What older technology have you used?

[amadeus]

Assume in some capacity greater than infrequent or use-in-passing. Sorry if the list is a little jumbled!

 

[GenMarshall]

People look at me like if I had three heads when I tell them that I used these guys in the past:

 

[r16]

12 . Not in person for the majority but saw them in action as in used by others and whatever . This is naturally acceptable , as in my status as a Luddite or whatever that is .

also post #10800 and still alive and la la la .

 

[Gori the Grey]

Almost all of them.

Most of them don't seem like "older technology" to me; they seem like wondrous technological advances.

My first computing, in junior high, used punch cards. And that felt like a wondrous technological advance over what you could do before punchcard computing.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I've used most of them.

 

[Farm Boy]

I used three of those this week.

5.25" floppies make for hilarious danger mouse frisbees.

 

[Somebody613]

I see there's a lot of living dinosaurs here. *Makes a triumphal Somebodysaurus Rex noise*

 

[CKS]

I have used all of them. I still use on a daily basis:
push button telephone
TV antenna

Things that should have been listed that I have used:
8" floppy disk
computer punch cards
computer paper tape

Of course I still use lots of even older technology, like pens and pencils.

 

[lymond]

I was surprised that I've used all of them at least once, although the really old stuff more as a novelty or as my parents had them...like tape reels or computer cassettes. However, most stuff I've owned in some form or fashion in the past, or at least used some in my youth...like at Granny's house.

I'm surprised not more votes for pagers/beepers as their extinction was not that long ago, if really at all....I think they are still in use in some regards. Some restaurants technically have a version of them.

Of course I still use lots of even older technology, like pens and pencils.

What are these mystery relics you speak of?

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

I picked push button phone, cable box, VCR, audio cassette, 3.5” floppy, dial up, and film photography. Especially the phone/cable/VCR/dial up/cassette were prominent; I can still hear those awful sounds connecting to the internet over the phone line and then the AOL voiceover.

We actually used floppies in the math and science center I went to in high school, which everyone thought was wild, because by then CDs and DVDs were well in vogue; they just got even less funding than our normal public schools and so were on some really old equipment. Which sure made programming class interesting.

Film photography was tough too, I definitely grew up around it, but my actual first camera that I owned was in 2006 and was digital. I decided to still vote for it because all of our years of holiday and vacation family photos previous to that were on film.

I am into retro computers as an adult, like, the kind that existed before I was born, so as an adult I have now experienced 5.25” floppies and computer cassettes, but I figured “adult hobby” doesn’t qualify. Same with a record player; I bought my first one in like 2017. Technically my parents did have one in our childhood home but they had very much moved onto cassettes entirely by the time I was born and CDs not long after, so I cannot recall it ever being used.

 

[amadeus]

I have technically used most of them but I only checked the ones I would consider frequent enough to say they were a part of my life.

Things that should have been listed that I have used:
8" floppy disk
computer punch cards
computer paper tape

I thought about adding 8” disks but they weren’t even around for that long in the private sector (though missile command used them until like 2015.)

Most of them don't seem like "older technology" to me; they seem like wondrous technological advances.

They’re great and all but in a lot of instances there are other newer technologies that have the capacity to do more in less time and at less cost.

Like cameras before digital cameras. Do you take an extra picture or just hope that the first one turns out okay? There’s some stuff that was simpler, but some of the stuff I’m glad is gone.

 

[lymond]

Oh, amadeus, you forgot 8 track cassettes

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

This forum rules because everywhere else online I feel like a geezer but here I can feel young again.

 

[Kyriakos]

Poll doesn't have trigonometric (solar) clock :/

 

[Gori the Grey]

They’re great and all but in a lot of instances there are other newer technologies that have the capacity to do more in less time and at less cost.

Oh, there's no doubt about that. We are living through an era of astonishing technological progress.

But sometimes it also feels to me as though the newer technologies do less. In the era of 3.5 inch floppy disks, I developed an elaborate system for storing my various documents. The disks came with stick-on labels of various colors and I developed a color-coded system for sorting them into groups that made sense to me. The tangibility of those disks made my documents feel more cohesively organized than any merely on-screen system I've since developed.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Never used pager, computer cassette, or reel to reel tape recorder.

Home movie camera would also be on there, but in high school had a class where took one home for a few days to make a video so i count it.

 

[Core Imposter]

I've used them all.

The rapid advance of technology is one of the signs that we are nearing the end times btw.

 

[lymond]

Poll doesn't have trigonometric (solar) clock :/

or abaci ....seriously, we did have them in school when I was young...I bet they still do

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

Pagers are still quite useful. Totally different frequency than cell phones which could be intentionally jammed by authorities during emergencies

 

[IglooDame]

I had such a good boomerish run going, but you got me on the reel-to-reel tapes.