Yesterday when travelling by bus to the railway station I was musing over this thread in my mind. Of course during the trip we passed many service stations selling petrol [Gas], all of course self service now.

Back when I was a kid late 1940's I lived on a highway, only 30 Km [18 Mile] west of Sydney central business district. As I have said previously it was an agrarian locality - poultry farms with some market gardens growing vegetables. It was a two lane highway and it went up and over a hill. The highway was, and is the only main road out to the centre of my state. At the top of the hill was an olden day service station which sold petrol [Gas], oil and did mechanical repairs.

If you needed fuel the operator hand pumped up the required number of gallons of petrol to a reservoir at the top of the bowser. It was then gravity fed into your vehicles petrol tank. For the convenience of customers there was an identical bowser on the opposite side of the highway. Customers simply pulled over to the side of the road for service.

The technology? A hand pump, and a visual graduated scale on the upper reservoir. Simple, yet effective and provided employment.

Highway speed limits those days? If the area had street lights [an incandescent light bulb] the speed limit was 30 mph [50 Kph].

In the early 1960's that two lane highway became a six lane highway, and in the early 1990's they put in a six lane freeway running parallel to the highway just behind our original 2,200 feet deep property. Both with an 80 Kph [50 mph] speed limit. At peak hours today? You're at a crawl...

Progress?

My best memory of those days? The service station owners son always saw me safely across the highway, once there he always bought me a penny ice cream cone - today that is the now non-existent one cent. Sometimes it might have only been only a half-penny ice cream.

Yes, I'm an old geezerette? I'm 59.

I lived in a large town at the time (not a city), and when I called the phone company (GTE) they asked what city was closest to me, then gave me a short list of 3 to choose from. I chose the one that was physically closest, and they gave me a number to enter for the dial-up connection...

I remember when I first checked out internet providers. Connection was by a long distance number and I thought **** that!
A year or so later there was one that provided a local number and a 1p per minute premium. I decided to be a bit more discerning about my usage after the first phone bill. Soon after freephone numbers and data based charging came in but that original dial up was a handy back up as service providers could be a bit flaky in those days.

...the horse followed him down the street

I saw a horse once. Tried to pet it and got bit.

I remember typing computer input on an 029

I used the 026s in the USAF in Saigon in the mid 60s; data punch cards... a real PITA.