Favorite Obsolete Tech

Do you collect old tech or use them in any personal projects?

  • Yes

    Votes: 11 50.0%

  • No

    Votes: 5 22.7%

  • No, but I want to.

    Votes: 3 13.6%

  • Old tech doesn't interest me.

    Votes: 2 9.1%

  • Prefer not to say >_>

    Votes: 1 4.5%
  • Total voters
    22
I'd love that, but the reality is that it's most often too complex and uneconomical. Like, some companies produce new reel to reel tape machines, but they're basically as expensive as vintage Studer machines. There have been attempts to bring back vacuum tube production to the west, but the knowledge required is basically lost, and the process is so complex that it will never be reasonable for the little benefit.
Itll be very niche or for museum purposes.
Speaking of which, I really gotta restore my Portastudio four track tape recorder to full functionality these days.
 
Manual transmissions in cars. Today's automatics are objectively faster than a manual gearbox. That wasn't true 20 years ago.
Manuals are outdated, but people still love driving that way. A few of the newer sports cars (most recently the Toyota Supra) debuted as auto-only. And the fans raged that there was no manual option, even though it's slower. So the 2023 Supra got a manual gearbox, as a MORE EXPENSIVE OPTION!
 
I feel using MP3 players is something I love to do that's incredibly obsolete nowadays, given how most people like to have all their music on their phone.
 
mobucks said:
Manuals are outdated
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Not really. Manuals are a deterrent for stupid USA car thieves.
This myth is mainly based in the United States, where less than 4% of new cars are sold with a manual. In other parts of the world, manual transmissions are very common, but in the US hardly anyone knows how to drive them anymore. This is good news for those who drive a manual transmission. Since manual transmissions represent only 4% of new car sales, it is very difficult to find data that proves that they are stolen less frequently. Speaking with Edmunds, Frank Scafidi, director of public affairs for the National Insurance Crime Bureau, which tracks car theft trends, said that he has not seen any data that could prove or deny this claim.


Scafidi went on to say that "many thieves possess varying levels of intellect." This means that less experienced thieves are "just not that swift and therefore resort to stealing older, easier targets." If this older car happens to be a manual, they may be in for a bit of rotten luck. However, there are quite a few more experienced criminals who don't have a problem stealing any type of car. Cars with stick shifts being "harder" to steal may simply be a reflection of the people who are trying to steal them. For example, if someone was trying to steal a diamond, it would be much more difficult if the diamond weighed 6,000 pounds. Likewise a TV would be more difficult to steal if you had to solve a puzzle to unplug it.
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Very interesting @Risewild , I watch a lot of car channels, both U.S. and European, and have never seen that mentioned. Makes sense though.

People love dancing on the pedals. It's just more fun.

 
Crni Vuk said:
And no one could pay for.
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Eh, tubes were mass produced and ubiquitous as well, transistors were just an order of magnitude cheaper. And much more scalable.
Tube production required quite a bit skilled labour, but it was streamlined enough that it was basically assembly line work, not master artisan work.
 
Yeah mass production makes things affordable. I am just saying, as soon you get to the "This is handcrafted unique!" stuff, you probably won't be able to pay for it. I am just saying people often have a bit of a let us say romanticised idea of "craftsmanship" up till they realise they now pay 3 or 4 times the price. Not that I am saying good craftsmanship doesn't have its place or is a bad thing.
 
Well yeah, unique handcrafted stuff is very expensive. People tend to forget that, yeah. Like Karens shitting on people on Etsy asking for quite high prices for things, not understanding that these people are basically just asking for material expenses and minimum wage, but that's how it is.
I do like technology that is more craftmanshiplike in approach. Tube amplifiers still require a lot of handwiring, even when they're not fully handwired. More boutique guitar pedals are also basically handmade and soldered by hands, and I appreciate that stuff a lot since I do that stuff myself.
 
MutantProtogen said:
I feel using MP3 players is something I love to do that's incredibly obsolete nowadays, given how most people like to have all their music on their phone.
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I definitely feel that. Being a crotchety old metal head, I generally prefer to listen to music on an analog format (vinyl mostly, but also cassette from time to time), but unfortunately I too end up just using my phone when I'm out of the house. They still haven't invented sufficiently portable record player hah
 
Portable CD players are something I’m actually glad are obsolete. The batteries never lasted nearly long enough, CDs would constantly skip while out on walks, and having to carry CDs if you wanted to listen to more than one album was an extremely limiting factor. I’ve never had strong feelings about CD as a format for the most part, but for me they’ve always been a “listen at home or in the car” thing.
 
I sometimes use a cassette Walkman when I use the trains or something because it's the ultimate hipster thing to do.
 
I have a small collection of old computer parts, usually from the 2008 - 2012 time period, nothing too special just salvage (power supplies, disk drives, memory sticks ect) from old Hewlett Packard office rigs and broken laptops.
the most interesting thing in my collection being a light-scribe compatible disk drive, i know they arent all that rare but light scribe is such a niche and weird part of HP's history and its neat having a piece of it

i also had the idea to modify a sony Walkman into an mp3 player (using a modified one of those Bluetooth cassette adaptors), i used to have one when i was a kid and it was a pretty awesome thing to have back then.
im still waiting to save a bit of money before i start working on it but i think itll be a neat collectable
 
Because CD Drives commonly had direct audio cables to connect them to the sound card, I once installed an 8-track player into a 5¼" bay, this allowed my desktop to play 8-track tapes.
 
Hassknecht said:
I sometimes use a cassette Walkman when I use the trains or something because it's the ultimate hipster thing to do.
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https://www.ebay.com/itm/3839320448...KjD4dVweXupN8MoCar-2XJ5SiCtmsuihoCl9EQAvD_BwE

Speaking of which, I really wnted one of these but they cost far too much for me to justify. Playing with my parents cassette player as a kid was more fun than a modern phone in some ways since it had moving parts. Easier to get your head around what it's doing that way. Was kinda neat since there were random recorded class lectures on it.

They'd just sit it up on the desk like other students. Today I just need my login and most lectures are pre-recorded from like 3 years ago.
 
william dempsey said:
A CD walkman with decent headphones is bliss.
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Maybe I should have used a ;p or the /s thing that guy mentioned although that was only lately. I fully expected somebody to jump onto that " Quote " as to be truthful CD walkmans were indeed piss poor.

CD's in general were far less sturdy than presenters of ' science ' shows led us to believe. " Almost indestructible " they said.

Maybe programable sound chips built into headphones that could produce symphonic accuracy would be uber street gear. © I would call them psycho symptomatics ©
09:37 @ 05/07/2022.
WARNING ! This text has been photographed, pasted into notepad and time and date stamped. So no robbing this idea and going on ' Dragon's Den ' to pitch this genius idea. : p
I did a : p this time.
 
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