What has changed since early 80’s?

[pauldw]

We had secondary regs in the seventies. Not Octos, indeed, but complete regs mounted on the second post. At those times, the usage of a twin cylinder tank was absolutely the standard. Also deco was normal, and considered fully recreational.
Tech was starting at 50 meters, which was considered the limit for rec diving in air. Deeper, it was suggested to use Heliox or Trimix. But no one was using those very expensive mixtures, so in practice air was commonly used down to 65 meters...

Italians! When your dive tradition is coming from the likes of Tesei and de la Penne and Visintini and Notari and the rest of those wild Southern boys, what are you going to have but wackiness? And guts? And more guts?!

 

[tursiops]

163, enough

Did the Windjammer in Bonaire on air...185 ft. Did it a few years later on trimix...NOTHING looked familiar!
Agreed; never again.

 

[lowwall]

Oh yeah, my pet peeve, in the 1980's, maybe in the '70's, a reg set started to be called an octopus because of the addition of the hoses for the SPG, BC inflators, and the safe second (also called an alternate second stage) as well as the primary second stage.

Somehow this has changed so today an octopus means only the alternate second stage. The picture doesn't fit the name, yet it is used constantly.

Thanks for clearing that up. I always wondered why one hose = octopus.

But I can understand why. "Safe second" is a mouthful compared to "octo".

Want to start a campaign to change it to "alto" for Alternate Second Stage? Or we could use the acronym.