I just read through this which features quite a few of the gadgets we love http://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/tech...ern-generations/ss-AAssWwo?ocid=ientp#image=1 I certainly disagree with some things on the list. My fixed landline - using the phone cable installed when the Bungalow was built in 1974, is delivering my 77MBit/s broadband connection (as checked five minutes ago) .
Good question Longman. I confess to still having a landline phone. (came in handy when we had the 2003 blackout. 55 Million people without power at the same time...we still had power to the phone!) Of course we could only phone other landline users. Cassettes-absolutely still use them VCR-Still have it but it's a paperweight in the stereo stack now. It was a top model in it's hey day. Pagers-My workplace still uses them for alarm notifications. Fax machine as well for emergency use (as well as CB radio!) They use this stuff now in case our Fiberopyic backbone network goes out and we need to communicate across the city with Emergency personnel. Calculators-Still use them a lot at work. When you need a sew quick calcs on the fly they are left beside the equipment in case the computer fails (which it does often) Question is when I watch my kids with their bluetooth speakers, will the end of the HI-FI soundsytem go the way of the Dodo bird? Decent speakers and amplifiers are not something my kids care about. Give them a cordless speaker and they're happy with crap sound as long as it's loud. How about some thought's on what's popular now but will eventually be phased out? Bank cards? E-Readers? Mother In Laws?---I can dream can't I
I hope your mother-in -law is not a member of STG as if she is you might be obsolete as well !!!! By the way ,we also have a land line with a phone in several rooms and also a video player and a reel to reel Akai which I love Long live old technologies
Let's see if on what will be eBay at that time, we'll be able to see "RARE : Vintage Iphone 7, 30 years old, fully working, perfect condition, battery still holding charge"
At the same time there will be loads at the car boots sales. “Wont charge, won’t switch on, uses one of those old Simms which you can’t get any longer and isn’t compatible with 8G networks or the latest Itunes” In contrast a larger proportion of cassette players and CD players might still be working.
I think the $15 in gold and platinum in the phones will be more appealing. We have a few companies up here that love old circuit boards, they throw them in a vat of acid and the precious metals are all that's left...
Very nice Risingsunproject! You know the roots of S2G go back to the pocketcalculator website, I think that's how I first discovered this forum. I've got a box full of them around here somewhere, some pretty cool TIs and really old Casios. I used to find them all the time for .99 USD but I haven't seen a good one for years.
Unfortunately i do not know the story of that website i read about it only in here. Not something concrete only words like "back in the day" and "in the days of pocketcalculator"
I'm not exactly sure but around 2000-2002 the pocket calculator site was pretty cool place to check out old vintage calculators, they also had the boombox/Walkman Side, it's all still up. They put together a forum to talk about this stuff when most people were just throwing it out and the S2G Forum was born. http://pocketcalculatorshow.com/
While I can't confess to using all of my 'obsolete' technology everyday, all of the stuff I own is pretty much in working condition. There is just something about old tech that just works for me, I can't explain it but I'm sure all of you on here get what I mean? I too would love to know how much of modern tech will still be around in 40-50 years time and still working. I see the same with modern cars mind, most things are built to a budget these days and designed to be throw-away, with a shelf-life. Back when things were made properly, costs didn't seem to matter so much, it was the reliability and reputation of the manufacturer that mattered. Now we live in a world driven by money and greed, things just don't last like they used to. Perhaps I'm getting old, I dunno!
Maybe cars its a not good example since you reside in the UK even if i praise the name of Colin Chapman Lotus was made out of paper glass spit sweat and glue! Same opinion i got for the so beloved shelby gt 500........scrap metal!
I'm not referring to 60's to current age cars, I'm talking about pre-war cars, hand-made by specialists with love and care, not in an automated factory with no love, only bank balances to keep the bosses happy. I seriously doubt any of the current crop of average hi-fi gear that's mass manufactured today will still be working in 50 years time, its all made so cheaply out of the worst plastic known to man. Hi-fi in the 70's and 80's, made out of metal, decent components inside, made to last. Even if you look at Sony Walkman's over the years, they started out with metal chassis, 2 head phone sockets, stuff like that, to pretty much plastic blobs by the end of their life. I guess you could argue that any industry you look at, corners are cut to save costs, so things just don't last like they did.
While I agree completely about modern things being made cheaply and sometimes nastily lets not forget about the price of the quality older stuff. The thing that prompted me to join Stereo2Go was to point out that in 1979 my bottom of the range Sony Boombox cost 1/6th the price of my new Honda motorbike. Another purchase in 1978 or 79 was a Casio FX8000 scientific calculator. http://casio.ledudu.com/pockets.asp?type=1022&lg=eng At the time it was the only LCD calculator that would do fractions It cost £30 which was over a weeks wages for me back then. Feeding that into the Bank of England Inflation Calculator gives £163 in todays money. As you can see from that picture the FX8000 is beautifully made with a metal clad case and double moulded buttons so the numbers will never wear out. In contrast the numbers are all wearing off on a colleagues three year old Casio. There again in real terms it was about 7% of the cost so not a huge surprise.
