What older technology have you used?

[IglooDame]

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

Er, wut? SMS runs over the same tower freqs as voice, AFAIK (but I beg to be corrected). Maybe you mean that the protocol has higher precedence (and far less bandwidth utilization) than voice calls, so in times of emergency legit text messages are far more likely to get through than voice calls or "cellular data"?

 

[Core Imposter]

Other things that aren't on the list:

Hammer and nail (as in before air guns)
Hand saws- carpentry
Hand drills- carpentry
Aluminum siding
Wood stoves as primary heat source.
Coal chimneys as primary heat source (Granny)
Outhouse (Aunt) yes, a wooden outhouse with a hole in the ground
Washing machine with the roller on top to wring out the clothes. (Granny)
Well on the back porch with a bucket and rope to pull it up (Granny)
Cane poles for fishing
Oars as the only propulsion
Hands (for cow teats)
Steamer trunk
Manual typewriter
Roll top desk, filing cabinets, paper
Oh, here is a good one - a party line where you can just pick up the phone and hear your neighbors talking (Granny)
A blackjack, police issue, used
A bowl and pitcher (instead of a sink) Granny's guest bedroom

Probably a lot more I can't think of.

Edit; the link between typewriters and computers: the word processor. Had these little cartridges to save stuff on.

 

[Core Imposter]

I am absolutely gob smacked at how few of you used pagers. I wore two for years and years.

Here is another one to put on the list: the original brick cell phones.

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

Er, wut? SMS runs over the same tower freqs as voice, AFAIK (but I beg to be corrected). Maybe you mean that the protocol has higher precedence (and far less bandwidth utilization) than voice calls, so in times of emergency legit text messages are far more likely to get through than voice calls or "cellular data"?

I do believe they operate on a different set of towers, which are fewer in number, but the reception range is greater.
plus pagers have much more battery life than cell phones.
Medical centers must still use these things for a reason or so I've heard...

 

[Gori the Grey]

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

We'll take this over to the Bible thread, but what's your proof text for this?!

 

[Birdjaguar]

Other things that aren't on the list:

Hammer and nail (as in before air guns)
Hand saws- carpentry
Hand drills- carpentry
Aluminum siding Parent's house
Wood stoves as primary heat source. And cooking too
Coal chimneys as primary heat source (Granny)
Outhouse (Aunt) yes, a wooden outhouse with a hole in the ground
Washing machine with the roller on top to wring out the clothes. (Granny)
Well on the back porch with a bucket and rope to pull it up (Granny) Not on the back porch though.
Cane poles for fishing
Oars as the only propulsion
Hands (for cow teats) Goats not cows
Steamer trunk
Manual typewriter
Roll top desk, filing cabinets, paper
Oh, here is a good one - a party line where you can just pick up the phone and hear your neighbors talking (Granny) 8 party line
A blackjack, police issue, used
A bowl and pitcher (instead of a sink) Granny's guest bedroom

Probably a lot more I can't think of.

Edit; the link between typewriters and computers: the word processor. Had these little cartridges to save stuff on.

We have used/owned most of these too.

 

[Remorseless1]

My grandmother had an old Motorola record player with a crank on the side to power it up. She had a couple of old "records," two-inch thick pad under the vinyl. It still worked! We could listen to Caruso or Woody Guthrie on it.

Also...standard transmissions on vehicles? Calculators?

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

I still use an older Swingline stapler from the '40s at work, with the bigger hammer thing on it.
The more common newer ones just can't staple as many papers as the older ones.

 

[elmurcis]

Using axe (probaly some 15-ish years old now) to split my wood (for 2 wood stoves in house) and wheelbarrow (aluminium 2-wheeler, made in 1977) to carry it home. And battery chainsaw to cut trees (for balance)
Floppy discs are still in storage for Solar eclipses

 

[IglooDame]

I do believe they operate on a different set of towers, which are fewer in number, but the reception range is greater.
plus pagers have much more battery life than cell phones.
Medical centers must still use these things for a reason or so I've heard...

Nope. I just did a quick review (for a decade I was a network engineer at a cellular reseller so this was adjacent to my day job), and same as the voice network up through 4G but for 5G it's over cellular data; in either case it's the same towers/freqs. See below for the helpful diagram, I can try to remember enough to explain most of the components.

The medical centers may well still have usage because as I said SMS is more reliable and will continue to function even when one can't get a voice call through. But worth noting that, while it's more reliable, it's far more difficult to do end-to-end encryption.

 

[Kaushad]

I was watching a Twitch/YouTube dramatised roleplay show and one of the plot points was that the characters acquired a small archive of old records. Some of them were on floppy disk, which they treated as a problem that would require some sort of antique technology specialist.

The cheek of it. I don’t think I’ve used a floppy disk in going on 20 years but peripheral readers are on sale on the internet.

Still, I would like to say that according to my second hand knowledge, pagers were for drug dealers.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Still, I would like to say that according to my second hand knowledge, pagers were for drug dealers.

Yes, they were, but business people used them too especially if one was out of the office and working.

 

[danjuno]

Does playing on the computer at a friend's house who had dial-up count?
I had VHSs, DVDs, and even a few cassettes as a kid.

 

[GenMarshall]

I am absolutely gob smacked at how few of you used pagers. I wore two for years and years.

I’ve only seen them being used by people within the medical field. Even growing up, beepers were a rare sight.

 

[Akka]

Every single one save the beeper/pager.
Damn I'm old.

 

[Zardnaar]

All of them except home video and pager/beeper.

 

[stfoskey12]

Used:
Push button phone
TV antenna and cable box
VCR (my parents still have VHS tapes lying around, but haven’t watched them for over a decade)
Film movie camera (only used a few times, but had fun with it when I was about eight)
Audio cassette tape (was a young kid, but my family still had them, and they had them in my elementary school)
Dial-up modem (my mom had dial-up until I started middle school)
Film camera (not sure if this counts, it was mostly my family taking pictures of me)

Didn’t count:
(Electric) typewriter, as I only used it for purely novelty purposes
Record player, as I’ve only listened to records a few times and never operated the device myself
I’ve seen floppy disks and rotary phones but never used them

I was born in 1998 for reference.

 

[amadeus]

Oh, amadeus, you forgot 8 track cassettes

Good call on that one! I added it with a [+] at the bottom. Some folks won’t come back and update their lists so it may skew any poll results, if we’re conducting this ”scientifically,” which I‘m not.

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

It is a bit of a niche item.

But sometimes it also feels to me as though the newer technologies do less.

Once AOL started making CDs, that was the end of my free supply of 3.5” disks.

Calculators?

I would sooner say mechanical adding machines if I was going to update the poll again, but I kind of stopped around 1960. I doubt anyone here has ever ridden in a steam car or used a punchcard loom.

The cheek of it. I don’t think I’ve used a floppy disk in going on 20 years but peripheral readers are on sale on the internet.

Well over a decade ago now but at an old job we were not allowed to use USB sticks for some computers so documents had to be transferred via floppy disk.

 

[danjuno]

Best Buy announced they're dropping physical disc sales for movies and TV next year. Not exactly stoked for physical media disappearing from the market entirely, since streaming services can pull stuff you already paid for form circulation at any time.

 

[Arwon]

I handled a cheque as payment while working in a super market one time