A “minicomputer” is actually giant hulking cabinet sized machine. “Heavy duty” batteries are significantly lower capacity than Alkaline and Li-Ion batteries and “High Definition TV” has a quarter or less the resolution of 4K.
What are some other descriptors that were accurate at the time but now are the opposite of what they describe due to the advancement of technology?
Basically anything with “new” in its name:
Windows NT (“New Technology”) from 1994.
The “New iPad”, which was the official name given to the 3rd generation iPad.
Le pont Neuf (“New Bridge”) in Paris, the city’s oldest bridge.
Oh yeah, the new iPad was a naming debacle. Even Apple stepped back from that one pretty quickly. On the same note, the New Forest is one of England’s oldest extant forests.
The New River in West Virginia was named by early American explorers, a couple hundred years ago.
Well, the New State House in Bostoin, Massachusetts was opened in 1787, to distinguish it from the Old State House, built in 1713. Both are still standing, and in use under those names.
To be fair, though, there hasn’t ben another Massachusetts State House since the 1787 one, so the name is still accurate, though weird, given the date.
Boston has an Old City Hall (1865) and a New City Hall (1968). The names aren’t so jarring in this case. But a lot of people would be just as satisfied to name the newer, Brutalist-school building the Ugly City Hall.
The “New Wave” school of sf writing, ca. 1965.
And how many “posts” is art into the Modern era?
New Coke? (Which sucked so bad, they went back to [del]Old Coke[/del] Coke Classic.)
I have heard that it is still available, but I have not seen it.
Sugared New Coka aka Coke II was made until maybe ten years ago for a few markets. The flavor compounding lives on in Diet Coke. (Coke Zero uses the old flavor.) God knows what Tab uses.
New College, Oxford (estd. 1379).
In mathematics, there is modern algebra whose roots go back to at least 1830 (Galois).
New age is getting old pretty fast.
Movies are still called “flicks”, short for “flickers”, even though they haven’t flickered for quite a while.
20th Century-Fox Film Corporation, which is still called that, even though the parent corporation is called “21st Century.”
20th Century Pictures merged with Fox Film Corporation in 1935.
Probably the reason the TV network, and later cable news station, formed so close to the end of the 20th century, were just called “Fox.”
Likewise “New Criticism,” a school of literary theory that flourished from the 1940s through the mid-70s.
“New” England, for that matter, is the least new part of the US. And Newfoundland, I think we have known about that place for a while.
They flicker at a movie theatre near me.
Similarly, New South Wales was the first part of Australia to be settled by Europeans.
And gnus have been around for a long time.
Safety razors were (well, are) certainly safer than the straight razors that preceded them but hardly as safe as an electric/mechanical shaver.
Radio waves in the 3 MHz - 30 MHz are called High Frequency (HF). Now, HF is near the low end of the frequency ranges being used; apart from AM radio and shortwave radio, most radio broadcasts and communications use frequencies higher than HF. TV and FM radio are in VHF (Very High Frequency, 30-300 MHz) and UHF (Ultra High Frequency, 300 MHz - 3 GHz). WiFi and satellite communications are in UHF to SHF (Super High Frequency, 3-30 GHz).