Vintage Technologies

As I was driving to the Y this morning I heard a report on how offices are changing.  This report said that in the next few years telephones and fax machines would be obsolete.  I guess that means desk phones will be gone, and everything will be done on cell phones.  Because of scanning, fax machines will be gone too.  This story got me thinking about how many technologies that were once thought of as cutting edge, are now obsolete.  Here are a number of examples. 

One of the  best examples is the typewriter.  When I graduated high school, my parents bought me a beautiful Smith Corona portable electric typewriter for college.  I was thrilled.  Today a college freshman will most likely take a laptop computer and an I Pad.  Nothing less.  Go try to buy a typewriter today.  That's not easy.  Here are a list of other items that we couldn't live without in the 1970's and 1980's and are now gathering dust in the garage.

8 m/m handheld camera, Betamax (1970's),  boombox (1970's), VHS (1980's) laser disc, cassette transistor, cassette tapes, reel to reel tape recorder, calculator watch, Wang calculators, walkman, discman, led watches, TV watch, wrist computer, and calculator watch.

How about the Apple Newton?  It was one of the worst marketing failures ever, yet it was a personal digital assistant, a precurser to the I Pad.  I guess they recovered from the failure of the Newton. 

A few other technologies that have gone by the wayside include massive mainframes.  I remember Ron's accounting office in the 1980's.  They had one huge room that was just for the computers.  Everything was so large and bulky.  The telex is another technology that is gone.  When I got into the travel business in the 1980's, we used telex to send messages to Europe.  This was time consuming, and frankly, you never knew if it would work or not.  Now, everything is instantaneous, done by e-mail.  What a difference. 

Of course we no longer have the phonograph or turntables either.  I guess there are a few old ones still out there, but most of them are gone.  A few years ago I gave my old record collection to my daughter-in-law Deborah.  She had an old phonograph and still loved to play records.  A blast from the past, but the sound is so much better on the current technology. 

These are just some of the many technologies that are gone.  One final one, and one of my favorites is the Polaroid camera.  In its day there was nothing more amazing.  Everyone wanted the instant gratification of seeing a picture develop before their very eyes.  Now, we have have digital phones and camera phones.  What can be more instant than that?  I was at Bull Taco for lunch yesterday, took a picture of the beautiful view, and within seconds had sent the picture to a dozen people I thought my enjoy it.  Times have really changed, and what we think is fantastic today, will fade.  I don't know what  will replace our current technologies, but I do know for sure that it will probably be something we haven't even imagined.