My turfgrass instructor really liked reel-mowers. They won’t lop off huge swaths of grass, however, so one can’t get lazy and put off mowing too long. They have a scissors action which maintains the quality of the turf compared with rotary blades. Notice that many golf-courses use much larger versions. Consumer type reel-mowers work fine for smaller lawns. Finding a shop that can correctly sharpen the blades might be an issue??
I still get both of these. MapQuest doesn’t help at all when you make a wrong turn and go off the little 4 block by 4 block mini-map. I simply prefer paychecks to direct deposit.
Personally, I’m not a fan of LCD monitors, I haven’t found one yet that accurately reproduces colors out of the box. Then again, Viewsonic and NEC are the only companies I’ve found that still make decent CRT monitors. Phillips would be in there, but I’ve had very bad luck with them.
As for obsolete things…SCSI probably fits the bill for ‘consumer’ computers. It’s still in use in some rare circumstances, but I’d guess that’s mostly due to people being (really) slow to upgrade.
Never mind paychecks, I used to get paid in cash in a buff coloured envelope. How long before cash is obsolete, I wonder.
I took “safety sahes” to mean orange or yellow belts, with a diagnal suspender over one shoulder, that were given to kids who acted as hall monitors or crossing guards.
I don’t know if they have kid crossing guards anymore either. When I was in grade school, 7th and 8th graders would be posted at the intersections around the school, but all the people I’ve seen doing that in recent years are adults.
Digital everything.
There seems to be an initial phase in all new technology where it gets overused because it’s there. Digitised displays are no exception - back around 1983 or 84, not only did everybody wear a digital watch, but cars started to sport digital speedometer displays.
Then people realised they were UGLY. There seems to be much more analog display around now than then - sure the tech behind it may well be digital, but it seems people like to read a dial with hands or a needle rather than digits.
Cash will NEVER be obsolete, there are too many people who can’t have a paper/digital trail following them around.
NASA says crew members react more quickly to analog dials than to digital displays. Perhaps that is the reason.
This is now truly obsolete. Recently, the studios announced no new movies will be released on VHS (sorry, no link love).
Very true. Lehmann’s catalog sells them (granted, mostly to Amish). But our next mower will be one of them. Of course, it helps to turn most of our 1/3rd acre to gardens.
Man, did that spark memories. I hadn’t thought of the Commodore 64 for years! God I must be getting old.
As others have pointed out, the system remains alive and well. Perhaps you have conflated it with the card catalog, which presumably heads towards obsolescence.
I gave mine away two years ago. Held onto that puppy for a looooong time. But finally the computer/keyboard, the monitor, the disk drive, the Okidata thermal color printer, and the huge milk crate of accessories, diskettes, hand-drawn Ultima IV maps, aborted attempts to map Zork (curse you, tube of goo!), and so on… well it was taking up space and I didn’t need it.
The Click of Death was a problem, but ZIP disks really are obsolete. CD-Rs (ie, CD burning at home) killed ZIP disks good, and the rise of flash memory has put the final nail in the coffin and buried it with a nice tombstone on top.
Ring pulls that actually detach from cans. As opposed to folding up inside them.
I’m glad to see that everybody is still using their phone books. 
Checkbooks.
Dot matrix printers (for personal use; there’ll be a business market for them for the forseeable future).
Cassette tapes.
“Little black books” and other various hardcopy “here’s how to get in touch with people” methods. I’ve never kept an address book in my life; everyone’s contact details are in my computer and phone.
Personal letters on paper. Why pay and wait four days for your letter to get there when you can just e-mail someone?
Not so far as I’m concerned. I increasingly buy things and pay bills online with my debit card, but some of my creditors aren’t online and don’t take Visa. For those, I still have to write a check and send it snail mail.
Some countries still have these. I got a can of soda on a flight back from Canada which had one of the old, detachable ring-pulls. (The soda wasn’t Canadian - it was from Japan, I think).
And to go with Chowder’s fountain pens (although I’d argue about that one):
Blotting paper. (sob)
There was more to it than just being ugly. An analogue display lets you see the time at a glance - a digital display has to be read and interpreted. Admittedly this only takes a second or so, but the brain can process the position of a minute-hand in a matter of milliseconds.
Analog displays are slower to read and much less precise. (Accuracy is, as in everything, a separate concern entirely.)