Obsolete Tech We Love & Miss

Technology marches ever onward, leaving drawers full of obsolete cables and boxes full of dusty devices in its wake. But we miss some of that old stuff and we bet you do too.

Polaroid Instant Cameras

Having a picture developed instantly was such a big deal. Of course, we have that exact thing now, but there was something special about bringing a Polaroid to a party and snaps to hand out instantly. Even if you weren’t actually supposed to shake them.

Cassette Tapes

There was something so pleasant about the tactile sensation of loading and unloading a cassette tape from your Walkman (or other off-brand portable cassette tape player). And if you liked listening to music while working out, you probably hung onto your cassette tapes long after CDs took over—those things skipped, after all.

Dot Matrix Printers

If you know what these are, chances are the sound has just started playing in your head. Before the days of inkjet and laserjet printing, dot matrix printers ruled the office. However, they were slow and cumbersome. Oh, and the print quality sucked. And you had to tear off the sides of your pages. If you don’t know what we’re talking about, ask the greybeard in your office. Oh, the stories they’ll tell you.

Dictaphones

Who used dictaphones? Primarily people on TV who needed to dump exposition on the audience. Sure, lots of us had them—perhaps thinking how great it would be to make audio notes or act like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone 2. But most of us never really used our dictaphones.

Nintendo Gameboy

There have been plenty of Gameboys and other handheld gaming devices, but there’s a special place in our hearts for the original Gameboy. It didn’t even have a backlight, but that’s okay. We’d stay up late playing Super Mario Land via flashlight.

iPods

The original iPod was a thing of beauty. They looked cool, were very simple in terms of design, and made it easy to carry days and days worth of music with you everywhere. Yes, every phone carries music now, but if you were a real audiophile (or very indecisive about what you wanted to play at any given second), carrying around 80GB worth of music was awesome.

Dumb Phones

What’s a dumb phone? It’s simply a cell phone from the pre-smartphone era. You know, a phone that’s just for calling and texting—no apps, no internet, no MP3 player. Yes, we know we can still buy dumb phones (and we’re tempted). But there was something wonderful about the world when you could be reached but only by phone call or text message. No email, no video calls, no built-in distraction machine—truly, the world of the dumb phone was a special one.

The Clapper

The Clapper was one of the silliest things ever invented. Basically, you plug the Clapper into an outlet then plug your electronic device into the Clapper—and presto!—your device could be turned on or off by clapping. The concept isn’t bad. It’s basically how we use smart outlets today . . . except you have to clap. Unfortunately they were sometimes activated by basically any noise and lots of people felt silly about the clapping thing. Soon, the Clapper was fodder for sitcoms.

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