Saturday, April 6, 2013

Ancient Machines of Yesteryore

Remember back in the day when we knew why it was called "dialing" to make a call and once a letter was typed, Wite-Out was your only salvation to get that paper in on time? No?

Uh, kids, I recommend you go get grandma or grandpa to help you out with this one.


This is an early cell phone. It was attached to the wall, had no buttons, and couldn't browse the internet because there was no internet.
In other words, nothing like a cell phone.




This is an early computer. The keyboard required a good bit of finger strength, Word was the only program, and the only way to edit was using a bottle of correction fluid.
And was far more hilarious when it crashed.





This is an ancient iPod. It was the size of a suitcase, was based on 19th century technology, and sounded like shit, no matter what hipsters might tell you.
No, that hand crank isn't a useful place to hang your socks.





This is a precursor to Pandora. It had limited range, had to be physically moved from place to place, and once convinced some people aliens were invading.
Not unlike YouTube in that respect.





This is like the software your payroll office uses when they print up your paycheck, only it can't do more than one at a time. 
But the lever is far more satisfying to use than the enter button.





I know, this looks kind of familiar, but is just so BIG. Yes, you are correct, it is indeed a video recorder. Sharing it with friends meant loaning them the video cassette tape and hoping it came back in one piece.
A video cassette tape is like an mp3, if an mp3 was the size of five Kindles and melted when left in the car.

1 comment:

  1. A friend of mine has one of these. I grew up with one so no biggie there. Well last summer we took out my 15 year old son for swimming and golf and he needed to make a phone call.They are in a cell phone dead zone. He was told where the phone was and left him to it.

    5 minutes later he was back looking pretty sheepish. "Uhn, Mom....how do you work the phone?" To say the least my coffee shot out my nose. After showing him the "dialing" procedure all he could say was "Neat. Guess you didn't like calling people with a lot of 0's or 9's in their number"

    ReplyDelete

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