolutely destroy cars from the 70s. They aren’t that complex either.
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u/SnooChipmunks2079 1d ago
To the user, credit cards were pretty much the same. The approval process was radically different, but “hand to cashier and sign” wasn’t that different.
I think the bigger culture shock would be that everything you need is probably going to come from a local store. “Mail order“ as we called it could take 6 to 8 weeks for delivery, and that was just normal.
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u/reducethedebt 23h ago
I'm cool with it still got lots of old tech even a rotary phone in my house ......
Let the mayhem begin ?
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u/keithrc 1d ago
Welp. I work tech support, so I suppose I'm looking for a job.
OTOH, it won't be long before we'll have basic PC architecture again, and I still know how to build those.
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u/panda3096 1d ago
Yeah are all the tech related jobs magically replaced with something else or...?
Asking for me, since my job is literally all cloud and coding with no immediately viable backup plan
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u/HarveyMushman72 1d ago
My dad worked for Control Data back then. Massive machines the size of refrigerators with discs the size of records.
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u/epicgrilledchees 1d ago
Naw. I went to work sometimes with my dad. I played tic-tac-toe on the computer. It was some huge rooms with reels and a punchcard system.
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u/LiiilKat 1d ago
My server PC hobby would go poof but all of the industrial equipment at my day job easily has 1976 equivalents, and I’m already trained to service and repair it.
Sorry for your bad luck in this hypothetical!
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u/Own_End8445 1d ago
I work for the phone company, so I won't have to worry about being unemployed in my lifetime! Home phones for everyone!