Discussion on:

Tech gadgets we once loved but since abandoned (Photos)

Hi folks.

Many of the photos are very low quality. If you reach out for retro-enthusiast community, you'd be able to easily get better pictures and, perhaps, a broader selection.

I'm not a dork. My company won't splurge on a smart phone, so they make me wear an $11/month pager.

The slide rule always reminds me of a professional boat builder I knew. I walked into his shop one day as he was installing a traditional magnetic compass on a boat. At the time I worked for a manufacturer of digital compasses, so I asked him why he was not installing one of ours. Paraphrased, his reply was, "What happens to my ability to navigate when I am half-way across the Pacific and the batteries in your compass die?" The advantage of a slide rule over a handheld calculator is that it will always operate, as long as the user is alive and moving...no batteries.

Agreed cbeckers! My house is full of legacy read-only information storage and retrieval devices called "books." No batteries required ever, can be used to squash bugs and level up tables with broken legs, and to a visitor's eye shelves full of "books" make me look a lot smarter than I really am.

That's the best vote for real, tangible, exquisitely odoriferous books I've ever heard!

How would you camouflage your jewelry safe?
What would you hide your pistol in?
How would you press your four-leaf clovers?
How would you feed your bookworms?
What would TV networks use for a background during an interview with a person who can read?
What would you slam shut to scare the s**t out of your little sister?
One should never underestimate the value of paper bricks, especially the ones whose batteries seem to last forever.

'Wow, that is some nice pic of an old fashioned calculator! Especially cool to show the AT&T logo and the reception bars. Brings back so many old memories. I bet this antique even had one of those old built in mini nukes to power it in case the user ran out of dilithium crystals

"Long before Napster, cassette tapes were the go-to product for music swapping. Best of all, the RIAA couldn't get on your case because they couldn't track you."
Ahhh, but the RIAA did lobby Congress who imposed a tax on all blank cassette tapes to go into a fund to replace lost revenue to Musicians. I wonder if any Musicians ever got the money? The tax kept blank tape prices artificially high because it was a fixed amount per-tape. It was even applied to the special "digital" versions, which were not well suited for analog music recording, as well.

1) Dumb little things like, the cell-phone calculator. If you're going to show a pic of a calc that's become 'outdated', surely you could do better than one that you likely took of your phone just five minutes before posting the article.

2) Separate entries for walkman, cassette tapes and boomboxes. The first and third both relied on the 2nd. group them,

3) Same as above, for the phonograph and vinyl record. Without the record, the record player aka phonograph wouldn't work anyway. Though they do still do well for many DJ's.

4) Honestly, I don't even remember what the 'Flip' was, or did. Guessing pictures from the image shown. If so, guess what, should have been in with the Kodak one for handheld cameras probably.

Not really well laid our, or thought out article. Extra pay for more images/words?

People are starting to get cranky on here. I agree way too much audio and some could have been condensed, but not going to rip the writer a new one. And the Flip is greatest thing EVER

?

and now they tell us you're gone...

Come to think of it I heard Flips being mentioned (as if something new) around the time of the second TR LIVE event... short way to obsolescence, I guess.

Even though no longer used, I still have a few of these items
But how did a calculator make the list? It will never go away!

The slide ruler died because of the scientific calculator in the 70's NOT the PC in the 80's ... come on!

If you need a calculator to add 1000 + 337, as shown in the picture, then your school teachers were right, and you did not learn your maths...

about the reason for 1000+337, then you need to turn in your geek-card.

'nuf said.

Apparently you did not learn your Englishes.

in many European countries. I am from the United States, but on a website with an international audience, we must broaden beyond our American perspective. It took me quite long time before I could convince my brain that it wasn't a "mistake" I was seeing/hearing.

is the real reason the rest of the world is laughing at the US...

By 'perspective' he means ass.
Although, it's pretty broad already... he must be going for the World Record.

What reason for example. If you cannot I can only assume they're all grinning fools. Because the last I checked we're still #1 everywhere where it counts.

Firearms per capita? Quite possibly. Percentage of citizens incarcerated? Yep. Number of firearms deaths per capita? Yep. Health care spending? Yep.

But we aren't number one in:
- life expectancy.
- infant mortality.
- per capita income.
- individual health.
- personal healthcare.

Not quite sure what you think counts, but the United States is not number one in any of the categories I think counts.

What the rest of the world is laughing at is the uniquely American idea that we are the best simply because we exist...and the amount of ignorance that idea exposes when expressed.

So what's that, the gas station at the end of the street? The crick by the fishin hole, where the coon dawg keeps a swimming before hopping on y'alls bed?

Mr. Rockefeller did not see fit to put a gasoline filling station at either end of my street. I do have a river branch close by my house but I've cat, not a dog. Enjoy living in the modern world that my great country has so graciously provided the rest of the planet. You ungrateful cur.

Do you really believe the US is the only country that has contributed to all the wonderful things throughout the world? If so, you are very narrow minded.

Still chuckling

You're right, in England, where your slang tongue was dragged up from, they call it maths, as in mathematics.
Would you say you went to mathetmatic class or mathematics class? Funny , even on a US based website sees a U in colour and thinks it's a typo, the word mathematic is also a typo. The suggested spelling provided is mathematics.
So I guess you do pluralize in full form but see it as a singular activity in short. I suppose it would be a quick class if you only had to learn a single mathematic.

English is not an abbreviation, nor does it end in "s". Math is short for Mathematic. Maths is short for Mathematics and is universally used in England where English originated! 'nuf said?

Then no one make fun of me if I ever use y'all!

Not that I ever will.
I will broaden my view now.

NT:>)

between "y'all" and "all y'all".

And you should know it.

Funny how that word doesn't exist and yet is used in short by Americans, just like many words 'mercuns made up because they were too hooked on phonics to learn the three R's, Readin', Ritin' and Rithmatic, from one of them thar fancy books.

Some banks still rely on modem connections for transactions, so I have the noise 'round the corner and can still here it once in a while. We sell tickets for the audience.

Dang, you just took me on a tour of my own house!

COMPLETELY AGREE! It is this generations 8mm and those things lasted forever.

I remember most of those. I still have a real TV set similar to the one they show. Actually one like that one shown and a big true flat screen TC set, not the wall hanger type. Weighs about 150 pounds too! Too bad you don't have pix of a trash80 color computer, a commodore 64, or an old atari game system.

I've still got a pager but it isn't connected to anything - It's been modified to look like a Star Trek (series 1) Type I phaser.

The old bakerlite phone also has new innards so it can talk to a digital exchange (only receives calls though - couldn't be bothered to build a DTMF dial tone converter)

One is doing a presentation on his pretend business selling old gaming systems. Somehow Gamecube is old, that was scary enough. He has Trash80 with the Cassette System as his "Antique", and a student asked "what is a cassette tape?"
The world has come to an end...

I was taking Trig in the 70s and never saw a slide rule. Don't know how to use one if I did. I think Texas Instruments killed it off before I came along