You would probably all
agree that we’re living in the golden age of technology! Devices are all ultra-thing
and portable, fitting right in our pockets and networks are as fast as ever… It’s
simply amazing. However, if you think about it, there were a couple of
computers and gadgets in the past that were utterly fantastic in their day.
Here’s a list of the gadgets that we miss the most, even though we’d
probably never ever use them again!
Original iPod
It was announced in October 2001 and the first
iPod held 1000 songs on its 5GB
internal hard drive. The five buttons on the front were good enough then, but
the later versions did get a scroll wheel and then a click wheel to replace
even the buttons. It was simply a revelation to be able to move your whole
music collections from CDs or all those illegally downloaded MP3s to your iPod
and carry it with you anywhere! The original iPod was like a high-tech
SonyWalkman and it will always hold a place in every music lover’s heart.
Motorola Flip Phone
They weren't the first company to have a flip phone, but
Motorola introduced
the StarTAC in 1996 and the world responded. Sixty million StarTACs were sold!
Maybe it was so popular because of its size and weight and the fact that it
would accidentally pocket dial someone. Motorola had even more sales with the
thing
Razr line of flip phones. Slab phones like the
iPhone are great and all,
but flipping open a phone will always feel really cool.
Atari VCS/2600
In the 1970s and 1980s there were these cool things call “arcades” where you
could stand for hours with your friends and play video games on coin-operated
machines. Another option was to go home and play many of those same games on
your TV screen using the first great home gaming console –
The Atari VideoComputer System. Today’s game consoles are cool, but you can never beat the old
school wood veneer on black plastic like Atari perfected.
Polaroid Camera
The Polaroid Camera launched in 1948, by the 60s it was a household name. There
have been many models, like the popular
SX-70/Time Zero, which still has a huge
following; the famous
Polaroid Swinger and the more modern
Captiva or
Joycam
models that used rectangular film/prints. It is literally impossible to pick a
perfect Polaroid, but the face is that we miss instant camera and having to
shake the prints dry to reveal the images!
CDs and DVDs
For many years, floppy discs were the portable storage media for the computer
age, then came the writable compact disc! It wasn't magnetic and with low
capacity, but it could hold 700MB! DVDs only made them more attractive, as they
could hold so much more at the same physical size. It’s not to say that the CD
and DVD are dead, when it comes to storage you can certainly still buy plenty
of them. But as more and more computer makers stop building in players and
embrace downloads for software installs and we look to the cloud for external
storage needs, there is less and less use for CDs.
Typewriter
You probably only see them on old school movies these days, but the typewriter
was very important to the written word. Those clanking, ultra-responsive keys
are why so many computer users today still won’t type on anything else than a
clanking, ultra-responsive keyboard! For those of us who learnt to type on an
IBM Selectric, the experience becomes almost addictive, but then so does the
act of sliding in a new piece of paper and placing your fingers in the home
row.
There no way we could
ever compare the cellphones of yesteryear with today’s smartphones and ever thin
the past comes out ahead! Technology is only getting better with time, so why
do we feel such a longing for these great old gadgets.
Contact us at
The Computer Guyz in Cape Town or Centurion for all your IT needs, from general IT support and repairs to website hosting and just some friendly advice!
Written By: Christine Romans
CopyWriter at The Computer Guyz Cape Town
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