From Landlines to Tamagotchis, Love Letters to Obsolete Technology
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October 3, 2023 2:36 PM PDT
I've said it often, I miss my incandescent light bulbs. The below link is a compilation of links about tech going back fifty years.
https://techsrealm.com/forums/topic/48/compacency-with-online-security/view/post_id/150
The tech we use in our daily lives today barely resembles that of 50 years ago. But some tech you might assume was obsolete never really went away. Floppy disks still power decades-old industrial embroidery machines, many healthcare professionals continue to use pagers, and fax machines remain prevalent in Japanese offices.
I can remember how much I wanted a pager. When I got into management and got my first pager, I felt so empowered and important.
October 21, 2023 1:01 AM PDTVinyl is making a comeback. Valve driven amplifiers are preferred by many. Retro gaming has a huge following.
I recall my first international call back in the 70s, called an aunt in Canada (from UK) and remember thinking there was a direct and continuous physical connection from my phone to her's in Canada. Wires from my phone to the exchange, underground cables, the transatlantic cable then wires to her phone, mind boggling really. Now it all buzzes around in the air, invisible 1s and 0s flying about everywhere.
Reel to reel tapes were maybe one of the first consumer devices that became popular, then tranny radios, video recorders (how big were they?). Remember 8 track tapes, then video cassettes. CDs, DVDs now USB keys and the cloud.
I am finding not much new is appearing, what we have gets better but not much new.
Remember when CDs and DVDs were popular? you could get printable disks, HP had a laser monochrome writer, they looked very professional. Now much is saved on the cloud, half the time with my mobile phone I have no idea where the actual files are saved, phone, SD card, cloud, mystery.
Trouble with technology is if it goes wrong, earlier this week whilst in San Diego airport I was waiting to book luggage in, as I reached the front of the queue my boarding pass would not come up on phone, rebooted etc still nothing. No mobile signal either. Let 4 people go in front of me then eventually boarding pass appears.
It is fine till it goes wrong.
Geffers
October 21, 2023 8:52 AM PDT@Geffers, I can relate to your feeling of awe when you were imagining the actual task of connecting your voice through cables to your Aunt in Canada, as I'm still in awe at from how computers work, to combustion engines, jet engines, nuclear energy/power, submarines and even the intricate ways of the internet.
I've read a number of times how vinyl is making a comeback. I can see why in many ways. Vinyl records, though a nostalgic means of listening to music et al. can bring back good memories from a past time when the world was a bit simpler and smaller, maybe? Plus, I hear that the "click-click" of a record playing has some kind of effect on some people too. I have a record player, though I haven't used it in many years, but I bought it to hear some very old records in my mom's record collection to share with my daughter the experience when she was younger.
I miss the CD's and DVD's because they were tactile. You knew you had that music or movie saved on a shelf and it wouldn't be lost in your digital library somewhere, but then the other argument would be digital doesn't take up real estate space.
I get what you are saying about new tech too....you're right, there doesn't seem too much that's coming out new on the horizon. I think once everything went digital, it's now all in your computer space saved until you want to retrieve it. Now we all have to be really organized with all of our digital data so we can retrieve it easily. Hard to do over the years if you've gone from one computer to another due to crashes or new tech replaced that old computer. Now you have data saved for decades. I do have an external hard drive, to which I'm trying to move a lot of old data too, but then that also takes time, and time just seems to always run too short for me.
Nothing like a snafu at the airport when it's time for you to board and tech fails. I'm sorry you had that hiccup but glad it worked out okay and your boarding pass appeared just in time. I really don't like when tech fails at the worst time when it's critical.
This post was edited by Web Diva at October 21, 2023 8:59 AM PDTOctober 21, 2023 11:44 PM PDTWith backs ups, whilst obviously important, I think with digital one can be a wee bit paranoid. We can end up backing up rubbish.
Apparently the advice is to follow the 3,2,1 rule of THREE copies on TWO different mediums and ONE copy off site. Maybe good advice for business and very important stuff but possible overkill for the majority.
Data on our computers is like stuff in our sheds or garages, half the time we don't know what is there.
Geffers
This post was edited by Geffers G at October 21, 2023 11:47 PM PDTOctober 22, 2023 7:39 PM PDTGood advice on back ups, thank you! I've had several computers crash on me over the past 10 years, and I would agree, I'm sure I have a fair amount of "stuff" really not needed, but the photo's are most important to keep up with and I've yet to create an easily accessible way to see all of my photos for the past twenty years. It's on my list to try and get that organized, both digital photo's and real life photo's. Then there are documents that are important too.
I like your 3,2,1 rule for business; great idea! Lol on ~
@geffers said: data in our computer's is like what's stored in our sheds.
I can totally relate to that. I've seen stuff from my old computers and I've wondered why I even have something saved.
This post was edited by Web Diva at October 22, 2023 7:39 PM PDTOctober 22, 2023 10:36 PM PDTA 13 minute video on backup options by an excellent YouTube presenter.
https://youtu.be/uEP9GTs1lZs?si=jAVGs7qlUZd-ImaM
Geffers
October 23, 2023 7:56 AM PDTGeffers G said:
A 13 minute video on backup options by an excellent YouTube presenter.
[url=https://youtu.be/uEP9GTs1lZs?si=jAVGs7qlUZd-ImaM]https://youtu.be/uEP9GTs1lZs?si=jAVGs7qlUZd-ImaM
Geffers
Thank you @Geffers! I got your link open and looking forward to viewing it. I could use some fresh ideas on back-up and storage of data.October 29, 2023 9:12 AM PDTGeffers G said: A 13 minute video on backup options by an excellent YouTube presenter. [url=https://youtu.be/uEP9GTs1lZs?si=jAVGs7qlUZd-ImaM]https://youtu.be/uEP9GTs1lZs?si=jAVGs7qlUZd-ImaM Geffers
@Geffers, finished watching the video. Well worth the time to watch and I plan to watch it again and take a few notes. I like the use of visuals that demonstrated the terms, explained, the "why's" and outlined what was important and how to do it. My take away was three to four different back-ups. Right now, I only have one external hard drive. I will make that a goal this year to improve my data storage. Thank YOU!!
This post was edited by Web Diva at October 29, 2023 9:12 AM PDT