What's your favorite obsolete tech?

I just gave away my last ZIP drive (a “newer” 250M drive). Back in the day, this thing was like a portable hard disk! I remember buying it used as a youngster to take down to the library, as they had an internet connection. I would plug it in and grab as much stuff as I could in one weekly haul, vs. the boxes of floppy’s I had previously been shuttling back and fourth. :stuck_out_tongue: :stuck_out_tongue: PKZIP was THE tool to have, back then.

I miss my Epson FX-80 wide-carriage printer. That thing shook the HOUSE when it printed! Had an Epson Apex 100/20 sporting a 20MB hdd. (And I didn’t think I could ever fill it up!) I don’t mess setting up CMOS via dipswitches, though. I don’t miss hdd controller cards. I don’t miss 300 baud modems. I don’t miss CGA graphics. (ok… maybe I KINDA do some days. :stuck_out_tongue: The Cyan and Magenta always struck me as very… Miami Vice).

What’s crazy is, with all of those ‘hurtles’ back then, I had it good as a youngster compared to the foundations that were built on before I came on the scene. Glad I never had to mess with punch-cards, vacuum tubes, power-surges, and Actual-Pysical BUGS getting into the computers, shorting things out.

… and I will always miss WinAmp. :smiley:

1 Like

i miss my old palm z22 pda. my friends dad helped me put doom on it. i ran that thing into the ground. one of my fondest memories was staying up all night at my friends house and playing doom with him.

1 Like

Palm PDA’s were absolutely awesome! I had the m105 and still can’t believe how LONG that thing ran on just two AAA batteries. It played a version of SimCity I remember, as well as an Interactive Fiction interpreter. Playing Zork, or whatever it was, via graphitti was SUCH an interesting exercise, it ruined my handwriting for the rest of my life. My poor wife had to learn graphitti to read any notes I type in a hurry. :smiley:

1 Like

After the palm i had a Dell Axim 5. i used that through high school in conjunction with my alphasmart 3000 the school gave me because my handwriting was so bad.

My favorite obsolete tech has got to be a spiral-bound paper notepad, which I use as my calendaring system. Very low tech, but it’s arguably technology none the less.

1 Like

We still have a calendar on the kitchen wall. Would that count as obsolete tech? :slight_smile:

3 Likes

The human brain. It’s been replaced by smartphones.

2 Likes

640px-SGI_O2-IMG_7208

My dad’s work computer in his office that was off limits to me and my brother–an SGI O2. He used to play silly graphics demo programs for us that we thought were so cool at the time :smile:

Ah, good times…I bet that thing is still hidden under a bunch of stuff somewhere in their basement. Will have to prepare for a little search next time I visit :laughing:

1 Like

Sharp Wizard oz-770
SHARP-WIZARD-OZ-770-3MB-ORGANIZER-w-BACKLIGHT

I still have mine, but since I don’t know of anyway to hook it up to a Linux computer to transfer the data back and forth, I don’t use it anymore. It was my favorite PDA of all of them, although I probably got just a little more use out of the Handspring Edge because there were more apps available for it.

My house was built in the '70s, and we have a functioning radio/intercom. Every room except for bathrooms and closets has a speaker/mic, including the garage and back patio. While the radio has functioned my whole life, my dad only recently repaired the intercom piece. We also pulled the RCA cable intended for a phonograph out of the wall and put a 3.5mm adapter on it so that we can pipe music through the house from a phone or MP3 player, though I’m now wondering why we haven’t hooked up a Volumio box… :thinking:

1 Like

Old school terminal: “cool-retro-term”:

2 Likes

I would have to say that my favorite obsolete tech would be the following (which I still have):

  • Nintendo (NES) with Duck Hunt Gun & Power Pad
  • Sega Genesis
  • Iomega ZIP Drive
  • Sony Walkman & Discman
  • Original Wolfenstein 3D (the complete series) on 3.5 inch Floppy Disks.
1 Like

Only if firearm ‘sights’ counts as a rudimentary cousin of Augmented Reality. :stuck_out_tongue: