Tech Report - Memory Lane and Forgotten Devices of the Past (Part 5)
Devices have changed a lot but many of the things we use today some sort of early form or similar but more basic invention can be contributed to its creation.
The power we have as human beings to create and recreate is absolutely extraordinary and it is probably one of our greatest strengths as a species.
Are you ready to take a trip down memory lane? Did you ever used to own a discman? What about a BOOMBOX? Did you ever rely on a trusty pager to stay in touch with friends or correspond with co-workers?
If you answered yes for any of those questions then this article should have something to peak your interest. The gadgets of the past hold a sort of wonder. A window into a different world, albeit only slightly different. Some are born without awareness of the ancient ancestral gadgets of their grandparents time. Even a single generation can sometimes be enough to wipe out a technology completely!
It is true that most of the technologies that we have used in the past have been made obsolete by newer and more advanced technology that we use today, but sometimes we can see a little glimmer of them in the new and modern devices we use today.
If you hear what I'm saying... You'll have fond memories, yah, the joys and the excitement of it all?!
Well, we have not a moment to waste, lets get going shall we?
Let me unveil a few more magnificent gadgets of the past!
Old timers used to play records, the younger generations moved onto cassettes...
Eventually we got our act together as a species and moved from basic tape storage systems towards laser based compact discs!
The Walkman was soon replaced by the Discman and a whole new tech revolution was kicked off as a result.
Two years after the mass production of the Compact Disc, Sony released its portable player for it. While they were popular with audiophiles, who appreciated the quality of recording.
It wasn't all smooth sailing though as you could imagine, in fact, earlier Discmans often skipped and they didn’t allow for “mix tapes” until it became possible for computers to “burn” CD’s.
Eventually they really did get their act together. Sony successfully released better versions of its popular Discman. Mega Bass and AVLS (Automatic Volume Limiter System) technology helped deliver high-quality audio, while the hold and anti-shock protection features kept music playback running without any hiccups. How many of these did you run through?
Compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony and released in 1982. The format was originally developed to store and play only sound recordings (CD-DA) but was later adapted for storage of data (CD-ROM).
Several other formats were further derived from these, including write-once audio and data storage (CD-R), rewritable media (CD-RW), Video Compact Disc (VCD), Super Video Compact Disc (SVCD), Photo CD, PictureCD, CD-i, and Enhanced Music CD. The first commercially available audio CD player, the Sony CDP-101, was released October 1982 in Japan.
The fact of the matter is that Philips and Sony collaborated to create something that completely changed the world when it comes to data storage and music distribution. I had one of the early CD Burners and boy did I love it!
Without this amazing new technology DVDs and what was to come after may have turned out much differently!
I had one of these! Does that make me a dinosaur?? It wasn't easy to keep in touch with friends back in the day. No smartphones, cellphones, social media... Can you even imagine??
Pagers were commonly used from the seventies to the nineties, when widespread adoption of cell phones rendered them obsolete for mass market use. They are still used by emergency responders as they are not subject to network outages or similar disruptions in communication.
A pager (also known as a beeper) is a wireless telecommunications device that receives and displays alphanumeric or voice messages. One-way pagers can only receive messages, while response pagers and two-way pagers can also acknowledge, reply to, and originate messages using an internal transmitter.[1]
Pagers operate as part of a paging system which includes one or more fixed transmitters (or in the case of response pagers and two-way pagers, one or more base stations), as well as a number of pagers carried by mobile users. These systems can range from a restaurant system with a single low-power transmitter, to a nationwide system with thousands of high-power base stations.
Not just for drug dealers, this device helped people co-ordinate activities / meetings and jam sessions. This device was the beginning of a movement, a human obsession with interconnectedness!
Can you imagine having one of these hanging from your belt day in and day out?
So what would you do when you were on the go and your friend paged you?
It is simple... Find a payphone!
This is almost comical to think of in this day and age but having a pager was cool! I remember getting one and being so happy to have this new and exciting ability. Talking to a girl and want to impress her? Give her your pager number!
Oh how far we have come?!
One final device certainly deserves honorable mention... One of these bad boys combined with a Sony Walkman was sufficient entertainment for an afternoon assuming it was full of Cheech and Chong skits or packed with some of Adam Sandler's greatest works...
The compact cassette found its first use as a transcription method but its users quickly realized that they could use it to record music and make “mix tapes”.
The Compact Audio Cassette (CAC) or Musicassette (MC), also commonly called the cassette tape or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Released by Philips in 1963, it has been developed in Hasselt, Belgium.[2] Compact cassettes come in two forms, either already containing content as a prerecorded cassette, or as a fully recordable "blank" cassette. Both forms are reversible by the user.[3]
To think that the mini-ipod shuffle is just a reinvention of the cassette tape albeit in a much more robust form offering hundreds of hours of playback and functionality and all this came from standing on the shoulders of giants!
The world is directed by dreamers that act upon their dreams and make them reality.
Don't be afraid to set a goal and go after it!
Thanks for reading.
Authored by: @techblogger
In-text citations sources:
Telex - Wikipedia
Rotary Phone - Wikipedia
PDA - Wikipedia
Image Sources:
Wikipedia
Pexels
I upvoted your post.
Keep steeming for a better tomorrow.
@Acknowledgement - God Bless
Posted using https://Steeming.com condenser site.