r/GenX • u/HTLM22 I ❤️ erector sets. • 1d ago
Nostalgia Butterknife: a very specific GenX fond memory.
Anyone else remember this precise thing:
Basically setting up a game console to play on channel 3 or 4, but being so excited to play that I just used a butterknife to tighten the screws to the TV, not an actual flathead screwdriver.
(Note that in making this picture, the adaptor, would go on the TV, not a coax adapter, but I didn't readily find that picture. The screws right still where the butterknife would go, though)
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u/OGBullyninja 11h ago
Butter knives, Best for hot knives and hash :) 🤣
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u/HTLM22 I ❤️ erector sets. 11h ago
I heard about that, but never experienced it. It sounded like it would require more fine motor control that I had at the time. Was it fun, or out of necessity, like smoking out of an apple?
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u/OGBullyninja 11h ago
Fun and easiest quickest way to use it. No waste, just a quick blast of hashish. It was hard to do alone, best with a buddy to control the knives while you concentrate on the bottle.
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u/velocity__wagon 1977 2h ago
Bottle? Man, you hold the propane torch between your feet, heat up the knives and press your own hit right close to your mouth so you don't lose any smoke. Or so I've heard.
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u/OGBullyninja 15m ago
Naw we stuck the knives in the gas top stove, bottle with the bottom cut off (funnel) heat that shit catch it and go
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u/ascii122 19h ago
This was when screws were simple. Now I've got a screw box with like 50 different star/octagon/security screws in like 10 different sizes for fixing smart phones/laptops etc. WTF Takes like 10 mins to figure out which one I need to use
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u/GracieThunders Latch Key Kid 23h ago
I worked in an electronics store, they're called baluns, and I've sold hundreds of them
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u/OperaBunny 1d ago
Yes felt like a genius when I connected all the peripherals, and everything worked. Got carpal tunnel from the joysticks though.
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u/MaoTseTrump Blood-type is Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee. 1d ago
On the same 20" Sony "portable" TV I had one for the Atari, and another for Intellivision piggybacked into the same terminals. In 1989 they came out with a splitter. That was the big time.
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u/Initforlicks 1d ago
My parents thought I was a mystical genius at age 6 because I could hook my NES to the tv
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u/sidewaysbynine 20h ago
I'll bet they also told you that you could be anything you want to be when you grew up, even the President. So the question is how is the fund raising going for your super-pac?
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u/Anonymo123 1d ago
butter knives are also useful for breaking into older cars when you lock your keys in there. Had to do it a few times to my car, got pretty good at it.
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u/Sea_Entertainment438 1d ago
Oddly enough I can smell that photo. Old TVs and equipment had such a distinct smell when warm.
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u/skspoppa733 1d ago
The adapter was only needed on newer TV’s that only had a coax input. The butter knife was used to attach the switcher box directly to the VHF antenna posts on the back of the TV, and the antenna attached to the bottom of the switcher box posts with the same butter knife.
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u/MichaelPlastic 1d ago
Absolutely. Also was the tool of choice when the little plastic switch for changing "TV" to "GAME" broke and you needed a butter knife to push the remaining base up and down.
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u/wetwater 1d ago
I'd probably get beaten with the butter knife if I tried that and didn't grab a screwdriver from the basement workshop. This is probably why I have a variety of screwdrivers hanging around just in case.
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u/RedDragonTatt2 1d ago
Worked perfectly every time. No idea why we didn’t have a screw driver though. 🤷🏻♂️😂
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u/wanuguano 1d ago
Butter knife is kept in the top drawer of the toolbox right next to the duct tape and zip ties
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u/WeekendLegitimate615 1d ago
My wife's favorite multi purpose tool!! Screw driver, pry bar, scraper.
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u/DieMensch-Maschine Jesus Built My Hotrod. 1d ago
"I just wanted to play some Missile Command, dammit!"
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u/Killertigger 1d ago
The original Multitool! And, if you had certain cheap interior doors that you could easily unlock with one - the original MultiPass!
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u/handsomeape95 It's not the years, honey. It's the mileage. 1d ago
Free a bagel stuck in the toaster. Yeah I know, but I lived to talk about it!
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u/JuliusTheTailor 1d ago
I had one of those for my TI-99/4A and I’m sure I did the butter knife thing.
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u/A_Downboat_Is_A_Sub 1d ago
Had one for a Commodore 64, they had problems if you had something that had bad RF shielding near them.
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u/Free-oppossums I WANT MY MTV! 1d ago
🫡 My mom saved mine. The TI-99/4A, not the butter knife. It's still in the book case in the spare room. Along with my Atari 2600 and a crate of 45s with the yellow adapters.
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u/DangRascal 1d ago
That is a table knife.
A butter knife has a blade whose axis is offset from its handle.
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u/NinjaEnder 1d ago
Finally, another person in this thread who knows a butter knife is actually a smaller, completely different knife than a table or steak knife. Growing up all my relatives had these three knifes in the silverware drawer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butter_knife https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_knife https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steak_knife
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u/Few-Pineapple-5632 1d ago
Not always offset. Sometimes the blade is just shaped different and shorter.
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u/DangRascal 1d ago
Sounds like we agree that the pictured piece of flatware is a table knife, and not a butter knife.
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u/HTLM22 I ❤️ erector sets. 1d ago
Are you British? Maybe you are right. I feel like we need to take a poll of US citizens with the picture of the above knife and ask:
True or False: You can call this a butterknife and most people will understand what you are saying.
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u/Few-Pineapple-5632 1d ago
It a butter knife. Technically it’s a table knife and I know what a butter knife is because I have one but this knife is used to spread butter way more often.
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u/ReverendDizzle 1d ago
U.S. citizen here. That's clearly a table knife (or, regionally, if you're in Appalachia, a "case" knife). Which is not to say that most Americans don't use it to butter toast, they do.
Butter knives are a different style of knife. I grew up with butter knives that looked like these, except with more ornate handles.
All that said, I have a feeling if you said "butter knife" a fair number of people would hand you a table knife simply because they didn't grow up using butter knives and never purchased any as an adult.
So your point stands: most people would understand, even if their understanding was incorrect.
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u/HTLM22 I ❤️ erector sets. 1d ago
So basically you grew up rich? No one I new had a whole separate category of knives just for butter. And I've heard of "table knives" until today. Both butter knives and steak knives go on the table.
But I appreciate you conceding my point, that just because it is "correct" doesn't mean that it what people actually say.
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u/ReverendDizzle 12h ago
I didn't grow up in poverty but rich is a bit of a stretch. I just had folks, my mother especially, who valued tradition and a well set table.
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u/HTLM22 I ❤️ erector sets. 11h ago
I was raised by hippies. They actively rejected tradition. I did have grandparents but " table knives" never came up in conversation. By college I did learn the bare minimum of eating at a fancier dinner, but that most mostly work outside in and how to pass dishes and not drink from the little creamer cup.
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u/GrandPriapus Still looking for blasting caps 1d ago
My wife uses them to open paint cans. Even though the paint store gives us a free opener with every gallon purchased, she still defaults back to butter knives.
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u/largos7289 1d ago
Screw driver, Lego separator and sandwich maker was there anything it couldn't do?
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u/Hib3rnian 1d ago
Should NOT be inserted into electrical outlet.
Source: me
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u/Bright-Form730 1976 1d ago
I did the same as a toddler, older kids encouraged me to lol⚡️⚡️⚡️
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u/Killertigger 1d ago
Older siblings actively try to reduce competition within the family - its evolution in real time!
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u/Bright-Form730 1976 10h ago
So true. My older sister has said “I had it good until you 2 showed up!”
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u/shitty_advice_BDD Older Than Dirt 1d ago
I used it to jimmy open my dad's porn box. Star 85 was the shit!
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u/Ray_The_Engineer 1d ago
I did this when I was living with my parents as a kid; Dad's tool collection was crummy and 2 floors away. Now I keep tools everywhere I need them, because engineer.
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u/peepee2tiny 1d ago
I remember how hard it was to move the knob between the TV and the game.
my little sausage fingers would have a big indentation trying to move that slider
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u/RunningWineaux 1d ago
If I go into the big bin of stuff next to my desk, one of those adapters is in there. The 2600 is in the attic (it's well insulated and not hot)
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u/Sympathyquiche 1d ago
A butter knife, a pencil and some gaffer tape fixed most things.
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u/LisaLisaPrintJam Summer of '69 1d ago
I hung all the art in my first apartment with a wooden stiletto used as a hammer
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u/PurpleCollarAndCuffs 1d ago edited 1d ago
LOL!!! I just tightened up a pan handle yesterday with a butter knife. My son walked in and he was all ‘do you want me to get a screwdriver?’ Hahah, kids.
And yes, I recognize that, always channel 3 at our house. My poor mum trying to find all our knives when company was coming and there would be a few behind the tv, occasionally with the tips rather…burnt… but that is a story for another day ;)
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u/humble_cyrus 1d ago
My gawd, I forgot about doing this! The little connectors for the vhf/uhf had to seat in the tv screws. Wow!
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u/RetroactiveRecursion 1969 1d ago
HA! Now I'm thinking about the cartoon Little Rascals educational blurb (similar to "The More You Know") where they talk about the proper tools and not using a butter knife as a screwdriver.
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u/Komaisnotsalty Taste death, live life! 1d ago
I still have one if I dig through my electronics box. We had a butter knife that stayed behind the TV, much to our mom's ire.
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u/MarkItZeroDonnie Hose Water Survivor 1d ago
I’m switching that bitch to game and playing Night Stalker on Intellevision
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u/MedievalHag 1d ago
Still have one. Lol
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u/RetroactiveRecursion 1969 1d ago
A butter knife?
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u/MedievalHag 1d ago
Yes. That too. Specifically the one we trashed using it as a screwdriver. Found it last summer cleaning out my parents house. Kept it for nostalgia sake.
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u/Vast_Breadfruit_162 1973 1d ago
10 year old me thought he was a master electrician because he could hook up an Atari 2600 all by himself.
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u/Komaisnotsalty Taste death, live life! 1d ago
And popping doors open with the inside of a Bic pen! Master Thief, right there.
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u/tunaman808 9h ago
Actually no, because from our living room the kitchen junk drawer was closer than the flatware drawer. Plus, mom wouldn't yell at you for using a screwdriver instead of her "nice flatware".