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Have you ever pressed your face to the window in a plane as a kid and stared at the wing thinking flying shouldn't work? Have you ever sat in seat 23B with the baby crying five rows up and perfume getting reapplied three rows over and wished for just forty minutes of respite?

Of course you have. Passenger jet aviation is one of the most transformative things humanity has ever built, and most of us experience it as a tube we sit in until we arrive somewhere else. But, it wasn't always the cattle-car experience we have today.

Marc and Renee love aviation and flying and this episode traces that tube from Frank Whittle, the British inventor who patented the jet engine in 1930, to the de Havilland Comet (which kept falling out of the sky because of square windows), to Boeing betting big on a plane nobody asked for, to the Concorde flying Mach 2 over the Atlantic for twenty-seven years while burning fuel like a small country, to the 787 quietly changing what eight hours in a metal tube feels like on your body. Along the way: Juan Trippe deciding ordinary people should be allowed to fly, the 1973 oil crisis rewriting the economics of flight, and the disappointing realisation that the shower on the first-class A380 was never going to be for you.

If you have ever waved a thanks to a flight attendant who couldn't possibly see you, paid four dollars for a small bottle of water at thirty-five thousand feet, or sat through a connection in Charlotte Douglas wondering whether there is some kind of cosmic law requiring every American flight to route through there, this one's for you.

Check out the Mouselets for civil engineering and Disney - https://www.youtube.com/@TheMouselets

We'd love to hear from you. Click here to give us ideas on new episodes.

Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential.

email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com

Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.

Next episode is all about the development of passenger planes. So, this week our song is about that emotionally stressful situation that air travel has turned into.

The bare feet where they shouldn't be. Loud talkers. Hogging the arm rests. Passive aggressive travelers.

It felt like a blues song in A Minor. But mashed together with our Season 2 house band's yacht rock groove.

Lyrics below.

[Verse 1]
I boarded last, no room in the overhead bin
Lord, I boarded last, no room in the bin
Walked down to twenty-three and squeezed myself in
Man in C wouldn't lift his knee
No that Man in C won't lift that knee
Woman in A pulled the shade down, didn't wanna see
[Chorus]
I'm in 23B
Just B
Window went to A
Aisle went to C
I got what was left
I'm in 23B
Just B
[Verse 2]
Baby's been crying since we left the gate
Lord, that baby's been crying since we left the gate
Smell of perfume keeps me wondering what I ate
Bare feet on the headrest, three rows in front of me
Bare feet on the headrest, three rows in front of me
Wanted forty minutes of quiet, can't get forty seconds free
[Chorus]
[Bridge]
There used to be a dinner
There used to be a tie
There used to be a meaning
To getting in the sky
Now I'm boarding group five
With my one allowed bag
The seat reclines an inch
And nothing comes round for free
[Final Chorus]
I'm in 23B
Just B
Window went to A
Aisle went to C
I got what was left
I'm in 23B
Just B

We'd love to hear from you. Click here to give us ideas on new episodes.

Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential.

email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com

Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.

Have you ever sat at a red light at 2 AM with no traffic in any direction and waited anyway? Have you ever rolled through that same red light 2 AM and felt vaguely guilty about it?
Of course you have. The traffic light is the most obeyed command in human history. Rarely enforced (unless you're in the UK like Marc). No officer in sight. Just a coloured light on a pole, and a near-universal agreement to stop when it's red and go when it's green.
This episode traces the humble traffic signal from the gas-lit lantern that exploded outside the Houses of Parliament in 1868 (yes, exploded, three weeks in) to the adaptive AI systems that watch real-time traffic and adjust timing in milliseconds. Along the way: railroad colour conventions, William Potts in Detroit and Garrett Morgan in Cleveland, the political question of whose green is longer, the inductive loop that can't see your bicycle, and the moment where you discover that the colour you grew up calling yellow is officially called amber once you cross an ocean.
Ride along with Marc and Renee through another look at a technology that became infrastructure as it spread beyond its humble beginnings.

We'd love to hear from you. Click here to give us ideas on new episodes.

Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential.

email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com

Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.

There are songs and poems about the red and green lights. But what about Amber? Shy. Fleeting. Amber has a job too.

This week's episode is about traffic lights and it felt appropriate to cast our gaze at the glowing amber hue and dedicate this week's song to the lesser-loved traffic light colour.

[Verse 1]
Three seconds is all I get
Between the start and the stop
You look at me like you know
What I'm trying to say
Brake a little early
Gas a little late
Either way you're answering
Something I never quite said

[Chorus]
I'm amber
Just amber
You stop for the red
You rushin' past the green
I'm just Amber in the middle
I'm amber
Just amber

[Verse 2]
Songs get written for red
Poems for green
No one writes about warning
That sits in between
I've got a job in the system
I slow the whole town down
I'm the breath that the city takes
In that moment unseen

[Chorus]
I'm amber
Just amber
You stop for the red
You rushin' past the green
I'm just Amber in the middle
I'm amber
Just amber

[Bridge]
I don't get named in the story
I don't get time in the scene
I'm just the turn of a second
Between what was and what's been
You're already leaving
Before I begin
I'm gone in a heartbeat
Like I've never been

[Final Chorus]
I'm amber
Just amber
You stop for the red
You rushin' past the green
I'm just Amber in the middle
I'm amber
Just amber

We'd love to hear from you. Click here to give us ideas on new episodes.

Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential.

email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com

Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.

Do you remember when "I think we missed the turn" caused a complete emotional spectrum of reaction? When the car would go quiet because someone had to admit they'd lost the page boundary on Thomas Guide map 347 and the next bit was on page 389?

So do we. There used to be a thing called knowing where you were. It lived in a spiral-bound atlas in the back seat, or in the head of whoever was driving. The Thomas Guide assumed you'd figure it out. The TripTik gave you only the path. GPS skipped past both and asks only that you keep the wheel pointed forward.

As usual, Renee and Marc travel through the past to see how that shaped today and where we're heading down the road. Maps, Thomas Bros, Mapquest, GPS...and some military satellites in there along the way.

If you have ever sworn at a Thomas Guide while driving in Los Angeles traffic, watched your phone confidently route you into a field, or forgotten which way is north in the city you've lived in for ten years, this one's for you. And if you're still that one person who knows the diagonal shortcut through the residential streets that gets you to the airport in twenty minutes, please hold that knowledge. It's getting rarer.

We'd love to hear from you. Click here to give us ideas on new episodes.

Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential.

email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com

Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.

Tomorrow's episode is all about the transition from a world where maps were an everyday driving tool to the world we have now with satellites buzzing overhead telling us exactly where we are and how to get where we want to go.

And because this is a podcast about things we miss and what we learn, we learned that keeping maps current is a big job! Things change. Roads change. And...GPS changes us. As we depend on GPS, our spatial skills degrade.

So, that's the idea for this week's song. Places we once knew change and we lose our spatial sense.

Have a listen - Three Wrong Turns Home.

[Verse 1]
Rolled off the highway
Coffee gone cold
Feels like it's all been changed
Record shop's a coffee place
Diner has a different name
Miss my own street
Laughing round the turns
[Chorus]
Three wrong turns from home
Three wrong turns
On a road I ought to know
Drove it in my sleep
Lord, knew this town by heart
Three wrong turns from home
[Verse 2]
Past the old pool hall
Now it's a mini-mall
School's gone, fence and dirt
Light at Seventh hardly waits
Bridge wider than I knew
My maps are wrong I don't know when
All the names I knew are gone
[Chorus]
Three wrong turns from home
Three wrong turns
On a road I ought to know
Drove it in my sleep
Lord, knew this town by heart
Three wrong turns from home
[Bridge]
Maybe I was gone too long
Maybe town moved on
Radio's still playing
Windows down, sun going down
[Final Chorus]
Three wrong turns from home
Three wrong turns
On a road I ought to know
Drove it in my sleep
Lord, knew this town by heart
Three wrong turns from home

We'd love to hear from you. Click here to give us ideas on new episodes.

Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential.

email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com

Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.

Do you remember pulling a spring-loaded plunger without being told what it did? Watching a goomba walk toward you and dying without being told why? Typing "go north" into a cursor because there was nothing else to type?

So do we. The best games taught you how to play them just by existing. No tutorials. No pop-ups. No onboarding flow. Pinball did it with physics. Zork did it with a parser. Mario did it with a question mark block. The machine showed you what it was. You figured out the rest.

This episode is about fifty years of that. Coin-op arcades to twelve million monthly subscribers. Quarters in a diner to modern open worlds that sell the absence of hand-holding as a feature. The hardware changed. The business model changed. The core loop stayed the same. Here is a world. Here are the rules. Figure it out.

If you ever mailed Activision a photograph of your Pitfall score, still picture a small white house west of an open field, or held a Galaga high score at a pizza parlour long enough that you'd drop in just to check no one had knocked you off, this one's for you. And if you got eaten by a Grue, we forgive you.

We'd love to hear from you. Click here to give us ideas on new episodes.

Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential.

email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com

Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.

Do you remember green screens? Blinking cursors? Games with words instead of photo-realistic massively multiplayer open world shooter role-playing sim games?

We do too.

Zork was original. Creative. And extremely well-designed. So, this week's song is an ode to Zork. Resource management. Wandering the unknown. Maps. Frustration. Triumph. Self-evident gameplay.

See if you can catch all the Zork references.

[Verse 1]
Brass lantern on the counter
Half an hour left to burn
Mailbox near the white house
Nowhere left to turn
Words in phosphor green
You are likely to be eaten

[Pre-Chorus]
Hello sailor, hello darkness
Hello everything that waits
I can feel the Great Underground
Through the hinges in the gates

[Chorus]
Likely to be eaten
Likely to be gone
Likely to be lost before the light comes on
But I'm walking anyway
With a dying match in hand
Likely to be eaten
And I want to understand

[Verse 2]
Elven sword is glowing blue
Something's moving in the dark
Thief was here and left the trophy case
Empty as my lantern's spark
I can picture how it happens
I can see the lantern drop
Standing in the empty hall
Will I make it out at all

[Pre-Chorus]
But the cursor keeps on blinking
And the verb will come to mind
All the nouns are in the inventory
Every one I need to find
[Chorus]
Likely to be eaten
Likely to be gone
Likely to be lost before the light comes on
But I'm walking anyway
With a dying match in hand
Likely to be eaten
And I want to understand

[Bridge]
The game gave me a name
And a room I couldn't leave
I held a lantern high
To the edge of everything
Rules arrived the moment
That the silence learned to sing
I'm the one who knows the words now
I'm the one walking on

[Final Chorus]
Likely to be eaten
Likely to be gone
Likely to be lost before the light comes on
But I'm walking anyway
With a dying match in hand
Likely to be eaten
Now I understand

We'd love to hear from you. Click here to give us ideas on new episodes.

Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential.

email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com

Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.