Random obsolete technologies to reminisce about

Looks more like they sat around unused until the battery burned a hole in itself and started eating the case.

A magneto-optical drive.

Slow (but so were ‘zip drives’ that were much more popular) but ultra-reliable media.Now if I only still had a SCSI port somewhere…

Hey that reminds me, I’ve got a USB Zip drive around somewhere, I bet it still works!

If you find one I’m sure I have a bunch of terminating resistors in stock.

I used this horrible early 2k looking thing to plug my Jaz to my USB only Macs.

Syquest drives… no, I don’t have a good memory of those things.

Why not? If you choose carefully, you may be able to fit two or even three GIFs on one!

anyone remember reading the newspaper for movie showtimes?

I’m not that old to be able to remember newspapers.

This keyboard being pointed by @ArmandoPenblade is still a work in progress and you are joining a “group buy”, a Kickstarter or some sort… so, isn’t it better to wait until it is completed first?

The first interest check was done in July 2015. Then the group buy started in Jan 2016

While the project seemed to be going fine but slow, it is still a prototype. I was considering it myself last year, but at that premium price, I rather wait until this prototype is delivered and it works.

Of course, supporting a entrepreneuring idea is always a valid choice of drawing one’s wallet too …

I also saw The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eight Dimension when it came out in a theatre. I knew when to go by looking in a newspaper.

Certainly. Also, there used to be these things called “phone books” that were used for something other than pro-wrestlers demonstrating their strength.

I uncovered an old county grid-map the other day while cleaning out the storage room. My daughter was absolutely entranced by the concept of looking for a road name in the index, then going to page 14 and trying to find the road on grid coordinate “B13”.

“Daddy, how could you do this while driving?”

Then I had to explain to her the concept of planning ahead and figuring out what your destination was before getting into the car, writing out the turn-by-turn directions, etc.

I saw Henry VIII in the Globe Theater in 1613. We listened to the town crier to find out the time.

I remember the sense of wonder I felt when I discovered the ‘blue pages’. The beginning of the phone book there was a blue section that held government agency phone numbers. It felt so official, so powerful. Wow, contact information for the Federal Department of Regulating Things That Needs Regulating!

Ugg bang rocks. Hear from cave.

“Thorg!! Want go watch shadows on cliff wall? It start sundown!”

The random anniversary posting on the hole punch reminded me that I used to own one of these:

by Brad, on Flickr

Those 5-1/4" floppy disks sure were expensive when you’re a poor student. And despite buying disks that were identified as single sided, I never had a problem converting them to double-sided with a disk notcher.

Today someone would probably give a TED talk about this as a life hack. Back then we were all just, dude the disk has two sides! Just clip a notch to get to the other side!

That was an essential piece of equipment back then. As was this for C-64 owners like me:

epyx

I have an old typewriter too, but mine has a shell you use to close it. Problem is I can’t figure out how to open it…I’d love to have it working.