Old Tech thread
- Thread starter Danny McG
- Start date
I think we mentioned this subject earlier. My local history group is 50 years old next year. 1974! - few people consider 1974 to be History, and yet so much has changed since then. However, here is some real nostalgia! From the 1990's!
I found this today in the bottom of a bedside drawer. A RADIO Shack Electronic Data Organizer #EC-387 Rolodex,
I've no doubt that it was bought at Tandy. It was Birthday present to me in the early1990's sometime. So, only about 30 years old! But how quaint and dated it seems now?
Just think how useful it would be to have all your contacts addresses and phone numbers stored electronically?
And there is a World Clock - useful when making those international calls to new open markets abroad.
And it has a calendar too, so you can also store your appointments with "Loadsamoney$" , and have it give you reminders.
It's a great tool to work alongside one of those new mobile phones since everyone now has several telephone numbers, and fax numbers, to remember rather than just the old home and office landlines!
No longer do you need to cross out pages in a written address book, and when they move house or jobs, have to rewrite the person's details on yet another page (until you end up putting T's on the page for P's because you ran out of room!)
The 16kB and 32kB versions are currently selling on eBay for £20 and a 128kB version for £30 though God only knows why people want them! This one is 64kB. I'll take offers!
I found this today in the bottom of a bedside drawer. A RADIO Shack Electronic Data Organizer #EC-387 Rolodex,
I've no doubt that it was bought at Tandy. It was Birthday present to me in the early1990's sometime. So, only about 30 years old! But how quaint and dated it seems now?
Just think how useful it would be to have all your contacts addresses and phone numbers stored electronically?
And there is a World Clock - useful when making those international calls to new open markets abroad.
And it has a calendar too, so you can also store your appointments with "Loadsamoney$" , and have it give you reminders.
It's a great tool to work alongside one of those new mobile phones since everyone now has several telephone numbers, and fax numbers, to remember rather than just the old home and office landlines!
No longer do you need to cross out pages in a written address book, and when they move house or jobs, have to rewrite the person's details on yet another page (until you end up putting T's on the page for P's because you ran out of room!)
The 16kB and 32kB versions are currently selling on eBay for £20 and a 128kB version for £30 though God only knows why people want them! This one is 64kB. I'll take offers!
Christine Wheelwright
Well-Known Member
I still have this model scientific calculator. It was already very old when I had it in the 90s. Still works fine. I see they cost more than newer models on eBay. Must be a nostalgia thing. I must admit I am quite attached to it as it got me through A levels and a degree.
I had one of these and swore by it for many years:
Only really stopped using it when I got my first smart phone. I remember telling people at the time that we would soon enough have all this inside our mobile phones and being told I was talking rubbish. Of course the Nokia Communicator was just that but it was only a few years later that the first touchscreen smart phones began appearing (and no the first one was not from Apple!) which quickly heralded the end of these sort of devices.
Only really stopped using it when I got my first smart phone. I remember telling people at the time that we would soon enough have all this inside our mobile phones and being told I was talking rubbish. Of course the Nokia Communicator was just that but it was only a few years later that the first touchscreen smart phones began appearing (and no the first one was not from Apple!) which quickly heralded the end of these sort of devices.
Wayne Mack
Well-Known Member
Personally, I like the subtitle, "How the Service may yet be a Blessing." I'm still waiting for that day to arrive.
As is the first appearance of a flat-screen monitor....
Drawing board?
Well, it isn't a real flat-screen monitor (hence my use of an ellipsis).
A lot of people have forgotten these devices. Article here: The original fax. I was reminded while watching a Warner Oland Charlie Chan movie last week.
I was shocked to learn that there were predecessors of the fax machine (similar in concept) as early as the 1830's using telegraph lines and a kind of fax service was available in Paris to Lyons in 1865.
Spookily, the (unconnected to Lyon in France) Lyons** company created the LEO I (the first Lyons Electronic Office), which seems to have been the world's first office computer.
** - A now-defunct (though the brand still exists) British restaurant chain store, food manufacturing, and hotel conglomerate
That's correct. J Lyons tea rooms (founded in 1884, and once, hugely popular cafes) used to bake bread and cakes at the Lyons factory at Cadby Hall in west London and distribute them to other shops everywhere. The took the telephone orders in the evening for production the following day but all that data was hard to handle on paper and by phone. They needed an electronic system to streamline the business and improve efficiency, so they invested in computer research by Cambridge University in the 1940s. As well as the improved ordering system, it's Bakery Valuations computed the food costs of all the ingredients that went into the bread and cakes, so becoming the the world's first routine, real-time office application.
"These devices appear to have come to stay." Err, not in the London Borough of Bromley!
It is so old tech that they've all been turned off, and covered over with hoods in favour of the RingGo phone App. Too expensive to upgrade them to Contactless Cards apparently, and some no longer take the right coins (£1 shape). Obviously, I can't get political on this forum, but that decision may change yet (it will lose them votes among elderly people without smartphones, and apparently Central Government has said that no local council should being doing this.) If I was being unkind, I'd say anyone who can't operate a Smartphone App should no longer be in charge of a vehicle.
I like the phone Apps actually, you can pay in the rain without leaving the car. They give you all the time period options without needing glasses, and it tells you which car park or street you are on. (It is easy to find a wrong meter in some places.)
Except that if you travel a lot for work (as my son did) you need about four different Apps depending on the Borough or County. Also it charges you extra just to use it. Even in a "Free" car park it will charge you 10p for a ticket. Then you can have problems with phone reception and phone battery power and....
Anyhow, Parking Meters certainly fit this thread's subject of 'Old Tech', but they were very shiny and new in the mid 1960's. Even the Beatles sang about them.
It is so old tech that they've all been turned off, and covered over with hoods in favour of the RingGo phone App. Too expensive to upgrade them to Contactless Cards apparently, and some no longer take the right coins (£1 shape). Obviously, I can't get political on this forum, but that decision may change yet (it will lose them votes among elderly people without smartphones, and apparently Central Government has said that no local council should being doing this.) If I was being unkind, I'd say anyone who can't operate a Smartphone App should no longer be in charge of a vehicle.
I like the phone Apps actually, you can pay in the rain without leaving the car. They give you all the time period options without needing glasses, and it tells you which car park or street you are on. (It is easy to find a wrong meter in some places.)
Except that if you travel a lot for work (as my son did) you need about four different Apps depending on the Borough or County. Also it charges you extra just to use it. Even in a "Free" car park it will charge you 10p for a ticket. Then you can have problems with phone reception and phone battery power and....
Anyhow, Parking Meters certainly fit this thread's subject of 'Old Tech', but they were very shiny and new in the mid 1960's. Even the Beatles sang about them.
Christine Wheelwright
Well-Known Member
Reminds me how simple life used to be. Insert a coin and the timer moves. These days you have to scan a barcode, go to a website and set up an account with credit card and type in your plate number.
Talking of old tech - the car is a long-gone marque called, believe it or not, a Goggomobil.
It had a 298cc engine, top speed of 53mph - so it would still be a good car for getting around London. Mind you, it did over 50 miles to the gallon...
It had a 298cc engine, top speed of 53mph - so it would still be a good car for getting around London. Mind you, it did over 50 miles to the gallon...
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