40 Vintage Technologies That We No Longer Use

27. MASSIVE MAINFRAMES

While mainframes still exist, they generally don’t take up entire rooms or store information on magnetic tape.

28. TYPEWRITERS

While some writers still swear by them, most writers remember when they swore at them and have happily moved on.

29. DIAL-UP MODEMS

The dial-up modem was used everywhere until cable internet and DSL became available to the masses.

While they are still in widespread use, everyone who has one wants to upgrade.

30. ZIP DRIVE

This short-lived technology was the bridge between 3.5″ Floppy Disc and CD storage.

31. SLIDE PROJECTORS

These were classroom and office standbys for years and were replaced by digital projectors and smartboards.

32. 8″ FLOPPY DISC

If you wanted to save one or two-word processing documents, you could do it on these.

Their smaller relatives are still in widespread use.

33. 3.5″ FLOPPY DISC

The 3.5″ Floppy took over from its bulkier cousin with larger storage and a less destructible design.

It had largely been replaced by the late nineties by CD’s, DVD’s, USB drives and other more convenient computer storage methods.

34. POLAROID CAMERAS

While these cameras were largely replaced by digital cameras, the trademark has recently been purchased and the buyers are trying to breathe new life into the brand by hiring Lady Gaga as a spokesperson.

These are definitely making a resurgence in today’s society. Partly, because they’re so freaking cool.

35. HOME MOVIE PROJECTORS

Super 8 home movies and educational films were shown on these simple projectors.

While they are still used in some schools, they have been largely replaced by digital projectors and the fact that you can now burn most home movies to a DVD.

36. VINYL RECORDS

Vinyl was the dominant music format for the 20th Century. From your grandmother’s old 78’s to the single 45 format, vinyl was perfected over the years to be as acoustically correct and cheap to press as possible.

While they are still in use by DJ’s and radio stations, records have for the most part been relegated to the garage sale heap.

37. CRT TELEVISION

The first widespread use of television was in Germany beginning in 1929, and the German Olympic Games of 1936 were the first to be broadcast on television. Televisions remained out of the reach of the middle class until the 1950’s, when their ownership boomed globally and television shows became more popular.

Cathode ray tubes gave way to the technologies that we use for television now, making sets less bulky and furniture-like.

 

38. RCA ELECTRON TUBES

With the mentioning of these televisions, we have to highlight these replacement tubes that you probably remember. My dad had an old zenith radio that also used similar tubes, I remember watching him change one once and I became enthralled in ‘how things work’.

These tubes are now called valves and actually are still a component of professional musical equipment, instruments, and amps. Honestly, the amps that use these sound so much better.

39. TAPE DRIVES

Remember when backing up the computer meant changing the tape in the tape drive and letting it back up overnight? We’re so glad those days are gone too. The clunky old tape drives of the past didn’t store a lot of data and it would often take multiple tapes to backup important data.

Old-school programmers started out as “tape-apes” doing backups as junior programmers.

40. 8 TRACK

Stereo 8 was more commonly known as the eight-track tape.

It was the portable format of choice for a brief period in the 70’s before cassette tapes took over.

(Credits) Do you remember any other vintage technologies that we may have forgotten? Add the vintage technology in the comments and we’ll add it to the list.

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