# What "obsolete" services and/or products are still available today? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 3, 2014, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-obsolete-services-and-or-products-are-still-available-today/697307 "2014-09-03T00:05:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![DingoelGringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@DingoelGringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DingoelGringo)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2014, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-obsolete-services-and-or-products-are-still-available-today/697307/161 "2014-09-07T00:01:50Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Or roaming fees to drop considerably. I can still remember when cellphones charges were too expensive for the average person. Its possible that the increase in travellers will lead to similar drops. Land in a new country. Panama, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Mexico, Venezuela, Thailand for sure I would suppose it is a lot more universal than just the places I have visited, and you can buy a cell phone for less than $25.00 and buy minutes to go with it. Cheaper than using your USA cellular phone. ---
**Author:** ![Mangosteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mangosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangosteen)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2014, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-obsolete-services-and-or-products-are-still-available-today/697307/162 "2014-09-07T00:07:14Z")
India is the place for “obsolete” services. In Calcutta I regularly took real rickshaws ( no bicycle rickshaws, they bog down when the streets flood during the monsoon ) to travel in the city. I took a real steam locomotive from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer and back. (make sure you sit in one of the cars right behind the locomotive. The amount of soot showering the cars at the end of the train is intolerable.) I saw a donkey tied to a wood horizontal post grinding grain. To take a shower at the home I was staying in in Goa, I had to throw a pail into a well, wind it up with a crank and dump the water over my head. Money changers lined the street in front of the temples. They made change so one could give a single rupee each to the crowds of beggars. Services like fixing a flat in a bicycle tire are never done by the owner. This service and others like them are done by the local bike shop for “pennies”. Men sit in front of the post offices and sew thick cloth around your package and then write the address of where its going to on it. Some of the towns in the south look like a movie set from Indiana Jones. I could go on and on. I loved India and would go back in a heart beat. The things you see and the experiences you have are things you’ll never forget. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2014, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-obsolete-services-and-or-products-are-still-available-today/697307/163 "2014-09-07T16:36:32Z")
A newspaper printer in Virginia doesn’t use digital prepress; it still uses film to burn plates. Its film and stat cameras are antiques and I’m mildly surprised they can still find film for them. They do a brisk business with realtors and student papers. Comic book shops are getting squeezed out by digital comics, and newsstands are in a similar bind, but a fair number of both stay afloat. Plenty of schools offer classes in Latin and Hebrew. The former is nobody’s primary language and the latter is probably very few people’s (In Israel, speaking only English is no great handicap). Both are great for baffling eavesdroppers, though. ---
**Author:** ![Batfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Batfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batfish)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2014, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-obsolete-services-and-or-products-are-still-available-today/697307/164 "2014-09-07T16:57:37Z")
> [@Oswald\_Bastable](#): > > I’d say rather more than a few. There’s still demand for wooden barrels, even if production is partly mechanised. Archery is a very popular pastime, and an international sport. There are thousands of thatched buildings still (in the UK alone). Traditional blacksmithing is, I’ll grant you, probably less in demand, but there’s still a trade to be made in artisanal iron work - there are a lot of farriers still about as well, anywhere there’s horses. > > OB I’d say working blacksmiths outnumber thatchers 100-1. At least in US. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Plutonium\_Kid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8baadc/32.png) [@The\_Plutonium\_Kid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Plutonium_Kid)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2014, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-obsolete-services-and-or-products-are-still-available-today/697307/165 "2014-09-07T19:58:20Z")
Blank audio cassettes and video cassettes. They’re still around, and you can even still buy new machines to play them on, but they’re getting harder and harder to find. So far as I can tell, in North America and Europe no one releases pre-recorded tapes of any kind any more. As for the rest of the world I can’t say. 8-tracks are completely dead. Nobody makes either new tapes or new machines any more. And good riddance, I hated 'em. Boom boxes, aka ghetto blaster, Puerto Rican briefcase. They’re still made, but you hardly ever actually see them anywhere any more. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Plutonium\_Kid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8baadc/32.png) [@The\_Plutonium\_Kid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Plutonium_Kid)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2014, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-obsolete-services-and-or-products-are-still-available-today/697307/166 "2014-09-07T20:06:53Z")
> [@Enola\_Straight](#): > > Carburetors and drum brakes Come to think of it, I can’t remember the last time I saw a three on the tree. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2014, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-obsolete-services-and-or-products-are-still-available-today/697307/167 "2014-09-07T23:22:41Z")
> [@The\_Plutonium\_Kid](#): > > So far as I can tell, in North America and Europe no one releases pre-recorded tapes of any kind any more. As for the rest of the world I can’t say. Audio cassettes have made a [hipster indie resurgence](http://noisey.vice.com/blog/dig-up-your-moms-walkman-tapes-are-back-in-a-big-way) in the last couple of years. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2014, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-obsolete-services-and-or-products-are-still-available-today/697307/168 "2014-09-08T04:02:43Z")
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, second paragraph, originally published 1979: “[There is a planet] whose ape-descended life-forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.” Is this joke even better now that digital watches actually have faded in use? ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2014, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-obsolete-services-and-or-products-are-still-available-today/697307/169 "2014-09-08T04:26:16Z")
> [@BeeGee](#): > > Real finger-dirtying, clothes-staining, shit-I-put-it-in-backwards carbon paper? Or those three color (white, yellow, pink) NCR forms? > > As for clocks, I haven’t seen a digital wall clock outside of an airport terminal in years. I imagine they still make digital wall clocks, but outside of terminals, cell phones, and alarm clocks, I think most stick with analog. I haven’t even seen a digital watch on a person in a very long time. How about a digital but mechanical clock? As I was growing up there was a family across the street that had one; it must have been from the 1930s because it was the essence of art deco with some Streamline Moderne thrown in. The numerals for hours, tens of minutes, and minutes were on Rolodex-like structures which would tip each numeral into the window at the appropriate time. I don’t remember if you had to wind it up or if it was electric, but the casing was in heavy brass. I imagine it’s quite valuable if it still exists. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2014, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-obsolete-services-and-or-products-are-still-available-today/697307/170 "2014-09-08T15:22:11Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > How about a digital but mechanical clock? > > As I was growing up there was a family across the street that had one; it must have been from the 1930s because it was the essence of art deco with some Streamline Moderne thrown in. The numerals for hours, tens of minutes, and minutes were on Rolodex-like structures which would tip each numeral into the window at the appropriate time. I don’t remember if you had to wind it up or if it was electric, but the casing was in heavy brass. I imagine it’s quite valuable if it still exists. The Rolodex-style digital clock was mainstream in the early 1970s. That was also a standard technology used from the mid-60s for sign boards in railroad stations and airports. See [Split-flap display - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-flap_display) As a kid in the early 60s I recall seeing a digital clock like a mechanical odometer; the digits were printed on the circumference of rolling mechanical drums. ---
**Author:** ![ctaylor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6f9a4e/32.png) [@ctaylor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ctaylor)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2014, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-obsolete-services-and-or-products-are-still-available-today/697307/171 "2014-09-08T23:08:56Z")
Somebody mentioned obsolete guns, rifles and pistols. There’s a lively market for painstakingly-reproduced and reasonably priced replicas of firearms from the 18th and 19th century, plus what you need to shoot them. Some of the big propellant (gun powder) manufacturers still make real black powder to set off with a flint or percussion cap or a modern primer. You can even get mutton tallow and beeswax to make a lube for the paper patch on your hand-casted lead bullet. You can get the mould from someone who specializes in making bullet casting supplies. ---
**Author:** ![Critical1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Critical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical1)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2014, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-obsolete-services-and-or-products-are-still-available-today/697307/172 "2014-09-09T06:02:20Z")
My Uncle does [Player](https://www.google.com/search?q=player+piano&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS488US488&espv=2&biw=1079&bih=544&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=PJQOVPrbA4aJjALEtoHoDQ&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAw) [Piano](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_piano) restoration of all things. I have done work for him so its fun to put on a resume. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2014, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-obsolete-services-and-or-products-are-still-available-today/697307/173 "2014-09-09T06:14:27Z")
> [@DingoelGringo](#): > > Land in a new country. Panama, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Mexico, Venezuela, Thailand for sure I would suppose it is a lot more universal than just the places I have visited, and you can buy a cell phone for less than $25.00 and buy minutes to go with it. Cheaper than using your USA cellular phone. Or if your cell is unbound, change the SIM to a local one. I bought a new phone and a prepaid SIM in Sweden but the phone turned out to be wonky: I’ve ended up putting my Spanish SIM in an unbound dumb phone that works fine, my Swedish SIM in my Spanish unbound smartphone which also works fine, and it turns out I’m even getting my whatsapps in the smartphone as usual even though that phone now has a Swedish SIM and number. > [@The\_Plutonium\_Kid](#): > > Boom boxes, aka ghetto blaster, Puerto Rican briefcase. They’re still made, but you hardly ever actually see them anywhere any more. Now they come with a phone attached. In a recent flight we had a bunch of young dudes on their way to trying to drink Spain under the sea; they bought the biggest set of speakers Dixon could sell them and spent the flight generously sharing their boom boom music with the rest of the passengers. The group of Spanish retired people going back home from vacation and wanting to sleep on the flight was definitely Not Amused, nor were the stewards. ---
**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2014, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-obsolete-services-and-or-products-are-still-available-today/697307/174 "2014-09-09T14:31:20Z")
> [@SpeedwayRyan](#): > > If you’re talking about $50 running shoes or $80 dress shoes, sure, toss 'em. But if you buy a pair of $2000 dress shoes with leather soles and throw them away when the soles wear out instead of having them resoled for $50, you’re not being too wise with your money. My brain is having a hard time computing the idea of purchasing $2000 dress shoes and being “wise with your money.” ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2014, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-obsolete-services-and-or-products-are-still-available-today/697307/175 "2014-09-09T16:14:52Z")
[QUOTE=LSLGuy] The Rolodex-style digital clock was mainstream in the early 1970s. That was also a standard technology used from the mid-60s for sign boards in railroad stations and airports. See [Split-flap display - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-flap_display) . [/QUOTE] They sell those at Bed Bath & Beyond now. [Ten bucks for an alarm clock](http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/store/product/retro-flip-alarm-clock/3251853)wth Flip-o-Matic display or some similar description. I was amused at their existence, but didn’t commit every word on the box to memory when I saw them a couple of days ago. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2014, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-obsolete-services-and-or-products-are-still-available-today/697307/176 "2014-09-09T17:01:11Z")
[QUOTE=Critical1] My Uncle does Player Piano restoration of all things. [/QUOTE] Cool… I knew a guy near Chicago about 35 years ago who restored the things. Good to see there’s still enough of a market for the service. In a similar vein, there’s a large enough demand for Victrola parts and repair to keep a small handful of people in business. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2014, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-obsolete-services-and-or-products-are-still-available-today/697307/177 "2014-09-09T17:47:49Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > There’s one by my house as well (it might have closed up a year ago, I’m not sure). My brother got a pair of Berkinstocks re-soled. When I asked him why he’d do that, he said that they’re expensive enough that’s it’s cheaper to do that. From what he said, it’s pretty common to do that with Berkinstocks. Style aside, it is cheaper to buy quality footwear and have it re-done-soled than buy cheap shoes over & over. Also better for your feet. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2014, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-obsolete-services-and-or-products-are-still-available-today/697307/178 "2014-09-09T17:54:38Z")
\*“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”\* ---
**Author:** ![Ispolkom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e47774/32.png) [@Ispolkom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ispolkom)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2014, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-obsolete-services-and-or-products-are-still-available-today/697307/179 "2014-09-09T18:00:23Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Here in the US Midwest they’re actually used for tornado warnings more than anything else. We never had to worry about bombing like Europe did, but we do get tornadoes every year. Growing up near a very large SAC base in the Midwest, surrounded by missile silos, we were taught as children in the 1960s to distinguish between the tornado alert (a long sustained tone) and the air raid alert (one that slowly warbled up and down in frequency). If it was a tornado alert, you went to the basement. If it was an air raid, you didn’t need to do anything. We never had to bother with nonsense like “duck and cover.” Nowadays the sirens in my town are tested on the first Monday at 1 pm. I still find myself catching my breath for a moment when I hear them on a cloudless day… ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2014, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-obsolete-services-and-or-products-are-still-available-today/697307/180 "2014-09-09T18:18:47Z")
> [@OldGuy](#): > > eBooks still account for less than half of all book sales. Last I heard it was 30% so paper outsells ebooks more than 2-1. In threads like these it seems _de rigueur_ for someone to list something which in no way is obsolete. I dunno if they are trying to be funny, are clueless or trying to show how super-hip they are.:rolleyes: I think that if a service or product is only made/sold for nostalgia or re-creation purposes, it qualifies for the OP. Swards for SCAer for example. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-obsolete-services-and-or-products-are-still-available-today/697307.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-obsolete-services-and-or-products-are-still-available-today/697307.md?page=10)