Sometimes we need to transfer files between two computers. If they’re on the same network, then it’s easy-peasy. But if they’re not on the same network, or one (or both) are stand-alone (e.g. a home computer), then it becomes more difficult.
One idea is to email the files. But sometimes the files are very big, and there are security issues with email. Same goes for a commercial cloud service… potential security issues.
USB flash drives (“thumb drives”) are a huge no-no where I work. If you plug one in to your networked computer, you will get a visit from IT. And it could lead to an investigation.
So the obvious choice would be a USB hard drive. But it takes many months for IT to approve a hard drive. And then they set it up so that it can only be plugged in to one computer, which makes it kinda pointless.
So what to do? Well, for the last 15 years or so we have been using CD-ROMs. IT does not have a problem with them for some reason. We have a number of portable CD drives that plug into the USB port on a computer, and we purchase CDs on a regular basis. I think a few people in our group have Blu-ray burners.
By far the most common is the use of paper in offices. It’s been known for decades that the paperless office is the way to go. See for example this 1975 Businessweek article:
So while one can understand why a business might use paper to communicate with elderly clients who are not current with modern technologies (“Old Fogies”) other use within a modern business is surely incomprehensible!
Aviation is full of old tech still in regular use.
Probably 80% of bad weather landings worldwide today are performed using
Which was first prototyped in 1929 and was first used commercially in the USA in 1938. A 1938 receiver could track modern signals just fine. And vice versa.
The AM radios we use for voice communications are also 1930s/1940s tech. The only notable improvements being tighter regulation of the sidebands enabling vastly tighter spacing between adjacent channels. On the inside of course they’re much improved versus the old vacuum tube designs. But a 1940’s radio and a 2023 radio could talk to one another just fine provided the 2023 radio was tuned to one of the fewer and farther apart frequencies the 1940s radio could use.
Etc.
My employer still has old fashioned mainframe green-screen apps to run most of the business. The last of the genuine mainframe terminals disappeared in the early 2000s, replaced by Windows PCs with terminal emulator apps. The terminal emulators are almost gone now, being replaced with browser-based HTML front-ends or mobile / tablet apps. But the underlying guts are still mostly ancient mainframe programs. The pin-feed dot matrix printers are being phased out now.
I’m retired now, but during the last five years of my working life, our school district began the process of transitioning to all-electronic records. This complicated the sending and receiving of records a bit, since other school systems use different programs for student records. There were times I had to print a student’s records in order to fax them to their new school or, after another school faxed me records, scan those in so they’d be in the student’s electronic file.
I have two 1950’s tractors; some hand tools which I suspect are older than that; a number of hand tools whose design is certainly considerably older than that. And occasionally, when one’s to hand closer than a suitable made tool, I whack something with an unmodified rock.
Huh. We are allowed to use them, and all the computers are set up to only use them if they’ve been encrypted and password protected. That’s a bit of a pain, but it works.
I don’t know what industry @Crafter_Man works in, but a lot of companies in finance and tech don’t want you using thumb drives, encrypted or not, as it allows documents to be taken outside of the secure confines of the corporate network where they have no control who can look at it.
I’m not sure if this counts, but I wear an automatic (self-winding) watch that I use more than the clock on my phone or my computer at work when I check the time. Mostly because I like a technology that doesn’t use a battery, and it’s easy to check.
I work in finance (well, insurance, but we have the same data issues as other financial sectors) and that’s why the thumb drive needs to be encrypted. We do sometimes have a need to move files, and this is the compromise.
First week back in the office after almost two years of remote work: Senior Vice President of Operations asks for ten copies of the 30 page deck in color for his staff meeting. He didn’t want anyone looking at their laptop or tablet in the meeting.
Did he ask for one copy to be printed on transparencies? That way he could use an old-fashioned overhead projector, if you could find one, and the presenter doesn’t need a laptop either.
At a former job I used a cobbler’s sewing machine that was treadle powered dating from the mid-19th Century. Those things last forever.
At my current job I’m still handling cash and coins, which for the past umpty years I’ve been told are going away any day now (less common, yes, but still about 1/4 of our daily income so, no, not going away next week) and checks. We use a combination of electronic and physical documents in the store offices.