Old/obsolete technology you're glad to see the back of

Sgt Hartman

For me its floppy disks. Many a time where I lost important college work because those stupid things got corrupted.

What are you glad to see the back of?

dmc17

Dial up internet!

boombang

Noisy dot matrix printers with poor perforated paper.

trigger26

Backup tapes and the possibility of a full restore!

daheff

minidiscs

overpriced vs tapes. cds saved us from them

u140acro3xs7dm

The A500 anal sex doll

gozunda

I kinda miss the older TVs tbh. I mean the ones back in the day that were 2 feet wide and 2.5 feet deep because of the cathode ray tube used. That had only two dials and no remote and weighed a ton and a half...

When they were mainly available in B&W and the Irish TV stations only came on just before six o'clock and ended the day with religous programme. And many people kept the TV set covered with a fancy tea towel or similar to protect it...

champchamp

WAP. Touted as the internet on your phone it was rubbish. Teletext was better.

Trigger Happy

Video players with their clunky tapes, poor quality and 'tracking adjustment'.
You needed a degree to set the time on them. So most video players in the country had the time blinking at 00:00 like some technological cry for help.

Beanntraigheach

Video tapes/VCRs.

While I'll often feel a twinge of nostalgia for the era of video tapes (I still have a large collection of TV programmes & films recorded on tape) they were utter crap.

Apart from the inferior picture and audio quality (remember fumbling around with 'tracking'? *sigh*), the VCR frequently needed cleaning, tapes would get tangled up in the bloody things (the horror! the desperate race to try to salvage the tape), rewinding and fast forwarding was a tedious pain in the arse, things recorded on one machine wouldn't play back clearly on another, etc. etc.
And the cassettes seem to degrade pretty easily. Mould has grown on some of my older ones meaning I've lost some great programmes.

So, VHS = shìte!

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Slide Rules. I hated them and could never just fully get the hang of them.

jester77

USB mini/micro

Go to plug it in, nope wrong way
Turn it around, still doesn't fit
Turn it again, ah now it's taking the piss
Turn on light, look at device and cable to get right orientation
Curse the damn cable

Tell me how

daheff wrote: »

minidiscs

overpriced vs tapes. cds saved us from them

Yeah but they didn't ever take off enough so that they couldn't be avoided.

In fact, CD's were on the market first and mini-discs never challenged.

whisky_galore

gozunda wrote: »

I kinda miss the older TVs tbh. I mean the ones back in the day that were 2 feet wide and 2.5 feet deep because of the cathode ray tube used. That had only two dials and no remote and weighed a ton and a half...

When they were mainly available in B&W and the Irish TV stations only came on just before six o'clock and ended the day with religous programme. And many people kept the TV set covered with a fancy tea towel or similar to protect it...

Thankfully we don't have to watch b/w Tv sets the size of a minibus anymore. RTEs programme schedule has improved marginally since.

ILoveYourVibes

Madilyn Tart Drummer wrote: »

The A500 anal sex doll

NOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

She is my soulmate!

El_Duderino 09

gozunda wrote: »

I kinda miss the older TVs tbh. I mean the ones back in the day that were 2 feet wide and 2.5 feet deep because of the cathode ray tube used. That had only two dials and no remote and weighed a ton and a half...

When they were mainly available in B&W and the Irish TV stations only came on just before six o'clock and ended the day with religous programme. And many people kept the TV set covered with a fancy tea towel or similar to protect it...

You miss the TV or you miss the time from which the TV came?

daheff

daheff wrote: »

minidiscs

overpriced vs tapes. cds saved us from them

I was given a minidisc player:mad:

_Brian

Manual choke on petrol car.

Hector Savage

Film, loading it was such a pain in the ass, and it was expensive, like 4/5 quid back in the early 90s for 36 exposures!!

Maybe 2/3 quid for 24.

El_Duderino 09

Tell me how wrote: »

Yeah but they didn't ever take off enough so that they couldn't be avoided.

In fact, CD's were on the market first and mini-discs never challenged.

I loved my mini disc. Spent ages potting all my cds on mini discs. Recorded shows from the radio like the top 40 and spent ages to cut the brakes between tracks to create a complete play list without and filler. What a pain in the hole.

Mp3 blew it out of the water which was fair enough.

whisky_galore

Not having to buy a guidebook for every country or city you want to visit, anything you want is on the phone now. Books take up valuable luggage space and the info goes out of date quickly.

JohnnyFlash

I run a small business and we always had local installs of office software and a file share/small business server etc. Now using Office365 and cloud email and teams and and all that jazz. It’s such a leap forward in convenience.

Loading computer games from cassette tape:

Using a ZX Spectrum always expecting the dreaded
"R Tape Loading Error" after waiting 6 minutes to try and load a game.

In retrospect too, the game publishers used very poor quality cassette tapes, with bits of scrap plastic rattling around inside the tape. This affected my Fighter Bomber game.

daheff

daheff wrote: »

minidiscs

overpriced vs tapes. cds saved us from them

GTFO

Minidiscs were far superior to cds in every way.

Westernyelp

Soda streams. You had to be a chemist to get to taste anyway decent. And those loud fart noises it made when fully carbonated would frighten the bejaysus out of a young child. Those little gas tanks looked like something dug up after WWII. Thought I was going to blow myself up every time. I'd be sweating after it. You'd be full of bubbles after it for the day too.

Think they are still around for the niche market

blackbox

Vinyl records. They were such rubbish with all of the noise from the dust etc. And they got scratched so easily.
I had a Lou Reed album that was wrecked on its third play.

Cyclepath

Deleted User wrote: »

Loading computer games from cassette tape:

Using a ZX Spectrum always expecting the dreaded
"R Tape Loading Error" after waiting 6 minutes to try and load a game.

In retrospect too, the game publishers used very poor quality cassette tapes, with bits of scrap plastic rattling around inside the tape. This affected my Fighter Bomber game.

My very first game of ping pong on the ZX had to be typed in by hand from a magazine. Only took 3 goes to get it right. :mad:

Tell that to the young people today...

w/s/p/c/

Westernyelp wrote: »

Soda streams. You had to be a chemist to get to taste anyway decent. And those loud fart noises it made when fully carbonated would frighten the bejaysus out of a young child. Those little gas tanks looked like something dug up after WWII. Thought I was going to blow myself up every time. I'd be sweating after it. You'd be full of bubbles after it for the day too.

Think they are still around for the niche market

Seen them on sale in Lidl last week! Thought they were long gone.

Explosive_Cornflake

BrownFinger wrote: »

GTFO

Minidiscs were far superior to cds in every way.

Apart from audio quality.
I say that as a big mini disc fan.
Mini disc used compression, ATRAC, cd is raw pcm

bunderoon

Cyclepath wrote: »

My very first game of ping pong on the ZX had to be typed in by hand from a magazine. Only took 3 goes to get it right. :mad:

Tell that to the young people today...

God, it was so BASIC back then.

Stevieluvsye

Fax machines, shirley these things aren't round anymore?

Canis Lupus

My hands for washing dishes.

quokula

whisky_galore wrote: »

Thankfully we don't have to watch b/w Tv sets the size of a minibus anymore. RTEs programme schedule has improved marginally since.

I do miss just having all the channels directly on the TV without messing around with extra decoder boxes though.

Westernyelp

Westernyelp wrote: »

Soda streams. You had to be a chemist to get to taste anyway decent. And those loud fart noises it made when fully carbonated would frighten the bejaysus out of a young child. Those little gas tanks looked like something dug up after WWII. Thought I was going to blow myself up every time. I'd be sweating after it. You'd be full of bubbles after it for the day too.

Think they are still around for the niche market

It's not a niche market,
Its seen as an environmentally friendly alternative to buying bottles of carbonated water.
All the hipsters in Stoneybatter have them.

whisky_galore

Westernyelp wrote: »

Soda streams. You had to be a chemist to get to taste anyway decent. And those loud fart noises it made when fully carbonated would frighten the bejaysus out of a young child. Those little gas tanks looked like something dug up after WWII. Thought I was going to blow myself up every time. I'd be sweating after it. You'd be full of bubbles after it for the day too.

Think they are still around for the niche market

They found a way to bottle fizzy drinks decades before and then they invented something to put the fizz in yourself.
Only the nouveau riche had soda streams back in the day.

selwyn froggitt

Stevieluvsye wrote: »

Fax machines, shirley these things aren't round anymore?

They are,and don't call me Shirley.

whisky_galore

BrownFinger wrote: »

It's not a niche market,
Its seen as an environmentally friendly alternative to buying bottles of carbonated water.
All the hipsters in Stoneybatter have them.

Don't you still have to buy bottles of unfizzed soda?
They still have to produce heaps of mini pressurised cylinders.

It's just shifting the waste elsewhere so hipsters think they're doing good imo.

magic_murph

The Sally Rod

Stevieluvsye

OSI wrote: »

Plenty of places will only accept Fax for official documents, scanning and emailing not being allowed for archaic reasons.

Well that's pretty ridiculous, considering IT Clouds that are many times more secure for the above purposes and also the advancement of digital signage

sbsquarepants

Westernyelp wrote: »

Soda streams.

Think they are still around for the niche market

They were selling them in Lidl the other day. Not sure where you could get the flavours anymore though - i used to love withches brew and cream soda when i was younger. Then fizzed up white wine when i was a bit older and trying to impress some teenage quare one with my sophistication using only the 4 quid i found down the back of the sofa:D

antodeco

I still have minidiscs, manual chokes and soda streams! I also have IOT based IPTV, and a Smart Home.

You can still have both!

Wabbit Ears

selwyn froggitt wrote: »

They are,and don't call me Shirley.

dammit, I wanted to write that!

blackbox

blackbox wrote: »

Vinyl records. They were such rubbish with all of the noise from the dust etc. And they got scratched so easily.
I had a Lou Reed album that was wrecked on its third play.

Disagree, and vinyl is certainly not obsolete. If you look after records properly, then they last for decades. I have a Neil Young first pressing from 1969 in excellent condition. Sound quality is much superior than modern mp3 also, "surround" as opposed to tinny compression.

Tammy!

gozunda wrote: »

I kinda miss the older TVs tbh. I mean the ones back in the day that were 2 feet wide and 2.5 feet deep because of the cathode ray tube used. That had only two dials and no remote and weighed a ton and a half...

When they were mainly available in B&W and the Irish TV stations only came on just before six o'clock and ended the day with religous programme. And many people kept the TV set covered with a fancy tea towel or similar to protect it...

And you use to get into trouble for messing with the static..

tedpan

boombang wrote:

Noisy dot matrix printers with poor perforated paper.

Lots of places like car dealerships still use these

CrankyHaus

Landline extension numbers anyone?
Still not entirely gone unfortunately, many parts of the public sector retain them. Can never get the direct extension to work and end up having to be routed through the front desk.

It's kind of gas seeing how much effort Sony put into Minidisc and how comprehensively it was outclassed by a despised format with much less industry backing (MP3). How Music Got Free is an excellent book that deals in part with this. Still loved listening to OK Computer on MiniDisc back in the day.

Stevieluvsye

OSI wrote: »

There's legal bull**** around the requirement for a physical signature on documents. For some reason a Fax covers this, but an e-signature in an email doesn't.

Not where i work. E-Sig on all contracts

Tammy!

Cyclepath wrote: »

My very first game of ping pong on the ZX had to be typed in by hand from a magazine. Only took 3 goes to get it right. :mad:.

We had that on the C64. Great game

Riesen_Meal

Still use Minidisc from time to time to record the odd DJ set here and there, it's just so handy, been meaning to get a proper digital recorder but haven't had a chance...

Yer Da sells Avon

Digital teletext. So much worse than the analogue system it replaced.

Tammy!

Those digital moving photo frames. What a load of crap.