Back in the 80’s and 90’s when gadgets and tech stuff are few and far between, having a pager or an analog cellphone can already make you look geeky. But in these days of dual-core smartphones, 4G/LTE, tablets, in-flight WiFi, etc there are still some old technology I kinda missed.
Oftentimes, we forget that things are much easier now than it was before and we tend to get anxious and impatient — like when an SMS is delayed by an hour or when our 3G internet crawls like dial-up.
Here are some of the tech stuff I miss the most back in my childhood days. Feel free to share your own in the comments.
- The sound of a PC modem dialing-up. There’s some feeling of excitement every time that beep comes around.
- Operator-assisted calls and calling collect. Now, we do PasaLoad or Share-A-Load instead of calling collect.
- The electric type-writer — beats the hell out of using messy white-out inks. It’s the first time I literally used the “backspace” key before I even encountered a PC.
- The Knight Rider VHS Tape re-winder. Anybody had one of these before? They’re pretty cool!
So the next time my iPad 2 would not play an HD movie I downloaded from kat.ph, I’ll just remember the time when we used to watch a B/W television set that’s hooked up to a car battery since our little island doesn’t have any electricity yet.
Thought-provoking blog post you have here. I hadn’t given due consideration such.
Walkman and cassete tapes.
Naalala ko pa riding bus from Cubao to Alabang. Ang magagandang kanta, nasa isang side lang (side A or side B). So para hindi agad ma-discharge ang battery ng Walkman, ang pang-rewind, ballpen.
I remember my uncle then told us that there were plans to incorporate the beeper into the cellphones. I wondered then “why bother have a beeper when you already have a cellphone.” Yun pala he was referring to SMS.
Also, a HS friend of mine wished to have a camera built-in in her cellphone. That was like 1999. We laughed at her kasi “besides it was funny it was ridiculous” (thiking of the film) tapos in just 3 years or so, meron na ngang camera ang mga cellphone. :)
commodore 64 at yung sobrang bigat na external floppy disk drive nya
mas nakakaamis yong pag-nagiikot ka ng antenna para lang makakuha ng channel, tapos may sumisigaw pa sa loob kung meron na :D haha
naalala ko nun sa province, kami lang may rewinder, madalas magparewind samin mga kapitbahay haha