Charlie StrossOct 4, 2024

SCREAM!

(Context for Americans: until relatively recently mains appliances in the UK came without a plug—you had to fit your own. Also they're fused and have to carry 230vac, so getting it wrong is a BAD idea. And this is Very Not Right Indeed.)
https://mastodon.ie/@iolo/113248676764884541

Iolo (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image I asked ChatGPT how to wire a standard UK plug using the new canvas feature...

mastodon.ie
Show threadPetrichor ᚄᚔᚅᚐᚁᚆᚃᚒᚔᚂOct 4, 2024
@cstross Surely not? They came with plugs unless they were imports from a different-plug country? And even that import thing was only in the relatively recent past
Show threadCharlie StrossOct 4, 2024
@sinabhfuil Nope! They came with a bare wire and you had to buy a plug and screw it together before you could plug anything in! Not just simple stuff—my first real computer (an Amstrad PCW) came that way in 1986. Pre-wired plugs only became standard in 1992.
Show thread~n
@cstross @sinabhfuil TIL. Wow. Didn’t know that. Did everybody fit the plug by themselves? Just… culturally, how did that work? Did you all have that one relative who was good at plug-fitting? Or was that something for a small niche of just-plug-electricians?
(Or is this once again me missing a joke?)
Oct 4, 2024 at 10:14pmWeb
Show threadwill-hOct 5, 2024
@nblr @cstross @sinabhfuil I remember they actually taught us how to wire a plug in Physics lessons at school. It's all rather archaic these days
Show threadPetrichor ᚄᚔᚅᚐᚁᚆᚃᚒᚔᚂOct 5, 2024
@flangey @nblr @cstross At least that was useful. If I was Minister for Education, sewing, cooking, carpentry, plumbing and electricianship would be taught to City & Guilds level in the last couple of years of primary school
Show threadAlexandra LanesOct 5, 2024
@nblr You could ask the shop to put a plug on if you couldn’t do it yourself. But it was one of the first bits of useful life knowledge my Dad taught me when I was little and I think it was just one of those things that more people learned to do back then.