Videodisc players, both those weird CED ones (which my family had 
) and laserdisc.
) and laserdisc.
Defunct technology....
- Thread starter Warped9
- Start date
You're thinking of “dip pens,” although there wasn't really a name for them before the introduction of the fountain pen. They were just called pens.
A quill pen, usually made from a goose feather, was what John Hancock used to sign the Declaration of Independence. That was even before my time.
The View-Master and the stereo slide disks for it are still produced and sold today.
View-Master
Your town must have been slow. Touch-tone phones were introduced to the public at the Seattle World's Fair in 1962, and they started appearing in homes and offices here in California in 1971 or ’72.
.But you got a great buzz from the fumes!
Yep, those of us of a certain age remember the CB radio craze. “That’s a big 10-4, good buddy. Catch ya on the flip-flop.”
Like the “portable” TVs that weighed fifty pounds and were about as easy to schlep around as a suitcase full of lead.
When I was a kid, I had an old used RCA remote-control TV in my room. The remote unit had long since disappeared, but I discovered that I could make the tuner click through the channels by seesawing a Slinky in front of the set. Apparently the Slinky gave off exactly the right sound frequency to activate the servo that spun the mechanical tuner around.
Of course, that trick won't work on any modern TV, since all TV remotes since the ’80s use infrared beams.
And remember when “transistor radios” were the latest thing? That little Sony radio in the red plastic case -- was that cool or what? It was AM only and the sound from the tiny speaker was crappy -- but it was so small! And it came on instantly, without having to warm up.
Boy, those Japanese were getting really good at making radios and cameras back then. Of course, we knew they'd never make a car worth shit.
I still watch a CRT TV with a built in VCR that works beautifully, although the Quasar brand is long defunct.
Beepers. I remember when beepers were the big thing, but banned from my Jr. High school because they supposedly implied drug dealing. You were so cool and rogue if you snuck one on campus and had your friends page you code messages from the payphone.
Custom car phones. The big black bricks with thick coil cords and a tiny primitive digital display. If you were a really big spender, a hidden speaker mounted in the roof upholstery. My mom had one in her '91 BMW.
Zip discs. I had a college instructor who insisted we turn everything in on those godforsaken expensive things, after they had gone obsolete and you couldn't find a device that would write them.
I was going to say headphone radios, but a quick Google search for an image quickly reveals they're still selling and can be had in a lot of varieties.
Compact flash cards. They're still around, but have been eclipsed by SD and other formats. I remember buying a 1GB for my student digital camera for $130 - and that was the sale price.
Polaroid slide printers. I bought one off of Ebay several years ago; they're great for making emulsion transfers.
Beepers. I remember when beepers were the big thing, but banned from my Jr. High school because they supposedly implied drug dealing. You were so cool and rogue if you snuck one on campus and had your friends page you code messages from the payphone.
Custom car phones. The big black bricks with thick coil cords and a tiny primitive digital display. If you were a really big spender, a hidden speaker mounted in the roof upholstery. My mom had one in her '91 BMW.
Zip discs. I had a college instructor who insisted we turn everything in on those godforsaken expensive things, after they had gone obsolete and you couldn't find a device that would write them.
I was going to say headphone radios, but a quick Google search for an image quickly reveals they're still selling and can be had in a lot of varieties.
Compact flash cards. They're still around, but have been eclipsed by SD and other formats. I remember buying a 1GB for my student digital camera for $130 - and that was the sale price.
Polaroid slide printers. I bought one off of Ebay several years ago; they're great for making emulsion transfers.
My 32-inch tube tv is still one of my best electronics purchases ever. It's still going strong after about 8-9 years, and the price was better than those flat-screen tvs that would have died on me within a year or two. Granted, the thing is freaking huge and needs a stand designed for a big old-style plasma tv, but it's still a great piece of machinery.
Yeah, I still write personal cheques fairly often. And the business I work for uses cheques for a lot of things because they're much better for bookkeeping purposes.
Split Flap Displays: They aren't gone yet but they no longer appear in consumer goods like alarm clocks. They have largely been replaced with various LED/LCD displays but they do have an undeniable awesomeness. I collect "flip clocks" that use them. I daily use alarm clock radio has one... it's 50 years old but it still works great.
You never had a Magnajector? Just about every kid had one of these when I was growing up.
Thanks for posting the patent drawings. I always wondered how those suckers worked!
That is also what I was referring to. I don't think they are used as much in high schools anymore (as the teachers seem to prefer Powerpoint) but I do see them used in elementary schools.
Nope. I was in LA at the time. They'd come out in the early 70's, but it wasn't until the phone company was broken up in '82 that sales of Tough-tone phones really took off. After that, the rotary phones vanished almost overnight.
And you could suddenly take your music with you. No more 50 pound "portable" radios. Your radio fit in the palm of your hand. How neat is that!?!
Oh, remember the portable 8-track player?
For that matter, when was the last time you saw a regular, everyday use 35mm camera for sale anywhere?
Mr B, your post about flip letters was fascinating.
I got this paycheck stamper from a friend who used it years ago and was going to throw it away:
I got this paycheck stamper from a friend who used it years ago and was going to throw it away:
Anyone remember when a pocket calculator had 4 functions and cost something like $100?
^^^ Not really, but I do distinctly remember spending hours trying to put program files onto floppy discs for transfer between computers running Windows 3.1, and then being silently amazed when I saw a USB drive for the first time.
They're still around, they've just been upgraded.
But they smelled great. Same thing with the photocopy machine at the library. I really miss that.
Wow, I had no idea they were still being made. That's great.
"And in 40 years there'll still be a $2 surcharge for this service despite the technology having appeared everywhere on the planet!"
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnznVNJ40Dw&feature=related[/yt]
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujjQFr2vCig&feature=related[/yt]
My grandparents still had a rotary-dial phone in the late '80s. I thought it was funny.
Something I haven't seen anyone mention here: standalone PDAs (personal data assistants.) Used to be every businessperson you saw was carrying a Palm Pilot or a Handspring Visor or something. Now, all that functionality has been integrated into smartphones so you pretty much never see standalone versions anymore.
What about answering machines? Those used to be ubiquitous, with their cute little tapes. I remember most systems had two tapes: one where you recorded your greeting, and another where messages were kept. There was something satisfying about coming home, seeing the "new messages" light flashing, and hitting the button to rewind the tape--the longer it took to rewind, the longer (and more numerous) the messages. Some models would play the tape as it rewound, so you'd hear a bunch of backwards, high-speed nonsense.
I have a feeling desktop computers will fall out of mainstream use before too long. Everybody's switching to netbooks and laptops and iPads and whatnot. It seems like desktop units will become the purview of businesses and power users. Regular Joes just don't need all that power sitting on a desktop these days.
How about rewritable optical discs? Remember CD-RW? I think that stuff just turned out to be a bit impractical, and now we have USB flash drives which let you carry around large amounts of data in a rewritable medium.
Here's another one: fax machines. Are those used for much of anything besides advertising now? Most places that used to take faxes will now take a scanned, emailed copy of the same document.
Traditional movie rentals have pretty much died out. There aren't too many places you can walk into a rental store and browse thousands of tapes/DVDs. It's all Redbox and Netflix now.
Something I haven't seen anyone mention here: standalone PDAs (personal data assistants.) Used to be every businessperson you saw was carrying a Palm Pilot or a Handspring Visor or something. Now, all that functionality has been integrated into smartphones so you pretty much never see standalone versions anymore.
What about answering machines? Those used to be ubiquitous, with their cute little tapes. I remember most systems had two tapes: one where you recorded your greeting, and another where messages were kept. There was something satisfying about coming home, seeing the "new messages" light flashing, and hitting the button to rewind the tape--the longer it took to rewind, the longer (and more numerous) the messages. Some models would play the tape as it rewound, so you'd hear a bunch of backwards, high-speed nonsense.
I have a feeling desktop computers will fall out of mainstream use before too long. Everybody's switching to netbooks and laptops and iPads and whatnot. It seems like desktop units will become the purview of businesses and power users. Regular Joes just don't need all that power sitting on a desktop these days.
How about rewritable optical discs? Remember CD-RW? I think that stuff just turned out to be a bit impractical, and now we have USB flash drives which let you carry around large amounts of data in a rewritable medium.
Here's another one: fax machines. Are those used for much of anything besides advertising now? Most places that used to take faxes will now take a scanned, emailed copy of the same document.
Traditional movie rentals have pretty much died out. There aren't too many places you can walk into a rental store and browse thousands of tapes/DVDs. It's all Redbox and Netflix now.
I agree that portability is a likely wave of the future for personal computers, but I don't like the small screen of portables. I like to work with images and other graphics media and so I prefer to have a larger display. Can't get that with a portable.
Answering machine are still available.
Answering machine are still available.
As I said, power users will still have desktops. I'm talking more about your computer-illiterate friends and relatives who never do more than watch movies, play games on Facebook, and burn the occasional DVD. They don't need a powerful desktop, and laptops are more convenient.
Answering machines may still be available but with the proliferation of voicemail and the continuing erosion of landlines, I doubt they'll be around much longer.
^ My phone still has an answering machine (though it's all digital). Can't get rid of it, because voicemail would cost me extra per month, and I have to have a landline because of my security system.
As for laptops: No way could I ever use one as my main system. The screens are too small, and I hate trackpads.
As for laptops: No way could I ever use one as my main system. The screens are too small, and I hate trackpads.
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