TELNET
I was at a conference in Keele University a year or so ago. To be allowed wireless internet access, I had to log in and change my default password using... wait for it...

TELNET.

For. The . Win.

(and still, in 2010: www.students.keele.ac.uk/ie7.html)

Keele University ITS department - what is going on?
(nordelius, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 13:33, 7 replies)

I've only got the Arcade version of Xbox 360 .

(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 13:32, 2 replies)

Vinyl
This isn't original or anything, but I collect punk and old skool vinyl. My dad and uncles are prog/metal/rock types and I've inherited their tastes by and large. Some LPs I have been given from them, like Saucerful of Secrets and The Doors, some I've found at charity shops (e.g. Tubular Bells, The Game by Queen, Unknown Pleasures), some I've found at record sales (the kind that used to visit small towns and be held in hotel lounges), like The Beatles 67-70, The Clash's eponymous first LP, Discharge's "Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing", and the appalling Sid Sings, and some I've bought from a 2nd-hand record shop in Aberdeen (Metal Box, X-Ray Spex, The Damned's first album, The Stooges, Transformer, and so on.

There's no logic to these purchases really. But there's something great about browsing through charity shops or record sales and finding amidst the utter dross the album which you know was meant for YOU that day. It's like the National Lottery finger pointing at you, a rare conjunction of the elements when everything seems to fit. I also like how these LPs are second-hand - they embody some history, they've been used and played and loved (or, as in the case of Sid Sings, not) and now have come through some unknown journey to land up in my hands. There's just something magical about that.
(McChinaman banned, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 13:29, 7 replies)

Games consoles
I still have a snes, n64 and gamecube in the house. Despite owning an xbox 360, playstation 3 and a wii, when ever mates come round we get out the old consoles, usualy for some mario tennis on the n64, a game which very nearly caused a phyical fight more then once.

As my mates get older and we slowly drift off to marrage and mortgages, it's nice that we can still go back to our childhood and still get the same sense of excitment we felt when it was brand new.
(Mong goose, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 13:28, 17 replies)

My sister...
..came to my house with a floppy disc and asked me to make a copy of Maya for her after seeing a desktop wallpaper I'd made for my father. Even if I somehow could magically do this, I don't know what she was hoping to achieve; she can barely navigate a word document.
( Regger, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 13:26, Reply)

Language labs
In the French university where I teach English, the old style, cassette language labs haven't all yet been replaced by the new multimedia ones with the audio files on a server. We have one that uses cassette tapes, and one that uses the really old, 60's style spools.

My predecessor encouraged students in the cassette lab to bring their own tapes so they could listen to them at home. Those who still live with Mum & Dad could usually dig out a tape player from somewhere, but it didn't half make me feel old to watch 18 year olds trying to work out which way to put the cassettes in the machines, and they didn't get the concept of fast forward and rewind.

In the end, I digitised all the recordings with Audacity, uploaded them to a server and got the students to download them.
(lolwhites, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 13:23, 4 replies)

The 2 pence piece
is very similar in size, shape and colour to the 1966 half-penny piece. I know this because I got given the latter in my change the other day.

EDIT: I've just spent it. Take that, decimalisation!
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 13:23, 7 replies)

Buckets Of Instant Sunshine
...otherwise known as nuclear weapons. I mean, wtf?

I can't be the only person here to think that if a right wing goverment (sorry, even more right wing) got into power in Israel and decided to nuke Iran that the west would make nothing more than tutting noises.

By putting off the decision on renewal of Trident, David Cameron has shown the sum total of his moral backbone to be - as many will have suspected - zero. If he wanted to be a "world statesman" he'd have taken the initiative and told Obama, Medvedev and even the poison dwarf (Sarkozy) that UK was being a world leader and going for a phased withdrawl of all nuclear weapons and missile boats (the SSBNs that carry them). Instead, by putting the decision off, he makes himself a laughing stock.

As for the countries most likely to fling nukes at each other (most likely in this context being Pakistan, India and China alongside the aforementioned Israel): there's a good economic as well as geopolitical case for their not doing so.

India and Pakistan come to blows regularly over Jammu and Kashmir and thus far - with years of conventional weapons - no-one's been dumb enough to escalate because, as with the point of deterrence, mutually assured destruction is in place.

China, the busy beast to the north, might yet decide to break down and nuke someone, but who? Nuking the Americans is a ridiculous concept - the majority of Chinese gilts are held in the US. Nuking India? Why would they?

To bring this home to us - the replacements for Trident are (allegedly) going to cost £20billion. There's a lot more things that the UK needs that the £20billion could be spent on.
(Wibblist Last said "Wibble" on, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 13:23, 4 replies)

Swords!
I collect swords, which are fairly out dated. Some one told me to change to guns, but they just don't have the artistic appeal to me. Also, no civilised society would allow me to possess firearms.
(Mong goose, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 13:21, 3 replies)

I've stopped listening to CDs and started relying on a banjo instead.

( Dr Preference AjcuiVd289, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 13:20, Reply)

I get my nephews to wash my car
..and pay them in old pennies*.

They think they're onto a winner as they weigh so much, they must be worth more


* i know it's not technology, but the first thing i thought of for his QoTW
( Another_tragic_case wished he hadn't eaten all the cake, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 13:15, 1 reply)

I madethe clock
in this picture with some old russian display tubes.

The living room phone is non to modern either. I like the way it rings and I love the dialing mechanisim, made frome brass and hugely over engineered. It will last 4eva.



Edit: Thanks for the nice words.
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Thu 4 Nov 2010, 13:14, 12 replies)

Packet radio.
This involves hooking ridiculously outdated 1200bps modems up to radio equipment, and sending messages fairly slowly (120 characters per second ought to be quick enough for anybody) to people quite a long way away. I've even used it to have a conversation with someone in Norway, by repeating the signal through the radio in the International Space Station.

Yes, it's slow. Yes, the software is fiddly to get going. Yes, you do need a radio licence to do it (legally). Yes, you could just use the Internet. But do you know what? It's fun, and it feels like sticking two fingers up at expensive, filtered and unreliable Internet Service Providers. Log this, twats...
(gordonjcp, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 13:14, 2 replies)

Not quite vinyl, but...
...my car has a tape deck in it even though it was manufactured in 2004. As it's no longer possible to get tapes, I'm still listening to the ones I had back in the 80s. Am getting a bit sick of Aha now :/
(zee ate your giraffe on, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 13:13, 8 replies)

Spit
none of this new-fangled lube for me, I'll have you know
(Ronnie Spleen MMMMNEURRGH I AM A GAY SPAZ AND I LOVE IT UP MY BU, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 13:13, 2 replies)

It's vid-ay-o
We've got to declutter our flat, and the wife wants me to ditch all my videos.
I've already had one crack at it, losing any films I'd taped off the telly, but keeping the bought ones I don't now have on DVD.
I've still got around 3 or 4 hundred though, that have been in boxes, under the stairs for four years.
I still have a working video player rigged up for archiving onto DVD, but I never seem to get round to it.

My argument is, there's stuff taped off the telly that will never be commercially available or repeated, and also there's a huge financial investment there.
On the downside, that financial investment means jack all now, and the tapes have probably degraded so much now as to be unwatchable.
( Joe Scaramanga with a G-double-O-D vibration, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 13:12, 12 replies)

I still have my 1080p HD TV
I really need to get with the times.
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 13:09, 1 reply)

MicroDrive
Nuff said.
(Suck it and Sea, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 13:08, 2 replies)

I don't like throwing stuff out if it still works
even if it means keeping it in the loft...like my Compaq 286e luggable with it's 40MB hard disk, basically it's like carrying a breeze block in a bag, but heavier.

Length? 5 1/4" floppy
(RTFM May your god go with you, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 13:07, Reply)

Laudanum and chimney sweeps

( wotofco pissing in your swimming pool, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 13:05, 2 replies)

Last year I bought a shiny new bike with all the latest accessories and the biggest fuckoff lock you've ever seen.
After a week it needed extensive repairs when the gears started grinding against the protective cover. Then it was stolen, lock and all, within three weeks, from a guarded underground bike park.
Early this year I bought the shittest, most broken-looking bike I could find. It's been kept in working order for probably 20 years so runs like a treat, but it looks like somebody abandoned it years ago. I bought the cheapest, most flimsy lock possible and have been leaving it in some of the most bicycle-thief-infested parts of Beijing, right out in the street, sometimes for a week at a time. Nobody's so much as touched it. I've cycled it for the best part of the year without having to so much as pump the tires up.
( Zuowan, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 13:02, 1 reply)

A couple of things
Spring to mind.

I used to have a ZX+2. Bought a ram pack for it one day, but never used it. I did use the light gun I picked up from Normans with Duke Nukem though!

Also, when traveling about seven years ago in the North tip of New Zealand, I stayed at a bungalow rented by my cousins. They had a Beta Max player with a dodgy copy of Star Wars. The quality was awful and most of the tapes didn't work. I tried watching it, poor quality but at least Han shot first.
(Deskbound You insignificant speck of dust, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 12:59, Reply)

My mobile phone
is a Sony Ericsson T630, from 2003. I briefly considered replacing it, and went to one of those websites that offers money for old phones.

It turns out that they only offer money for some old phones.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 12:56, Reply)

I still use the old 21" CRT 100kg not wide screen tv .
It's a sony trinitron so it's not going to die soon, and the amount of abuse it gets from my 2yr son armed with Thomas the Tank Engine, toy cars and other random stuff means i'll not be updating for plastic screen LCD TV for a while.
(waxdart hello., Thu 4 Nov 2010, 12:54, 4 replies)

New Media conference
I blagged a freebie for a media conference at a very posh hotel in Central London. One of the themes was the rise of the smartphone, and in an attempt to see how many the top media suits owned, we were asked to hold our mobiles over our heads.

In the official Who Has The Worst Phone In The Room contest that followed, I came second, with a sky blue chunk of plastic made my a Korean company that no longer exists.

The winner - with something that looked and functioned much like a three-month-out-of-date banana was former BBC Director General Greg Dyke.

He won a small prize.

GUTTED. Even my shit technology is not shit enough.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 12:53, 1 reply)

Apparently
my fucking F5 button doesn't work well enough for me to get onto QOTW first anymore.
( the pink chicken sniffer sniffs pink chickens., Thu 4 Nov 2010, 12:49, 2 replies)

Oh look, I get to do this whole 'fourth, story to follow' business.
What fun.

Edit: So, in a bizarre departure from tradition, I'm actually going to tell a story. It's about books. Paper books. Which are hideously outdated, but I still use them anyway because I have, like, three thousand. And e-readers are still shit. I look forward to the day all books are seamlessly electronic, but even then I'll still treasure my old dead trees.

I didn't say it was going to be a good story.

Edit edit: I'm probably also going to use later posts to cram in some bullshit about how human minds are outdated and hopelessly ill-equipped for modern life too, so nyah.
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 12:49, 11 replies)

My band is looking to play together for the first time in 10 years
The keyboard player has had to dig out the floppy disks with our samples on

Kids today don't know you're born
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 12:49, Reply)

Darn

Edit: Go on then, at work I only ever write with a pencil, one of those old fangled ones that you have to use a pencil sharpener on.
(chilling, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 12:48, 3 replies)

First?
Wow, what are the chances eh?

No F5 button for me, just old fashioned 'opening the front page at the right time'.
(mark schmark, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 12:47, 2 replies)