Help with Description for those who remember the 1970s

619 Views 14 Replies 14 Participants Last post by 13893, Feb 4, 2013

LG Castillo

Discussion Starter · Feb 4, 2013

In one chapter of my book, I'm describing a character looking at the flight and arrivals board at an airport. The problem I'm having is that the scene takes place in the late 1970s (around 1977) and I don't know who the boards were like back then. Could you all take a peak at my description below and let me know if it makes sense given the time period of the scene?

Lash peered at the screen, confused, his hazel eyes scanning the arrivals and departures board in the Houston International Airport.

“1724. 1724,” he muttered. Flight numbers, cities, and arriving gates flickered in and out. “Damn it. How do you read this thing?”

(some content skipped here)

“Where is your plane, little one?” he muttered. He looked back up, and the numbers “1724” popped onto the screen.

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telracs

· #2 · Feb 4, 2013

I wouldn't call it a screen. It would have been an arrivals board. Imagine it looking like an old fashioned ball park scoreboard, with boxes where letters/numbers would flip.

and my suggestion actually would be to goggle it, as i know that some of the boards ended up in museums.

MegHarris

· #3 · Feb 4, 2013

Yeah, I think scarlet's right. I was a kid in the seventies and I don't really remember airports, but the screens with the flights popping on and off are dependent on fairly sophisticated computers. I imagine it was more mechanical and less electronic in the seventies.

Gwen Hayes

· #4 · Feb 4, 2013

I seem to remember TV screens....but I can't remember if that was 70s or early 80s.

ETA: I am talking about the old TVs, too. The huge cubes.

JumpingShip

· #5 · Feb 4, 2013

Also, in the movie Airplane, they show those boards in the scene where they announce the gate the plane will be at...and then the next gate...and the next.

Sapphire

· #6 · Feb 4, 2013

Definitely mechanical and not electronic.

Karl Fields

· #7 · Feb 4, 2013

My family moved to Houston in the mid 70s (it was Houston Intercontinental, not International, back then). I'm pretty sure flight info was displayed on black and white monitors with blocky white type.

vrabinec

· #8 · Feb 4, 2013

Really depends on the airport and what part of the 70's By the late 70's a lot of airports like Laguardia and Pittsburgh had monitors with what I remember being either white ore green lettering. Early 70's, most of them were either flip type like someone said above, or they had a board with holes and behind it they had decagon wheels on rods with 0-9 on them and they spun the numbers. Not sure if that was done electronicaly or manually, though.

Terrence OBrien

· #9 · Feb 4, 2013

That's when a lot of airports were transitioning from mechanical boards to video.

The older boards were huge things hanging from the ceiling. Each character position on the screen had a stack of cards behind it. Each card contained a letter or number. They would "fan" to the right number, then stop. The boards updated regularly, and you could watch the whole thing flicker as each position on the board fanned through its letters before stopping on the right one. You could also hear the flickering and fanning. Some of the same technology was in alarm clocks that can be found at Goodwill stores.

A picture's worth a thousand words.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4mZAseM6GU

B.A. Spangler

· #10 · Feb 4, 2013

MaryMcDonald said:
Also, in the movie Airplane, they show those boards in the scene where they announce the gate the plane will be at...and then the next gate...and the next.

One of the first things I thought of.

Watch that or any of the Airplane disaster movies from the seventies.

telracs

· #11 · Feb 4, 2013

Anne Frasier said:
If you remember the 70s, you weren't there.

i thought that was the sixties.....

George Berger

· #12 · Feb 4, 2013

Most airports probably had electro-mechanical signs. This is a newer example, but shows the technology fairly well.

Not that they always worked well...

New Scientist, Feb. 1973

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H. S. St. Ours

· #13 · Feb 4, 2013

I remember them clearly. They were like the old clock radios -- the ones that flipped over the numbers -- if you remember them. There was a distinctive clattering noise, too, when they updated.

JRTomlin

· #14 · Feb 4, 2013

Karl Fields said:
My family moved to Houston in the mid 70s (it was Houston Intercontinental, not International, back then). I'm pretty sure flight info was displayed on black and white monitors with blocky white type.

I remember traveling about that time and there were definitely things that looked like monitors at least in larger airports.

13893

· #15 · Feb 4, 2013

It's been a while since I watched this, but I think there were a lot of scenes in the terminal. It's a drama (melodrama!) so It might be fairly accurate http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065377/

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