Re the OP, I inherited a whole passel of cloth handkerchiefs from my grandfather. You know what they are really, really useful for? When you have one of those horrendous colds and you’re woken up every fifteen minutes because your nose is running like the St. Lawrence or your head feels like an overstuffed chesterfield. I don’t know what it is but there’s something comforting about blowing your nose on cloth rather than the eleven thousandth paper tissue. And more environmentally friendly, too.
Carbon paper. I still use it: you can’t beat it when you’re on the road and need to give clients a copy of meeting notes then and there. Try finding it in an ordinary stationery store, though, when you have to first explain to the 18 year old behind the counter what it is, and then have her look at you as if you’ve just asked a chemist for a dung poultice and a hogshead of leeches.
Cotton hankeys are available in better department stores. Any color, as long as it’s white. Colors or patterns are strictly for silk these days.
Unless the news is so new that Google hasn’t caught it (or I missed it maybe), http://www.sternpinball.com/ is still in the pinball business.
ETA: Or, maybe Student Driver is right. I hope not.
I should have specified old style suitcases. The kind that are rectangular and flattish, shaped like a oversized briefcase or attache.
The kind of luggage I see now is mostly duffel bags and rolling bags with telescoping handles. Much more usable than the old kind.
Do you count telegrams? Western Union stopped doing them a few years ago.
I bought one. I hope it’s good. It’s for Christmas, so it’s still in the back bedroom. I found it at Costco. I have records. Lots of records.
I am having a hard time finding replacement ribbon cartridges for the office typewriter. And being a terrible packrat, I found a little package of correction sheets for typing that I must have had in junior high for typing class. I brought them into the office to use. I bet I can’t replace those when they run out!
XP has disappeared from the retail market, although I guess OEMs can still get it. Despite the fact that there is still demand from people who find Vista unusable.
A few years ago a long acting version of nitroglycerin (it was called isordil in Canada; maybe a different name in the US) simply disappeared. Now all medical nitro is in spray cans that don’t fit in your pocket.
I bought a 3.5" diskette drive within the last year, so they have not quite disappeared.
They’re still pretty common in healthcare. Many of the physicians I know still carry one. But, yeah, otherwise they’re going out rapidly.
Oh good. This thread was starting to get me worried. I keep a stock of a half-dozen or so linen hankies, which last several years but eventually need to be replaced. I was starting to wonder if I needed to rush out and buy a lifetime supply. I always have a handkerchief in my pocket. As someone with A) allergies and B) eyeglasses, a hanky comes in handy for one or the other pretty often (although once it’s been used for A, it’s somewhat less useful for B.) Besides, a gentleman should be prepared to offer a handkerchief to a lady if she should begin to cry.
Has anybody mentioned typewriter ribbons?
Anyone else remember disc cameras? These were point-and-shoot cameras that took a specialized cartridge of film. Quality wasn’t great, and they were not made after the 1980s. I’m reminded of them because I recently found a disc negative when cleaning out my apartment.
Yep, except now they’re more often marketed to folks looking for dramatic effects rather than the subtle changes I remember being advertised in the 90s: http://www.clearlycontacts.ca/cSpecialEffects-p1.html?CMP=BAC-MS_HalloweenPink
Cigarette cases.
CB Radios.
Car phones.
Jalousie windows.
Soon/next: Formica/laminate counter tops, bar soap, hand towels
I hope not because my husband has the Allergies From Hell and even blowing his nose into a paper towel causes it to disintigrate. Cotton hankies all the way.
ROM cartridges are nearly extinct. The closest equivalent would be an SD card or Flash storage, but you can’t put a coprocessor on those. Once the DSi comes out without support for GBA carts it will be the end of an era: Cartridges took the console world from the first true multi-game consoles (the successors to dedicated systems) through the Crash, revival, and up to nearly the modern day, a full three decades later.
I was about to add Zip drives to this list, but as you can still get Zip disks at Office Depot, I’ll hold off for another year.
They may not be extinct, but they are definitely on the list…
Adult (Porn) Movie Theaters.
Old fashioned folding lawn chairs.
Cigarette vending machines.
Lawn Darts.
Timing guns. (For cars.)
Plug-in drills.
Supersonic passenger jets.
Glass ketchup bottles.
Really? My sister buys them and uses them as wallets. I didn’t think they were that hard to find.
What are we supposed to use instead of hand towels?
No one’s mentioned manual typewriters, slide rules, or 5-1/4" floppy disks.
For some reason unknown to me, there are still at least a couple porno theatres in Montreal. One of them (the most famous, Cinema L’Amour) actually publishes its schedule in the movie listings in the Journal de Montreal.