b3ta.com qotw
You are not logged in. Login or Signup
Home » Question of the Week » Redundant technology » Page 6 | Search
This is a question Redundant technology

Music on vinyl records, mobile phones the size of house bricks and pornography printed on paper. What hideously out of date stuff do you still use?

Thanks to boozehound for the suggestion

(, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 12:44)
Pages: Latest, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, ... 1

This question is now closed.

I am racially prejudiced and consider homosexuals alarming and am sure they will roger my children

(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 10:23, 6 replies)
The term Daddio
and I use my stupidly expensive bleeding edge only available on import smart phone to play zx spectrum games, mostly jet set will mods
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 10:18, Reply)
v That's nothing v
I've written this by hand using only papyrus and my own sputum.
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 10:16, 1 reply)
My first console
was the Binatone TV Master back in '78, it had 4 games settings which were tennis, football, squash and a moving target for the light gun.

It still works as do the two controllers (all of two wires inside) and the light gun.

I've been a gamer for 32 years now and have pretty much owned or played on every single home computer/console that has been released since then.

Which is nice.
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 10:16, 3 replies)
Desktop Computer
I've typed this on a fucking desktop computer.

Let the flamers begin
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 10:11, 3 replies)
The beauty that is a real fire
I live with my Mrs and little un in a very old house
the house has been modernised over the years but recently we decided to ditch the pretend real fire looking expensive to run gas fire set-up with its fake coal briquettes last week and revert back to a real fire with wood and coal and stuff. This has to be the best decision we have ever made regarding house improvements.

We now have a crackling real fire that costs us next to nothing because we have started to use a freecycle website to obtain free wood. In the evening we sit watching tv warm as toast and when my mrs goes to the loo in the commercial breaks i throw bogeys on the fire to watch them crackle....heaven i tell thee.

to top all this domestic bliss off im still using the fake fire brass front (That i took out) with my new old fashioned real fire.
Sometimes i think going backwards is the only way forward.
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 10:10, 1 reply)
..
3 amiga 500
2 external drives for same
1 512kb memory upgrade
and
a 20mb SCSI Hard drive

I started with just the one, but then picked up faulty one for the equivalent of a tenner.. Turned out it was just the PSU that had gone. Then bought one with a faulty internal floppydrive. Last I checked all 3 were working fine.

I still love Blood Money, R-type and Shadow of the beast.. oh and Super Cars..god.. Super Cars is fantastic.

My record collection is STILL expanding. I recently picked up Soundgardens new record, a long with a NIN album and Nirvana..
I dont really buy stuff on CD anymore if I can help it.. I'd rather buy the vinyl and then stick that onto my phone in 320kbps mp3 (I've recently installed a FLAC player, but have yet to test it).
I play my records on two 1210mk2 turntables through a mixer I bought when I was 16.The Mixer has been through the wars of mobile djing years or playing as a regulkar at a club where the mixer had broken but the owner was too cheap to get it sorted.

I still record some of my mixes onto minidisc.
I still have my NAD tapedeck - and it works - last tape I bought was Down on the upside by soundgarden.
I have two original xboxes that I cant bring myself to selling, Shedload of original games and doowads for them too.

Oh AND I have a brand spanking new 6 head VCR sitting in it's box, silly.
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 10:02, 9 replies)
Other old technology
Motorola GP300 radios - I have three of these that I keep in a toolbox in my van, with a couple of our PMR channels programmed in and one or two of the local amateur repeaters. The batteries are rather out-of-date but as long as they're charged once every couple of weeks they last about a day. The radios themselves are over 20 years old. In another 20 years, I'm prepared to wager a very small sum that we'll still have 40-year-old GP300s struggling on with 37-year-old batteries that last about half an hour, but no 20-year-old Mototrbos.
(edit: if you saw Secrets of the Universe, these are the radios they use for the "13 bongs from Big Ben" segment. And just about everywhere else on BBC locations.)

I drive a 1988 Citroen CX 22TRS. If it goes wrong, it tends to do so with a lot of advance warning and in fairly predictable ways. Despite being quite a large heavy car, with a 2.2 litre carburettor-fed engine, it gets around 32mpg (on 4-star it got 36mpg - that's how ecologically-friendly unleaded is :-/ ). It's not particularly fast, but the speed limit is 70mph anyway. At that speed, you can run over a brick and barely feel a ripple through the soft, heavily-damped hydraulic suspension. If you don't mind it leaning over a bit, you can sling it through corners that would make a BMW slide without any drama. The variable power steering and lack of brake pedal travel catches newbie drivers out, but after 20 miles or so you get used to driving with a very light touch. After that, everything else feels like a lumbering Eastern European tractor.

And finally - amplification. My friend Ben gave me an HH Electronics Combo 212 that he found when he moved into his new house. It works perfectly, apart from a scratchy pot in the tone controls and the electroluminescent display no longer luminesces. It sounds wonderful, with tight, punchy bass and the really lovely warm-sounding "Valve Sound" distortion. I've stuck my guitars through it, my basses through it and a couple of synths through it. It makes a lot of very "solid"-sounding noise. Great stuff. It must be about 30 years old, too.

I have some great old kit and I'm not apologising for anything.
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 9:51, 2 replies)
Nerds! Get 'em!
I spend a considerable amount of money on technology, relatively speaking. I'm a sucker for the newest phones, I have an HDTV, a large blu ray collection, surround sound, a PS3, the works, and I fucking love it.

However, nothing beats (and nothing ever will beat) me, and 3 of my oldest friends, sitting around my dining room table with some pencils and sheets of paper, twatting imaginary goblins in our heads and pretending to be wizards.
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 9:41, 2 replies)
I also enjoy retro video game consoles.
Let this be the last of it.
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 9:33, 4 replies)
Peppermint tea
I grow it in my own garden, collect the leafs, dry them, and keep them in a jar.
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 9:28, 5 replies)
Sharp enough to shave with.
I know that this story is stretching the definition of redundant technology somewhat but as the vast majority of answers here seem to be more along the theme of 'they don't make them like they used too' I’m slotting my two cents in here.

Tools.

Yeah Seriously.

What the fuck is up with modern day tools? They're all a huge pile of wank. I've got a modest collection of edged tools which I use for my conservation work and occasional woodworking project and nothing produced these days can even hold a candle to the stuff which was produced 'back in the day.' These tools by manufacturers such as Brades, Nash or Gelpin can hold an edge; they were made by skilled craftsmen from properly tempered metal. Tools that you could use all day doing manly stuff such as chopping down trees and then go straight home and shag the wife and drink beer from a tankard not waste time sharpening ones tools.

Okay so I know it’s an unsual bugbear but at least its different to all the stories about mega drives and ZX spectrums!

I'm putting the even more off topic story about how I once prepared a cheese sandwich using an axe in the replies.
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 9:26, 10 replies)
kids nowadays...
as a primary teacher I was covering "old words" with a yr 4 class, eg what do we call a wireless now - a radio, etc. I gave the kids the word "gramophone" and asked them what the equivalent updated word was; "dvd player?", no "playstation?", no... one kid offered the oldest thing he could possibly think of; "video??". Nope.

I gave them the answer; its an old record player - cue queries of "what's one of those then?". When I explained what a record player did, one of the kids thought his Grandad might have one...

Two things dawned on me: one, that I could have used "record player" instead of "gramophone" as the example of an old, little used word. Secondly, I am old (at 33).
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 9:19, 1 reply)
The most out of date thing I use...
...is the question of the week apparently.
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 9:13, Reply)
my only telephone
connects to the wall with a wire
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 9:09, Reply)
I have a slide rule and I'm not afraid to use it.
The television is a CRT set, but only five years old.
I had a rotary dial telephone until 2006.

I have never lived in a house with a dishwasher.
I have a bottle of fountain pen ink and a fountain pen to go with it.
I don't use the free teabags at work, I have a pot and a selection of real teas, not floor sweepings in a mesh bag.

My car is a 1983 model. It does have ABS.
Most of the furniture in the house is 40 to 100 years old.
The washing machine is at least 20 years old and so is the refrigerator.

I have some vinyl LPs and a turntable.
The house was built in 1968.

I have a seven band valve radio built in 1938, similar to one hidden by Allied POWS in a disused water tank at the Changi prison in Singapore. It's not going just now.
I have books published in the 1930s.

I have some kerosene lamps, one has a burner patented in 1855. Another is probably of 1880s manufacture and uses an 1860s design burner with double wicks. It is very solid spelter and weighs at least seven kilograms. I have a stone oil lamp, reputedly of Afghan manufacture and of unknown age. I have a terracotta oil lamp supposedly made in Palestine between 1400 and 1800 years ago.

The stone I use to prop the garden gate open is millions of years old and it still works.

And the kicker? I was running Vista until a few months ago.
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 9:02, 10 replies)
I still use this
www.microphonerentals.com/images/78_Players_And_Turntables/images/RCA%20His%20Masters%20Voice%20Gramaphone_JPG.jpg

Found this model at a carboot and on the drive home i propped the horn out of the window and let rip some chav crap costing a very repectable ten new pence.

Two problems arose , one its not designed for those kind of records and two going over speed bumps makes some serious plastic holes.

Sounded like a good remix though.
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 8:43, 1 reply)
Old Mobile Phone
I am still using the mobile phone that my great aunt Gertrude bought new in 1928. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6a4T2tJaSU
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 8:08, 4 replies)
Driving like its 1979
Our second car is a 1979´ Opel Kadett C City (that's a Vauxhall or Chevrolet Chevette for you outlanders). No ABS, No ESP, No AC, No servo or other sissy features. It actually all comes down to how good and resposible you are at driving your car. And if you are not, well, is has the same safety features as a soda can..

There is no electronic fuel injection, no complicated electronics that can break, only 5-6 buttons to push. It has a mono radio, wich i upgraded with a mono cassette deck which i got from Ebay, so i could play all my Kiss and Kraftwerk tapes from the thrift stores (only authentic music from 1979 please.)

It is dirt cheap to repair keep in shape, parts are still being manufactured, and you can do a lot of it yourself. fuel consumption? 16 kilometere/liter. Insurance? Also a very cheap classic car insurance. And it handles well and is a very fun and sporty car to drive.

Speed? It maxed out on 148,5 km/h.
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 7:58, Reply)
16/4 Token Ring
Granted, only one server remains, but when I do turn it on for that once-every-six-month job, I have to dig out the long reach type1 "hermaphrodite" connectors from the loft, install the token ring card to a pc, and fire it all up. I could probably get an ethernet card for the server for about 30 quid 2nd user, just never got round to it since 1998.........
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 7:14, 3 replies)
Electricity: the devil's juice.
I believe that the apocalypse will come and eventually we will have no electricity. (not as a 'big bang' but probably through a slow and eventual lack of resources causing our modern way of life to become too expensive to sustain). When that time comes I will be ready!
I have taught myself to be self sufficiant in skills that will see me as a valuable and sought-after member of this simpler, 19th century style community. My pre-fossil fuel age skills include:
Sewing, cookery, carpentry, pottery, I can knot fishing nets and hammocks, cordwaining, millinary, basket making, I can knit (It will be chilly), I can draw and paint (your cave will look splendid) and I used to be a wigmaker (not sure if people will want wigs though)

When people want things made by hand again...I'll be here...my time will come!...*Cue:Terminator soundtrack*

Sorry for lack of funnies but 'lets have a heated debate'....

Edit: one of you will have to man the bicycle dynamo, I cant live without b3ta or innerweb pron
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 6:45, 7 replies)

I've got a 43 year old cock. Goes ok. Bit of a bend in it from left handed wanking but no nasty lesions or seepage. Cant see the need to replace it.
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 6:09, 6 replies)
1973 Marshall 2061 head
Uses thermionic valves to embiggen the sound!
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 6:01, 1 reply)
The MEGATRON.
When microwaves first came out in Australia, the cartoon Transformers had also begun. When I found out that microwaves were called MEGATRONS, well that just did it. I watched and waited for that bath-shaped crate with its own reinforced stand to change into something with superpowers of destruction. Luckily, I only had to watch and wait for a week as my mother killed it by microwaving dinner with foil (foil!) over the top of a plate.
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 4:59, 9 replies)
Tea
Loose-leaf tea. In a proper heated-up pot, and left to brew for 4 minutes under an ornate cosy. No short cuts.
Tea bags are for the morally dissolute and the lower orders.
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 4:39, 9 replies)
Old computer games systems
is it my imagination or do they just not make games as difficult as they used to be? after waiting for ages for a tape on the commodore 64 to load it makes you more determined to get as far as you can on a game and appreciate it to the max.

my sega master system and mega drive also get regular airings too. apart from anything else i'm a massive cheapskate, cos you can pick up the games for about 50p each from car boot sales. awesome!
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 3:36, 1 reply)
Razors
I finally got utterly fed up of getting ripped off by Gillette, and have reverted to the old style Double Edge safety razor, complete with shaving brush and soap.
It is brilliant, takes a little longer, mostly through fear, but it delivers a far better shave and is a bit of an event in the morning now if you like a bit of self indulgent pampering involving very sharp objects. And Wifey loves it so I get more kisses, wins all round. To scared to give a straight razor a go though.
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 3:19, 7 replies)
they say you never get over your first love
well, i've never gotten over the nintendo 64 games console.

i was only about eight years old when my parents bought our first nintendo. before we'd had a crusty old sega megadrive (me and my sister had often spent many hours mesmerised by sonic and his friends) which was, by now, so ancient that the games crashed after five minutes and you had to pull the cartridge out and puff frantically into it, hoping to unsettle some of the sediments of dust, grime and play dough.

sonic and his friends were quickly replaced by mario, toadstool and bowser (not princess peach, she always seemed a bit suspect). i cant lie... an eight year old and a six year old are not going to get very far. we managed to defeat bowser after a couple of months but i had to wait until i was eleven before i had the dexterity with the controls to collect all 120 stars and meet yoshi on the roof (a complete and utter let down).

then ocarina of time came out. OH ... MY. that was it. i was completely infatuated. i completed the game in record time, waited a couple of months then re-did the whole thing again making sure id painstakingly completed every task, collected every skulltula, saved every villager and upgraded every weapon. there were numerous punch ups over whose turn it was to play on the game but as eldest, i had a good half an hour after my sister had gone to bed where i could sit and adventure to my heart's content. best of all, when you completed your quest, there was the best ending sequence. it simultaneously filled my little heart with joy and broke my heart ... why couldn't link stay in the future with princess zelda and get married? why? WHY??

it turns out i am not as big a nut as someone else. since then, we got a gamecube and (to my disdain) a nintendo wii. but i discovered that my mum, of all people, has kept the nintendo console and all of our games. this is the same woman who cannot send an email but can still absolutely thrash me at mario kart. what an inspirational lady!
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 2:56, 1 reply)
i wear a suit of armour when i'm in the car
take that seatbelts! if it's good enough for jousting it's good enough for the M8.
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 2:18, 3 replies)
Film cameras
SLRs and rangefinders, including one old enough to collect retirement benefits. 35mm and 120 format. Black and white film that I develop myself in my sink downstairs. Digital be arsed...
(, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 2:09, Reply)

This question is now closed.

Pages: Latest, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, ... 1