can we take the thread topic to mean “technology way older than you that has fallen into disuse or been replaced?” I mean, we’ve already covered the wheel, fire, and bicycles, but I think it’s clear what the intent was.
My Dad has a wind-up record player, and it still works, even if the outside is looking worse-for-wear due to neglect.
When I was a kid and we first moved to the US we had a really old (used) radio from like the 30’s or 40’s. The first TV we got was also used and was older than I was (from the late 50’), and most of the cars I had when I was in my 20’s were older used models. Also, we didn’t have indoor plumbing and my mom cooked on a wood fired stove until I was maybe 10 years old (after that we started to do a lot better).
As for me, I have a bunch of IGS and AGS routers laying about, as well as some older network and telcom equipment I picked up at one time or another (I hate to throw stuff like that out, even when it’s clearly outdated…I’m just a pack-rat at heart). I used to have some pretty cool aircraft components from the second world war and also from the Korean War period, but I got rid of a bunch of it when we moved back to New Mexico in the early 2000’s.
-XT
I have and use a drop spindle, and a set of warp weights and a loom frame, a backstrap loom [2 sticks basically] and a card weaving loom and set of cards.
Give me a freshly dead sheep and you will get back dinner and a piece of clothing =) [of course it will take a bit of time…]
I took wood shop in high school in the 70s, and the first project that every student did was to make a clip board. We had to plane down and smooth that board with a hand plane, after a brief talk about safety. I guess that this was to give us an appreciation of the power planer later. At any rate, I had impressive tits before I took that class. Using that plane gave me a wonderful set of pecs to make those tits stand up.
I kind of enjoyed planing that way, it was soothing and I sort of went into a trance state.
I have a working Singer sewing machine from circa 1920. It’s powered by a treadle. I also have a Leica camera and darkroom equipment from the 1930s.
Are you me? I have my dads full set of leica and box o’ filters from IIRC he said he bought the set in 1939. I swear, the cloth shutter is amazing, one thousandth of a second :eek: I take that back, I seem to be missing a filter 
Now that you mention it, my Dad has one of those, too. I’m not sure of the exact brand, but it is an old manual/treadle-powered sewing machine.
The reason I forgot about it is because I haven’t set foot inside my Dad’s [del]Junk Warehouse[/del] house in over 25 years.
We have a Rolmonica - basically a combination of a player piano and a harmonica. We have lots of music for it. My wife’s father owned it, and gave it to her.
I still have a rotary phone which I ahem liberated from my dorm back when you still rented them. But that was made well after I was born, while the Rolmonica was made well before. I also still have my slide rule, given as a high school graduation present, so the thing is much younger than me even if the technology is older.
I…
:gasp:
Well, I… you know…
:chokes back sob:
I don’t have a…
:takes deep breath:
… smartphone!
:runs from thread in sheer embarrassment:
The editors of the Whole Earth Catalog were big fans of that device. They were big on “Back to the Earth”/“Civilization Collapses” type products.
Heck, I’ve installed one of those in the last decade. If you have a very high gain/high directionality antenna, you have to rotate it. Were were trying to get in TV from Topeka stations from Kansas City. Wound up quad-stacking UHF antennas. I installed another one from a guy outside of Lawrence Kansas so he could choose either Kansas City or Topeka stations.
I still have functioning examples of every video format I have used - Beta, LaserDisc, 8mm…I do need a CED player for one particular disc I own.
Sort of. They go back to the latest days of the earliest days of power transmission. See Wikipedia’s article on War of Currents, which observes for example “Parts of Boston, Massachusetts along Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue still used 110 volts DC in the 1960s, causing many destroyed small appliances (typically hair dryers and phonographs) used by Boston University students who ignored warnings about the electricity supply.” My grandfather was born in 1890 and had some old things in the basement he’d been playing with over the years. In the early 60’s when I was starting to dismantle motors and give myself shocks, those things were still around. Although I never saw DC power distribution firsthand, the overlap was kind of big and soft.
I have a foie gras funnel. It is a hand-held model which, after it is inserted into the duck or goose’s throat, is hand-cranked to force the food down the animal’s gullet. This process is now all mechanized.
I’ve worked with it. When I was a touring theatrical sound engineer, the American Theater in St. Louis, Missouri was all DC - and the IASTE union guys who worked there liked it that way. Well into the early 1980s all the dimmers were huge rheostats, and all the switches were big Young Frankenstein looking things. The stagehands would go into this cage to throw switches with a wooden hook, and they had to wear cotton drawstring clothing and carry no metal.
It’s extreme examples like this that makes all Unions look bad.
I was born in 1975. My family didn’t get its first color TV until 1985 or our first push button phone until the early 90s. Heck my family didn’t even have a radio with an FM dial until 1982! I do have quite a bit of nostalgia for B&W tv and rotary phones, but the only outdated tech I regularly use is a record player.
Born in '67 in the Netherlands. Our home was heated by an oil-furnace in the living room that my dad had welded himself. My mom had to light it every morning. With a match.
We had B&W TV with two Dutch channels. We used to say: "Hey, let’s look what is on the other channel. "
I’ve got a 1950s hand-cranked deli slicer from Norway that I inherited from my grandparents, who bought it new. Wooden base with a clamp to secure it to the worksurface. Still dangerously sharp. Cuts meats down to 1 mm thickness, also does bread etc. It’s excellent.
This: http://www.oddfiddlythings.com/2009/rocketsled/tripping-the-grundig-majestic/
And this: http://www.oddfiddlythings.com/2009/rocketsled/edges-may-be-sharpand-poisonous/
I can’t remember anything as a kid that was obsolete, my family was about as cutting edge as you could get in the 70’s, although we remained Betamax stalwarts for way longer than was practical.
The only technology I currently resist are Bluetooth earpieces (The person usually hangs up by the time I figure out how to work the thing. I’m happy using the one with the wire), and GPS (Thomas Guide…cold dead hands…blah blah blah…)
When I went to college in Cambridge in 1969 I learned that one of the BU dorms was on DC still - not one that any of my friends who went there lived in, alas for me but lucky for them.