I am coming to terms with the fact that it’s time to change some of my technology. Sigh My beloved Yamaha stereo can’t conect to other vital stuff because she’s ten years-old and doesn’t have USB ports/MP3 stuff. Poor old girl.
My 2001 X-terra’s CD player may be going the way of the dinosaurs, Sniff. I can play MP3s through a radio gadget, but it sounds crappy.
What beloved tech do you own that is becoming non-functional in 2009?
My entire body 
Though I admit, I always wanted a Beomaster 1900 and the tapedeck, and turntable that went with it … sigh
I’m about to ditch an Onkyo TX-SV90PRO receiver because it’s about ten years old and only knows about Dolby Pro Logic surround. Most likely, its replacement will do THX, Dolby Digital, HDMI video switching, MP3/Internet radio and have features like subwoofer outputs and auto-calibration for the surround levels and delay.
Another piece of home entertainment gear that’s probably going to be e-cycled soon is a CRT-based TV that only has an analog RF input. Bulky, heavy, and not even a plain composite video input on the thing.
Bah. I laugh at your so-called “old tech”.
Most of my old tech doesn’t really count. I may still use it once in a while, but it’s more collectors items than a regular usage.
However-
My stereo, the one I still use to play cassettes and listen to the radio, has a slot for eight tracks.
I’m sad now because the digital TV change killed off one of the main features of my VCR, the ability to tape on a channel different from the one I’m watching, or to tape two shows while I’m out where a channel change is needed.
I went to Best Buy for a new digital recorder, got a list of models and looked them up. All (and these were major TV brands) were knocked by people who bought them, for major flaws like fuzzy pictures or simply dying after a month.
So now I am in search mode, one foot on the last iceberg and one foot on the next.
I love my Fisher 200W amp with tower speakers, 5-disc changer and dual cassette deck. Still have it hooked up as my home theater sound system - RCA-out from the flat panel TV that’s hooked up to the computer and Blu-Ray, to the RCA-in on the amp, and good to go, sounds great, still.
Bought the whole shebang in 1993 for about $800, discounted floor model that the sales guy brought over in his pickup and set up for me for a coupla beers. Good times. I won’t let this thing go until it burns out or someone pries it from my cold, dead hands.
I have a nice Alpine car stereo, but its CD player does not recognize MP3s and I have a lot of music on MP3s burned onto CDs. I have a Belkin FM transmitter that I use with an MP3-compatible CD player to fill the gap for now, but I know it would sound a lot better if I didn’t have to rely on weak FM reception to listen to my MP3 music.
My stereo receiver is a Yamaha that I bought in 1978. It’s connected to my MP3 collection on the computer via a wireless router. But it doesn’t have a remote control so I do have to walk across the room to turn it on 
Probably the tech that I regretted giving up the most was my Olympus SLR. I don’t miss film even a bit, but the form factor of the SLR was much better than the current digitals. Much smaller, solid enough to drive tent stakes, and the lenses were faster and cheaper, even if they weren’t autofocusing.
I’m seeing the same problem at my house at the moment.
A downstairs TV with not enough inputs to get the picture quality that I’m accustomed to from my Dish receiver, following a VCR/DVD combo unit with no RF output.
And, the inability to find a DVD player with RF in & out to connect (and replace the VCR that did) to my small upstairs (color, but OLD) TV in the bedroom.
I’d love an SLR body to fit the Pentax lenses (or the Cannon lenses I have) but the SLR platform is still outside of my price range. In a few years, I’m hoping it’ll be back down, and I can once again use real glass lenses. I’m happy to do the focus, and aperture settings, and the SLR frame just fits my hands right. The point-click cameras available at reasonable prices are tough to hold steady and operate in too many cases.
I understand the need to move forward with new tech, but it’s hard to throw away perfectly good AV gear.
The stereo in my truck is one, because it doesn’t have a direct input for my iPod, and I’m tired of the quality of that cassette interface.
I have several old printers and scanners (including a nice inkjet that can print poster-sized paper) that I’m going to have to give up on because they are parallel and/or serial-port interfaces, and I just can’t make the drivers work reliably anymore.
I have an old notebook computer that’s maxed out on RAM at half a gig. As software companies (including Microsoft) drop support for old versions of Windows, it becomes less and less useful. A half-gig can barely even boot Vista, much less run the stuff I wanted it for.
I don’t understand. I’m using an old amp, and I’ve seen no need whatsoever to upgrade it. I can plug an iPod or computer into the “Audio In” connectors just as easily as I could plug my old 8-track player into it.
I had the same problem and wanted a car stereo that would play MP3’s on a disk and found one with a USB port. I then found a USB drive that reads micro-sd cards and the whole thing is smaller than a nickel. My car stereo now has an 8 gb hard drive. No wires or memory stick hanging out, no need for an external power supply.
When I was a kid I was thrilled by the 90 minute storage capacity of an 8 track tape with a choice of 4 tracks to flip through. Taping a song required that you que up the record and play it all the way through while recording. Now I have over 6 days of continuous music available and the ripping function is a couple of clicks of a mouse. I can group the music any way I like and it’s all displayed by the stereo unit.