WEBVTT - TechStuff Goes Obsolete? 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:11.920 Get in touch with technology with tex Stuff from dot Com. Hey, Aron, 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:16.200 welcome to tech Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland, your beloved host, 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:20.160 and today I've got a super special guest host live 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:23.600 from c NET. It's I as Actar Hi, I as Hi. 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:26.560 Jonathan is good to be here, is great to have 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:29.320 you on. Now. I AS and I go way back. 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:33.240 We met when you were working with Randall Bennett, and 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:36.199 uh we became friends. So, just in the interest of 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:39.760 full disclosure, I AS and I are friends. I know 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:43.360 it's shocking, So any sarcastic barbs, I take it, Jonathan, 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:45.760 or he throws back at me. We do that out 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:50.920 of love, entire absolutely true, absolutely true. And today, Uh, 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:53.159 you know, I always asked my guests if they have 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:55.920 a preference for the topic they want to cover. I 0:00:56.000 --> 0:01:01.040 has actually looked through the list of articles and suggestions 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:04.880 and things that I've been collecting for potential tech Stuff 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:08.759 episodes and picked one. There was a listener suggestion listener 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:12.400 named Jare shared a link to an article on Web 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:15.760 designer Depot and it was all about technology that had 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:19.200 gone obsolete, and Jared said, wouldn't it be great to 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:24.640 cover an obsolete technology podcast? So We're going to look 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:29.679 primarily at the technologies that appeared on that list, and 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:32.000 then we're gonna kind of talk about, you know, what 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:34.440 made them go obsolete. In a few cases, we might 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:39.640 even debate if it is in fact obsolete. I think 0:01:39.640 --> 0:01:41.080 there's some that are on the list that might have 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:44.240 been a little premature to say it's obsolete. When I 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:48.360 think obsolete, I really think that it no one uses 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:53.400 it anymore. It's been completely replaced by newer technology, you know, 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:56.600 like the crossbow. Not a lot of people using those. 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:58.920 What's not obsolete that that still has a function, So 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:01.040 that they will argue at that planning, like, what is 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:03.760 the true definition of that is it's just no one 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:05.880 in the world ever uses again? Or is this just 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:09.520 basically something that's been or its function has been traded 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:13.400 in for another device. Well, I mean sure, a crossbost functional. 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:16.280 I'm not saying it's not working. I'm just saying that, 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:19.120 you know, they're okay, that you're right. We're gonna get 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:23.280 into this throughout the entire episode. So, uh, spoiler alert, 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:26.000 crossbow does not appear on the list, so we're not 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:29.560 going to be covering that. However, I wanted to begin 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:32.880 kind of where the list began, although I should also 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:36.680 add these are not necessarily in the same order as 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:38.960 they appeared on the article, because a lot of the 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:43.080 technologies in the article were similar tech or at least 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:46.800 we're technologies that fulfilled a similar role, and so I 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:50.080 kind of grouped together quite a few of them. But 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:53.840 in any case, the first one was super eight or 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:59.160 eight millimeter film cameras, which the article referred to as 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:03.320 video camera rus and I immediately got the giggles because 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:07.359 film and video are two different things. Now, I as, 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:10.720 have you ever actually used a film camera? Surprisingly, no, 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:12.720 The only cameras I ever used when I was growing 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:16.320 up were ones that used VHS tape, and that's it. 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:19.560 I never I never had the experience of the super eight. 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:21.920 I think a lot of people are familiar with it 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:24.320 with the Wonder Years. That's what it looked like, kids. 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:26.880 If you wanted what it looked like, this film actually 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:32.000 going through but no sound, usually I think, yeah, exactly, 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:34.760 it's a you know, you you had to record sounds 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:38.080 separately if you wanted to have sound with your films, 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:40.800 which meant that you would have to slate it. Slating 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:43.720 of course for those who aren't familiar with the the 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:48.000 film production world. Slating is where you have some sort 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:52.920 of visual and audio Q that tells the producer how 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:55.080 to line or the editor how to line up both 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:57.600 the audio track and the video track. So if you've 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:02.000 ever seen the little slapboards are often used to you know, 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:03.960 whenever you're seeing a behind the scenes shot of a 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:06.560 movie or it's just a television show where they've got 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:09.320 that in there, as you know, usually it's when they're 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:12.240 showing someone making a movie, that's what that's all about. 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:15.960 Uh So, yeah, usually these were just silent films. It 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:20.799 was interesting to me that eight millimeter film was actually 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:25.799 sixteen millimeters wide. Uh. It was just that you would 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:29.480 when you were shooting, it would record on one half 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:33.039 of the film lengthwise, and then you would turn the 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:36.839 cartridge upside down and reinstall it and then you could 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:40.440 shoot on the other half of the film lengthwise. So 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:42.960 that was what allowed you to double the amount of 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:46.000 film that you had per cartridge. Um that's one of 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:49.200 the things that is very different these days. Obviously, like 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:52.719 we used to talk about film in terms of footage 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:56.840 literally footage, how many feet of film did you shoot? 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:00.640 And that's while we still use the term ntage today, 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:03.640 and we still use the term film today. That's no 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:06.320 longer the case. Now we're talking about how many bytes 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:10.120 of data did it fill up? So I agree that 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:12.880 this is obsolete in the sense that I don't think 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:16.920 you're gonna find a lot of places offering super eight 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:22.039 uh film cameras or even super eight film. But you 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:24.760 can still find a few places. It's just really tricky, 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:27.320 and it's also tricky to find places that can process 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:33.120 that film because unlike video or digital film, you can't 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:35.720 just view it immediately. You actually have to process the 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:38.440 stuff you shoot in order for it to become viewable. 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:42.440 So I'm I'm okay with this one being called obsolete. 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:45.719 What's your opinion. It's definitely obsolete. Although I'm sure they're 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:48.200 parts of Brooklyn where this is like the coolest thing 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:52.239 that kids do or hitchers do. Um, There's there's no 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:55.760 way I would see anybody using these things these days. 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:58.960 And unless you're like some kind of crazy enthusiast. It's 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:01.520 like somebody who who set but like a flash with 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:04.599 that powder stuff that would go up flash that would 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:08.400 seem to be very unusual. So I would think absolutely, absolutely, Yeah, yeah, 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:10.680 unless you're a film student trying to make some sort 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:14.159 of statement, I don't see this happening. Uh, it is interesting. 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:16.840 Another little bit of trivia. The old super eight film 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:20.520 could hold thirties six hundred frames worth of film, which 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:23.840 amounts to just a few minutes, so two and a 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:26.880 half minutes of footage at twenty four frames per second. 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:29.680 If you change the frame rate, you could get more 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:34.359 or fewer minutes of footage. Helt. But just imagine, you know, 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:36.560 the fact that you are doing a take using a 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:41.040 super eight film camera, No take could be longer than 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:44.400 two and a half minutes. Obviously, that kind of pressure 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:47.520 makes movie making take a lot more time, and it's 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:51.400 a lot more stress I think. Um. Going along with 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:57.200 this one is home movie projectors. Again not a huge surprise, 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:00.760 because if you don't have the came rus to shoot 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:03.560 the film, then why do you need something to show 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:09.040 the film? Um? Yeah, I mean that's that's been gone forever. 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:11.800 I mean I've seen these back. Actually I have seen 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:13.680 this in school, back when they actually the real the 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:16.320 reels would come in the wheel, this a V unit 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:19.560 in and they'd have an old projector with this. But 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:23.200 usually there were science things not necessarily home movies. But 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:26.200 I'm just thinking back to the the how quick you'd 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:28.600 have to shoot things. I'd imagine the stress levels would 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:31.000 be very high for families. It's like, get the shot right, 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:32.960 getting right, because we've got two and a half minutes 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:37.120 and that's it. We're gonna have be happy here, that's it. Jimmy, 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:39.920 you gotta you gotta at least give a a a 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:43.200 false sense of happiness to everyone back home, and we 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:46.400 get one shot. That's it. It's not like the days 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:50.000 where we got to to retry everything right. If you know, 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:51.920 these days, if they take a picture with like a 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:55.160 smartphone and you don't like it, you just delete it 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:57.000 and do it again. That was not the case in 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:00.960 the old film days. Well yeah, these these projectors have 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:07.960 been largely replaced with DVRs, DVD players, Blu ray players, VCRs, 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:12.520 even in some homes, and then some people have digital projectors, 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:16.160 so kind of a spiritual successor to the old real 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:20.000 home projector, but it works on a very different technology. Now, 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:23.280 the next one I remember from my childhood. I didn't 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:28.200 own a Beta Max machine, but I remember the the 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:31.680 cassette wars between Beta Max and VHS and those are 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:34.880 the next two on the list. Now, this is the 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:39.760 early video market for the consumer. Video had been used 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:44.720 in professional capacity for quite some year, for quite a 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:47.839 few years, I should say, before it ever hit the 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:51.360 consumer market. And then you had the VHS versus Beta 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:57.120 Max battle. Um. The main differences between the two well one, uh, 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:00.920 Beta Max was made by Sony and v HS was 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:03.880 uh that came out from our c A I believe, 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:08.760 and uh, so you had a format war that way. 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:11.840 But Beta Max also could record in a slightly higher 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:17.400 resolution and was limited to at least for the longest time, 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:22.560 to one hour long cassettes for home recording, whereas VHS 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:26.880 didn't have that limitation. You could get longer recording VHS 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:29.439 tapes and that gave it an advantage. Also, Beta Max 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:33.800 tended to be more expensive than VHS, so this was 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:38.200 a battle that we'd see play out again with Blu 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:41.839 Ray versus h D DVD. That's sort of a fight 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:45.640 that broke out, um. And in many ways the two 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:48.040 format wars are very similar to each other. So if 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:52.920 you remember the old h D DVD war, then this 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:59.360 story is really pretty close. Uh. The big difference being 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:01.600 that I didn't go to the c e S where 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:04.520 Beta Max pulled out of the show at the last minute, 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:06.440 but that did go to the c e S when 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:10.280 HD DVD suddenly decided not to show up, uh the 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:14.280 day of the show opening. Yeah, this is Sony's like revenge. 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:16.200 At least the Blu Ray one was because when it 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:18.040 came to Beta Max, the quality was there. It was 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:20.360 higher quality, like you mentioned, and a lot of people 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:23.680 thought that quality went out, but VHS was I'm just 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:26.760 much cheaper and you could have longer films, and I 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:29.959 believe there was the adoption of pornography on VHS, so 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:31.960 that kind of led the way at times. But son 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:34.280 you got to win finally with the Blu Ray. I 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:36.599 think the last major player they boughtut I want to 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:40.400 say it's Warner Brothers, but they basically paid a truckload 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:47.199 of money and ensured their victory in the home theater space. Yeah, VHS, 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:51.120 while I would say it's pretty, you know, it's it's 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:55.360 mostly dead and the Princess Bride sense of things. There's 0:10:55.400 --> 0:11:01.080 still plenty of companies that are offering up vhs like VCRs, 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:04.800 but they're usually combo VCRs. There VCRs that are packaged 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:07.640 as like a DVD or Blu Ray, even a Blu 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:11.600 Ray vcr UM. But there still are some out there, 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:16.000 and in fact, some movies are still being released on VHS, 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:20.439 but it's almost always a gimmick, like The Horror Anthology 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:26.000 VHS two was released on VHS cassette, but that again 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:28.400 was kind of a one off, like aren't we clever 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:30.720 sort of thing. Yeah, you can tell someone has gone 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:33.960 to the obsolete point when you see the prices start 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:37.000 taking on things like VCRs, the playback machines. They start 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:39.760 going down and they start decreasing to this point and 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:42.600 then like they're practically giving them away for free, and 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:45.679 then they start slowly increasing the price because so few 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:48.160 companies are making it. Because if you look up a 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:50.720 VHS player now, it's not as cheap as it would 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:53.600 have been back when if the market was flooded. So 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:56.080 I don't know if it's it's not dead, it's definitely 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:59.400 actually obsolete when it comes to video technology. It doesn't 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:02.560 have the quality, it doesn't have the amount of I mean, 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:04.600 I wouldn't say bit rape if you're not in the resolution. 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:06.079 When it comes to this, you're not gonna have the 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:09.040 same amount of audio coming out of this this technology. 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:11.760 So it's definitely uh, it should be on its one 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:15.920 way out, but it's that it won't just die. Yeah, 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:19.400 I think obsolutely. It's a fine word because, like you 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:22.080 were saying, I as I think, absolutely does not necessarily 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:25.120 mean it has been white from the face of the planet. 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:27.719 It really just means that. I mean, if you were 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:31.840 going out today to buy a brand new home entertainment center, 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:37.400 you probably wouldn't think of a VCR as a necessary component. 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:42.600 But what about a LaserDisc player. I loved when the 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:45.319 LaserDisc came out. I was I saw it. It came 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:47.559 out in the store. I saw this massive box and 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:52.920 get these record size, shiny platters, and then I begged 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:54.839 my folks to buy me one. They bought me a 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:57.920 laser disc player. I came home with it and then 0:12:57.920 --> 0:12:59.520 I'm like, wait, how do you record on this thing? 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:02.000 And they said it doesn't record, and I go, we're 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:04.360 taking this back to service merchandise right now. So at 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:06.120 a lasers player in my ask for all of three 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:08.720 days because I was not happy about it, and my 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:10.400 folks were very nice and they were very happy to 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:12.280 get what I believed to be a four hundred and 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:15.440 thirty dollar credit back from this store because that was 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:18.120 really really expensive and they were very nice enough to 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:19.880 get for me, So they get to uh, they got 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:22.440 to enjoy the stork about it later. That's so hilarious 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:25.960 that that you owned a LaserDisc for all of half 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:29.040 a week. Uh. Yeah, I didn't have a LaserDisc player 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:31.880 at all. I did grow up in the era of 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:36.560 the the home video you know, wars everything from the 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:39.560 Beta Max to VHS. We had a VHS VCR, not 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:42.480 a Beta Max. We didn't have a LaserDisc player. We 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:45.360 did have a totally different obsolete technology that I'll mentioned 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:47.520 towards the end of the show, but it's it was. 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:50.400 It didn't make the list that we were talking about 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:54.520 right now, the online list. LaserDisc players had a much 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:58.480 higher quality than vhs when it comes to resolution and sound. 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:02.560 They were kind of the predacess sirs to DVDs. Uh. 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:05.920 They were and you know, really the first optical based 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:13.079 home media's format. And it also brought in the era 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:17.560 of full motion video because there were laser disc arcade 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:23.800 machines that um used laser disc footage as the means 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:26.360 of showing off the game, like like Dragon's Layer is 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:30.080 the big example, where you know, at certain moments within 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:33.240 Dragon's Layer, you can make a decision and the character 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:38.000 would go and either succeed or fail based on that decision. 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:41.160 But everything has already been prerecorded, nothing was being rendered 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:44.120 at the time that you were playing. You were really 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:48.840 just unlocking various sequences. And that was the limitation of 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:52.560 the laser disc format. It couldn't do anything beyond that. 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:56.120 But on the other hand, people who own laser discs 0:14:56.280 --> 0:15:00.440 love the quality of the picture and the sound. I 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:03.160 remember going to parties with people who had laser displayers. 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:05.360 They would always have, you know, one of the movies 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:08.040 on in the background, and it it was it just 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:10.880 blew away anything that was on vhs. You didn't have 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:15.400 that tracking artifact that would go across when you know 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:17.680 your tape is not quite right, you have to fix 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:21.840 the alignment so that you don't have the static or 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:24.840 whatever on there. That was never a problem, but a 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:29.000 LaserDisc ultimately didn't catch on in the consumer market. UH 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:32.760 to a wide extent. It had a very dedicated core 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:38.880 of followers, but it eventually lost out to things like DVDs, 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:44.440 UH and blue rays later on. So by two thousand 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:49.880 in the United States. Um, they were pretty much gone. 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:54.240 So sad to say that it never really caught on 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:56.680 in a big way, but it did kind of pave 0:15:56.880 --> 0:16:02.920 the ground for the following types of optical based media 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:07.400 like DVDs and blue ray. Uh. Then we've got a 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:11.360 whole bunch that I grouped together because they are similar. 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:18.280 There's the phonograph, turntables, vinyl records, transistor radios, boom boxes, 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:23.320 the Sony Walkman, and the Sony Discman. So some of 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:27.680 these I could argue are technically not obsolete. Uh, they 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:32.880 might be niche markets. Um. In one case, the Sony Walkman, 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:37.320 the brand still exists, so I guess you could argue 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:41.000 it's not the same piece of technology. That's not exactly 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:43.960 the same they The Walkman used to be a cassette player. 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:47.000 For those of you don't remember. Cassettes are like with 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:50.160 analog way of getting audio to you, and when the 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:51.880 tape itself would have an issue, you have to get 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:56.360 a pencil and kind of rewind the actual tape. Yep. 0:16:57.080 --> 0:16:59.640 So there's there's a whole generation that people have no 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:01.720 idea you know what I'm talking about. But when you 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:04.040 had these cassettes, you'd want to walk around with them, 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:07.800 and unlike something that that succeeded them, like the discman, 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:09.680 you didn't have a lot of skipping problems. You could 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:11.560 run around with the tape and there was no real 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:13.960 issue there, but you did have to deal with the 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:17.440 destruction and whear and tear of the actual tape. And 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:20.239 I remember when I had a discman at one point. Uh, 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:25.480 it was great. Once they they invented anti skip technology 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:29.040 was which basically just reading ahead and having the audio 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:33.040 set to go in case of a skip because optical 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:36.560 media not exactly designed to be ran around with back 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:40.120 first came out. Yeah, it had to buffer that audio 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:44.200 so that should you encounter a bump, it could continue 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:46.800 to play seamlessly. And like you were saying, the cassette 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:49.800 didn't have that problem, you have other issues, Like there 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:52.439 were times where maybe the tape could get caught on 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:55.320 something and unwind from the cassette and that was a 0:17:55.400 --> 0:18:00.479 huge headache. Uh. You know, obviously it's a magnetic storage medium, 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:02.840 so if you were to work near i don't know, 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:06.399 super conductors or something, you might end up having some 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:09.800 issues on your music. But but I, you know, I 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:12.359 certainly was a big fan of the cassette. Back in 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:14.800 the day, it was one of the easier ways to 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:19.400 have your music be portable, and the Walkman specifically made 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:22.240 that easy. As for things like, well, the phonograph, Sure, 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:26.120 the phonographs obsolete. It's been obsolete for ages. I don't 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:30.280 even know how it made the list. It's kind of 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:33.320 like saying, you know, uh, I don't know, like the 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:39.320 horse and buggy is obsolete. Well, yes, that that is obvious. Turntables, 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:43.480 I'm I don't know. There again, it's like a niche market. 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:46.679 But there are lots of music artists out there who 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:51.760 will release their music on vinyl and you play it 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:54.720 on turntables. I'm sure there's some people who collect that 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:58.720 kind of stuff, even if they don't have the device 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:01.760 to play the media on, but they're just a collector. 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:06.639 But I know that turntables and vinyl certainly still have 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:09.880 a place. I mean, DJ's alone, make sure that that 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:12.719 doesn't die out completely. Would you go so far as 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:15.760 to say that turntables and vinyl records are actually obsolete, 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:19.719 definitely obsolete at all, because their replacements would be something 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:22.639 like digital music, and they're The big claim is that 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:25.680 there is some kind of analog warmth that you get 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:29.159 that you just can't reproduce on it digital medium. And 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:32.520 so as long as long as as there's gonna be music, 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:34.679 if there's still gonna be vinyl, because you know, of 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:37.000 all the things that try to replace Vinyl, the fact 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:40.120 that it keeps coming back or just refuses to die, 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:43.359 I don't think it's it's ready to be called obsolete, 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:45.720 because then why why don't we other why don't we 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:48.840 ever see other analog audio take off as well as 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:52.879 vinyl does. I'm not really sure, yeah, I mean, the 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:55.160 only thing I can think of is that the cassette 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:59.800 tapes have the magnetic media tend to have a hiss 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:04.520 behind it, which people say that obviously takes away from 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:08.560 the fidelity of the recording, whereas vinyl doesn't have a hiss, 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:12.400 assuming that your equipment is clean and the record is unblemished, 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:14.960 I mean, obviously, if your record has wear and tear, 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:18.399 there's going to be some pops and scratches in it. 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:21.800 Some people say that actually adds character to the recording, 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:25.560 and uh, for a for a full generation, that was 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:28.000 the way people were used to music, and it sounded 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:32.440 weird to not have those kind of pops and scratches 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:35.000 in it. So yeah, I agree with you. I don't 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:37.040 think that one's obsolutely I would say that that one 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:41.479 that one probably does not merit inclusion on the list. Uh. 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:44.640 Cassette tape recorders and cassette tapes are actually the next 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:49.639 one that we're listed in the the article, and I 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:53.479 can see why. I mean, obviously, the music, like the 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:56.359 prerecorded music stuff. The music industry going out to buy 0:20:56.400 --> 0:21:01.840 an album has largely and almost totally abandoned the cassette format, 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:05.480 with with a little one off exceptions, things that are 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:08.600 really more of a marketing gimmick than anything else. For example, 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:12.639 the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack They're Awesome mix tape 0:21:13.160 --> 0:21:15.520 is going to be released or has been released out 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:19.240 on cassette tape, but that's because the cassette tape played 0:21:19.280 --> 0:21:22.600 such an important part in the movie. It's really more 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:28.600 movie memorabilia, I would say, than an actual musical album 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:32.920 in that sense. Yeah, cassette tapes, obviously I was talking 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:37.040 about before. My big life with cassette tapes was recording 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:39.159 stuff off the radio. I'm sure you've done this too. 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:41.720 It's like you got your boom box, You're waiting for it. 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:45.560 You're waiting for a song because there was no way 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:48.360 to get audio very easily. You just have to wait 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:50.879 around for it to come in through the airwaves. Have 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:53.240 your cassette tapes, and like back when we're talking about 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:57.600 the Walkman, nothing more. Nothing would cause a panic, like 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:02.480 seeing that tape getting stuck between the heads and you're like, Okay, 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:06.439 did you get twisted? Isn't busted inside? Uh? When it 0:22:06.440 --> 0:22:09.800 comes to the cassette tapes, I remember just having a 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:12.040 ton of them. I liked how small they were. That 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:14.280 was something that was a big nice thing to have 0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:18.920 a portability. But I think definitely obsoustely at this point. Yeah, 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:21.439 I used to have cases of these things. My my 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:26.040 college roommate and I had dozens of mix tapes, including 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:30.360 tapes where we were doing just dumb things like we 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:36.240 each had vinyl record collections, including singles and full albums, 0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:38.560 so we once did a mix tape that was all 0:22:39.400 --> 0:22:44.359 vinyl albums played at the wrong speed, so we would 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:48.080 have singles played too slowly, and we have full albums 0:22:48.119 --> 0:22:50.880 played too quickly, and we thought that was the funniest 0:22:50.880 --> 0:22:54.200 thing in the world. Because our senses of humor had uh, 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:57.520 stayed at the eight year old level. I have since 0:22:58.040 --> 0:23:00.880 gone up to twelve years old in my sense of humor, 0:23:01.400 --> 0:23:04.639 So there's progress there. Did you have a tape player 0:23:04.680 --> 0:23:06.919 that variable speed so you could actually listen to it 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:09.080 back normally if you wanted to, or you just thought, 0:23:09.280 --> 0:23:11.280 that's it, one speed, this is how it's going to be. 0:23:11.400 --> 0:23:14.439 It was one speed. Yeah, we I remember distinctly like 0:23:14.520 --> 0:23:18.960 we had um Anarchy in the UK played super slow, 0:23:19.000 --> 0:23:21.960 which sounded more like a rob zombie cover of the 0:23:22.000 --> 0:23:25.800 Sex Pistols made it really really scary and ominous. But 0:23:25.920 --> 0:23:30.680 we also had a super fast version of Comfortably Numb 0:23:30.720 --> 0:23:33.840 and hearing Alvin and the Chipmunks cover Pink Floyd was amazing. 0:23:34.920 --> 0:23:39.040 So but we yeah, once once we recorded it, that's 0:23:39.080 --> 0:23:40.800 the speed it was gonna be. We didn't have a 0:23:40.880 --> 0:23:45.080 variable speed tape player. Now, all of this so you know, 0:23:45.119 --> 0:23:48.160 by two thousand one, those cassette tapes made up less 0:23:48.160 --> 0:23:52.520 than five of music sales, and so pretty much you 0:23:52.560 --> 0:23:56.520 don't find them for prerecorded music. You can still find 0:23:56.920 --> 0:24:00.520 blank cassette tapes because apparently there are some people out 0:24:00.520 --> 0:24:03.800 there who are still using them to record stuff, but 0:24:04.400 --> 0:24:08.440 as for like an actual album release. It's incredibly rare 0:24:08.560 --> 0:24:12.800 except for the the random one off. However, the next 0:24:12.800 --> 0:24:15.680 one on the list eight tracks, I think we could 0:24:15.720 --> 0:24:19.880 just say is obsolute without even you know, any debate 0:24:19.960 --> 0:24:22.359 on the subject. It was obsolete during the era of 0:24:22.400 --> 0:24:25.720 the cassette tape. Yeah, I think that's just like enough said, 0:24:25.920 --> 0:24:28.160 is an eight track And if you if you're miss 0:24:28.160 --> 0:24:31.119 hearing me, you're thinking the Sony a track, that's not 0:24:31.160 --> 0:24:34.800 what I'm talking about. The eight track cassette tape that 0:24:34.960 --> 0:24:37.040 just kind of when went away. It was supposed to be 0:24:37.000 --> 0:24:41.000 be higher quality audio then you'd be getting from other methods, 0:24:41.119 --> 0:24:43.560 but it was these giant cartridges. They kind of look 0:24:43.560 --> 0:24:46.879 like atry cartridges, at least that's where I remember them 0:24:46.920 --> 0:24:48.639 to be. I don't think I've ever been in a 0:24:48.680 --> 0:24:51.720 car that had an eight track player, have you? I 0:24:51.800 --> 0:24:53.960 have been in a car that had an eight track player. 0:24:54.040 --> 0:24:57.280 My my family did not own one. We always had 0:24:57.320 --> 0:25:00.480 just the A M and then later the a UM 0:25:00.520 --> 0:25:04.200 FM radio, but we never had an eight track player. 0:25:04.280 --> 0:25:07.800 Eight track players had a lot of limitations. For one, uh, 0:25:08.040 --> 0:25:12.400 you couldn't rewind a cartridge. You could only play it forward. Now, 0:25:12.520 --> 0:25:16.400 some eight track players had a fast forward so if 0:25:16.400 --> 0:25:18.640 you really wanted to get to the other side of it, 0:25:19.119 --> 0:25:22.280 you could fast forward the the cassette, or if you 0:25:22.320 --> 0:25:26.600 wanted to hear a song again, you could eject it, 0:25:27.240 --> 0:25:31.040 turn it over, fast forward to what you think is 0:25:31.040 --> 0:25:33.359 the beginning of the song you wanted to listen to again, 0:25:33.880 --> 0:25:36.399 eject it, turn it over again, put it back in 0:25:36.440 --> 0:25:41.040 the player, and push play and hope that you guessed correctly. Um, 0:25:41.200 --> 0:25:44.320 you could also fast forward, or rather, when you did 0:25:44.359 --> 0:25:47.040 fast forward, most of these players would cut the audio, 0:25:47.320 --> 0:25:50.200 so you're just fast forwarding. You wouldn't actually be listening 0:25:50.280 --> 0:25:53.040 to the stuff played super fast, so you wouldn't be 0:25:53.080 --> 0:25:56.320 able to listen to music played at the wrong speed. 0:25:57.040 --> 0:26:00.320 But yeah, this format died pretty much in the seven knees. 0:26:00.760 --> 0:26:03.080 So I was a kid in the seventies, but I 0:26:03.160 --> 0:26:06.240 was a very young kid in the seventies and I 0:26:06.320 --> 0:26:09.160 have no real memory of eight tracks. It was only 0:26:09.160 --> 0:26:12.920 when I was writing in someone's car that dated back 0:26:13.000 --> 0:26:15.919 to that era that I ever saw an eight track player. 0:26:16.240 --> 0:26:19.040 So we never had one in my family. There should be, uh, 0:26:19.080 --> 0:26:21.040 I don't think there's any adapters that have like an 0:26:21.040 --> 0:26:24.520 eight track to Bluetooth adapters or adapter. Your CD player 0:26:24.840 --> 0:26:28.800 not a thing. Causette Cassett's still kind of live in cars. 0:26:29.520 --> 0:26:31.359 The last car I owned had a cassette deck in it, 0:26:31.400 --> 0:26:35.320 and that car was from two thousand and four, so like, yeah, 0:26:35.520 --> 0:26:36.919 so they still had a tape deck and it was 0:26:37.119 --> 0:26:39.679 had the ability at least for me, It's like, Okay, 0:26:39.680 --> 0:26:41.760 I'll get the adapter. But I've never seen an eight 0:26:41.880 --> 0:26:44.639 track to c D or eight track to Bluetooth adapter, 0:26:44.760 --> 0:26:48.480 so definitely dead. Well, I I haven't even seen, like 0:26:48.520 --> 0:26:50.439 it's been a while since I've seen a car that 0:26:50.520 --> 0:26:53.280 had a CD player in it, much less eight track 0:26:53.600 --> 0:26:59.360 or cassette player. But again, might be that bias creeping 0:26:59.400 --> 0:27:03.000 in where I just I tend to hang out in 0:27:03.080 --> 0:27:06.480 the other podcaster cars and we're all gadget breaks, so 0:27:06.560 --> 0:27:09.880 we tend to get the the various systems that are 0:27:09.920 --> 0:27:14.760 all digital. Well, how about real to real tape? You 0:27:14.840 --> 0:27:17.720 think that one's still a contender or is that one obsolete? 0:27:18.200 --> 0:27:21.119 It's not dead. I know this because I think one 0:27:21.119 --> 0:27:23.480 of the last Food Fighter albums was recorded on real 0:27:23.560 --> 0:27:26.359 too real. It was because they wanted total analog, they 0:27:26.359 --> 0:27:28.639 wanted to not use pro tools. So there's some certain 0:27:28.640 --> 0:27:31.160 bands that still use this to record, and the Food 0:27:31.160 --> 0:27:33.840 Fighters are kind of a big band, so and so 0:27:33.920 --> 0:27:37.080 that's it's it's unusual that somebody would choose to do that. 0:27:37.160 --> 0:27:39.159 And I just remembered back with the cassette tapes, I 0:27:39.240 --> 0:27:41.080 us have a four track machine so I could record 0:27:41.160 --> 0:27:43.960 music on different tracks, and that was my second big 0:27:44.200 --> 0:27:47.080 cassette moment because I was totally into CDs at that point. 0:27:47.280 --> 0:27:50.200 But real to real tape, this is another like kind 0:27:50.200 --> 0:27:52.840 of niche kind of thing that people would be trying 0:27:52.880 --> 0:27:56.280 only if you want to have the analog sound from 0:27:56.280 --> 0:27:59.320 the very beginning, because there's no other real reason to 0:27:59.400 --> 0:28:02.560 do it, because it's kind of limited. Yeah, it's it's 0:28:03.440 --> 0:28:06.240 really for one, thing is just really big, right, I mean, 0:28:06.240 --> 0:28:08.480 it's it's a bulky medium, and so you have to 0:28:08.480 --> 0:28:11.320 have a lot of physical space to store it. So 0:28:11.920 --> 0:28:15.399 that alone makes it less attractive than a lot of 0:28:15.440 --> 0:28:19.680 other alternatives. Granted, you still have again this this sort 0:28:19.720 --> 0:28:24.479 of perception that the sound quality on the medium is 0:28:24.640 --> 0:28:28.600 fundamentally different from other types of media, and that might 0:28:29.080 --> 0:28:32.040 that might actually be true. There are some things that 0:28:32.119 --> 0:28:36.040 come up during recording that you know, you wouldn't hear 0:28:36.160 --> 0:28:38.920 if you were actually in the room. While the recording 0:28:38.960 --> 0:28:42.000 was being made, it wouldn't be something you could perceive, 0:28:42.440 --> 0:28:45.800 but on the recording you get these kind of distortions 0:28:45.840 --> 0:28:50.160 and interference of various frequencies as they're being recorded, and 0:28:50.240 --> 0:28:53.680 that becomes part of the song or whatever is being 0:28:54.160 --> 0:28:57.160 recorded onto that medium, which is kind of cool. It's 0:28:57.160 --> 0:29:01.520 an idea that the the media itself is playing a 0:29:01.600 --> 0:29:05.720 part in the quality of the song or whatever else 0:29:05.720 --> 0:29:08.360 it is that you're trying to set down. And I 0:29:08.360 --> 0:29:13.320 think that's really interesting. But I don't I think outside 0:29:13.320 --> 0:29:15.360 of that realm that you're talking about, I s it's 0:29:15.400 --> 0:29:21.400 not terribly uh um popular or well known. There's some 0:29:21.640 --> 0:29:24.880 I know there's some computer systems that still use a 0:29:25.000 --> 0:29:28.200 real too real type system to do backups, just because 0:29:28.200 --> 0:29:30.600 it's a legacy system and that's what they have to 0:29:30.640 --> 0:29:34.160 work with. But I don't think that's terribly common either. 0:29:34.240 --> 0:29:37.520 I agree that it's not quite obsolete, but it's definitely 0:29:38.960 --> 0:29:42.720 very niche. It's very it's very useful if you're making 0:29:42.760 --> 0:29:44.880 like a period sci fi movie, because if you have 0:29:44.920 --> 0:29:47.960 a large computer, they almost always had two real to 0:29:48.040 --> 0:29:51.080 real decks constantly going never knew what it was doing, 0:29:51.120 --> 0:29:53.280 was always in the background with the flashing lights. So 0:29:53.280 --> 0:29:55.280 if you're wondering what those giant discs are, that would 0:29:55.280 --> 0:29:57.520 be real too, real in a lot of these sixties 0:29:57.600 --> 0:30:00.520 sci fi movies, and a lot of twilight zones as well. 0:30:00.720 --> 0:30:04.520 It makes me think of airplane too. These lights are 0:30:04.520 --> 0:30:07.080 blinking out of sequence. We'll get them to blink in sequence. 0:30:07.840 --> 0:30:10.840 It's pretty much where that goes. The next one is 0:30:10.840 --> 0:30:13.400 is another one that I don't think really fits is obsolete. 0:30:13.480 --> 0:30:16.960 It's ham radio. I think at this point I would 0:30:17.040 --> 0:30:21.120 argue that the the author of the piece is perhaps 0:30:21.640 --> 0:30:26.080 equating something that is not terribly popular with something that 0:30:26.280 --> 0:30:31.760 is obsolete. But ham radio, amateur radio is still a thing, right, 0:30:31.800 --> 0:30:35.360 This isn't It didn't people didn't just stop. There are 0:30:35.520 --> 0:30:39.440 quite a few amateur radio operators out there. Yeah this, 0:30:39.640 --> 0:30:42.200 I know, it's not dead. I used to work in 0:30:42.280 --> 0:30:44.200 a place where this is very big with a certain 0:30:44.200 --> 0:30:48.080 group of people. But it's definitely not something that is 0:30:48.120 --> 0:30:51.400 marketed towards the general consumer or anything. So like like 0:30:51.440 --> 0:30:54.480 we talked about with other devices, things that if we 0:30:54.520 --> 0:30:57.120 want to think about it as will the normal person 0:30:57.200 --> 0:30:59.040 be like, Yeah, I'm totally into this and this is 0:30:59.040 --> 0:31:01.640 what I will choose to you was over a cell 0:31:01.680 --> 0:31:05.000 phone or whatever would be Uh, this thing is obsolete 0:31:05.040 --> 0:31:07.320 and that kind of not people Not many people are 0:31:07.400 --> 0:31:11.240 using it that way. Yeah, I guess yeah, from that perspective, 0:31:11.320 --> 0:31:14.760 certainly they're not using it as a primary communication tool. 0:31:15.360 --> 0:31:17.520 But it's one of those things also that I don't 0:31:17.520 --> 0:31:21.080 think was ever popular enough for you to say that 0:31:21.280 --> 0:31:24.720 it's been replaced by something else. It was always kind 0:31:24.720 --> 0:31:29.160 of this hobbyist, uh market, and not something that you 0:31:29.200 --> 0:31:31.920 would see, you know, it's not I don't think the 0:31:32.000 --> 0:31:36.040 average home a few decades ago had a ham radio 0:31:36.240 --> 0:31:38.520 sitting around in it. It was one of those things 0:31:38.560 --> 0:31:41.440 that people who had a very specific kind of interest. 0:31:42.160 --> 0:31:44.760 That's those were the homes you founded in. Otherwise it 0:31:44.880 --> 0:31:47.840 was it was just not there. So I don't really 0:31:47.840 --> 0:31:49.600 think of it as obsolete. I just think of it as, 0:31:49.800 --> 0:31:54.400 you know, kind of again very niche. But the next one, telegraph, 0:31:54.560 --> 0:31:58.680 I feel it's pretty obsolete. Yeah, I mean it's pretty 0:31:58.680 --> 0:32:02.000 cool and if you don't again legraphs um. I think 0:32:02.040 --> 0:32:04.680 the last time I saw one on Madman, that was 0:32:04.680 --> 0:32:06.400 the last time I saw one. It was an ad 0:32:06.440 --> 0:32:08.600 campaign for it and it was a pretty good episode. 0:32:09.080 --> 0:32:11.600 But it's basically a piece of trivia in your head 0:32:11.680 --> 0:32:13.520 when it comes is when a telegraph is because you 0:32:13.560 --> 0:32:16.000 just text people nowadays, right, Yeah, I mean there's so 0:32:16.080 --> 0:32:18.960 much stuff that's replaced it the telegraph system. I mean, 0:32:19.000 --> 0:32:21.240 it was all introduced in the nineteenth centuries, so the 0:32:21.280 --> 0:32:26.120 eighteen hundreds. Um, it really got running towards the end 0:32:26.200 --> 0:32:29.880 of the eighteen hundreds and wireless telegraphy came in. And 0:32:30.320 --> 0:32:32.600 the thing that surprised me was when I was doing 0:32:32.640 --> 0:32:36.800 some research just looking into this, was how long the 0:32:37.000 --> 0:32:41.480 telegram business lasted in the United States. Western Union shut 0:32:41.520 --> 0:32:45.400 down their telegraph service in two thousand and six. I 0:32:45.440 --> 0:32:48.480 would have imagined that to have been much earlier. With 0:32:48.960 --> 0:32:55.080 things like, um, uh, just the telephone system, computers, you've 0:32:55.080 --> 0:32:58.120 got cell phones. The smartphone really wasn't a thing in 0:32:58.160 --> 0:33:00.480 consumer markets in two thousand six. You'd have to wait 0:33:00.560 --> 0:33:02.800 till two thousand seven when the iPhone came out for 0:33:02.880 --> 0:33:06.120 that to really happen. But still it was amazing that 0:33:06.160 --> 0:33:09.200 it stuck around that long. Uh. And then you have 0:33:09.280 --> 0:33:16.480 telex machines, which were teleprinters. Uh. Telex actually itself is 0:33:16.520 --> 0:33:18.880 the name of the network. It's not the name of 0:33:19.040 --> 0:33:23.240 the device, but the network allowed printers that had been 0:33:23.240 --> 0:33:27.000 hooked up to it to print text based messages that 0:33:27.040 --> 0:33:31.800 have been received over the network. So um, it's not 0:33:32.080 --> 0:33:35.480 entirely obsolete either. It's still being used in maritime functions. 0:33:35.480 --> 0:33:39.560 In fact, it's a requirement in the Global Maritime Distress 0:33:39.600 --> 0:33:44.719 and Safety System, mainly because other systems could fail. This 0:33:44.800 --> 0:33:47.960 is like a backup system for communication. It's not necessarily 0:33:48.440 --> 0:33:51.400 something that would be relied upon as the primary source 0:33:51.560 --> 0:33:55.120 for communication, but still an important network. I can see 0:33:55.160 --> 0:33:57.800 why you'd say obsolete, however, because it's not like it's 0:33:57.840 --> 0:34:00.560 something that the average person is going to ever come 0:34:00.560 --> 0:34:05.000 into contact with. I'm actually generally unfamiliar with telex machines 0:34:05.040 --> 0:34:08.760 other than like I guess the Simpsons referenced at times Burns. 0:34:08.880 --> 0:34:11.799 Mr Burns does retalex, but that's about it. Like I 0:34:11.800 --> 0:34:13.319 I don't know much about it at all other than 0:34:13.360 --> 0:34:15.919 what you just said. Yeah, yeah, I mean I've never 0:34:16.360 --> 0:34:19.640 I've never personally encountered one. You know. My parents wouldn't 0:34:19.719 --> 0:34:22.719 let me into the telex room at home, so yeah, 0:34:22.719 --> 0:34:24.560 they kept in that cabinet and we weren't allowed to 0:34:24.560 --> 0:34:27.960 touch with the fancy soaps and the beautiful dishes. Actually, 0:34:28.000 --> 0:34:30.040 I have to correct you, as they kept me in 0:34:30.080 --> 0:34:34.040 the cabinet. Everything else was outside of it. That's much 0:34:34.080 --> 0:34:35.799 more efficient. My folks should have done the same thing. 0:34:35.800 --> 0:34:37.680 They just locked us in the rooms. They should just 0:34:37.719 --> 0:34:41.400 lost us in a tiny one Harry Potter. Potter was 0:34:41.480 --> 0:34:45.080 largely based on my background. You and your owls man. 0:34:45.280 --> 0:34:49.160 Real problem. Yeah, yeah, well, okay, let's let's not reveal 0:34:49.239 --> 0:34:51.759 my entire personal life to the internet. Let's move on 0:34:51.800 --> 0:34:55.920 to to Whang calculators. This was the Yeah, I remember 0:34:55.920 --> 0:34:59.760 Whang computers, but only because I remember people talking about 0:34:59.760 --> 0:35:05.839 it after the computer company had already faded away, and 0:35:06.800 --> 0:35:09.000 it's you know, it's one of those things where the 0:35:09.120 --> 0:35:14.200 more juvenile among us joke about it, Wanging computers. But 0:35:14.280 --> 0:35:17.880 Wang Laboratories was founded in nineteen fifty one, and the 0:35:17.960 --> 0:35:21.640 Wang Loki two or l o c I two was 0:35:21.680 --> 0:35:27.240 the first desktop calculator that the company offered in nineteen 0:35:27.320 --> 0:35:30.880 sixty five. They were enormous. Have you ever seen one 0:35:30.920 --> 0:35:34.239 of these? I have not? Okay, well, you know, like 0:35:35.120 --> 0:35:39.680 the really big um office telephones, the ones that have 0:35:40.360 --> 0:35:42.839 lots of different bells and whistles to them, not just 0:35:43.080 --> 0:35:45.720 your average ones, the ones that take up a good 0:35:46.239 --> 0:35:49.640 quarter of a desk. If you've ever seen one of those, 0:35:49.640 --> 0:35:52.400 that's kind of the size of a weighing desktop calculator. 0:35:52.480 --> 0:35:55.120 These things were enormous. They weren't It's not like a 0:35:55.120 --> 0:35:59.480 pocket calculator. It was a big piece of machinery. Uh, 0:35:59.520 --> 0:36:03.200 and these really have become Obsoletely, you can get a 0:36:03.239 --> 0:36:07.480 basic scientific calculator that could do everything that the Wang 0:36:07.560 --> 0:36:10.160 calculator could do, and you can put it in your pocket, 0:36:10.600 --> 0:36:14.880 whereas these things, again were huge. Uh. The company Wang 0:36:14.960 --> 0:36:18.640 Laboratories went bankrupt in two and it was eventually acquired 0:36:18.719 --> 0:36:25.040 by a company called g Tronics in and then essentially dissolved. 0:36:25.080 --> 0:36:27.480 They folded it into their other divisions and it no 0:36:27.520 --> 0:36:31.440 longer exists as its own entity anymore. It's kind of sad, 0:36:31.840 --> 0:36:37.960 but yeah, the I can't disagree that an enormous desktop 0:36:38.000 --> 0:36:42.120 calculator is now obsolete. Definitely. Now I am looking, okay, 0:36:42.120 --> 0:36:44.480 I found some pictures of this thing. It looks kind 0:36:44.480 --> 0:36:48.280 of like a word processor. Yeah, it's just it is enormous. 0:36:48.400 --> 0:36:52.360 This is um it's it's a computer. That's what it is. Exactly. 0:36:52.480 --> 0:36:57.839 Does it computes things? Yeah? Yeah, specifically bath that's really 0:36:57.880 --> 0:37:03.760 what it computes yea various like scientific calculator type um functionality. 0:37:03.880 --> 0:37:06.799 But yeah, it was. It was big now. Granted, at 0:37:06.840 --> 0:37:09.680 the time it was a very advanced piece of machinery. 0:37:09.760 --> 0:37:12.560 It's easy for us to kind of joke about it now, 0:37:12.680 --> 0:37:15.040 but at the time it was it was cutting edge. 0:37:15.520 --> 0:37:17.799 So it shows that we've gone a long way where 0:37:17.840 --> 0:37:20.280 you can hold something in the palm of your hand 0:37:20.840 --> 0:37:24.000 that can do everything that machine can do. Plus you 0:37:24.040 --> 0:37:27.080 can just carry it around with you, and you know, 0:37:27.160 --> 0:37:30.440 depending on the device, you could connect to the Internet. 0:37:30.760 --> 0:37:35.680 So that's something that that that machine never could have done. Uh. 0:37:35.719 --> 0:37:39.560 Analog telephones is our next one. Uh. The landline service 0:37:39.600 --> 0:37:42.799 has been declining steadily since the mid two thousand's, and 0:37:42.880 --> 0:37:47.799 digital systems are a huge, huge deal. I've heard that 0:37:47.840 --> 0:37:52.400 the FCC will allow phone companies to stop supporting analog 0:37:52.520 --> 0:37:56.640 lines by and that by we would expect them all 0:37:56.719 --> 0:38:00.080 to be gone. Uh. I asked, do you still have 0:38:00.120 --> 0:38:04.239 a landline? No, I've moved to avoid box. Uh. Landlines 0:38:04.280 --> 0:38:07.080 are They're really helpful for things like, UH nine one 0:38:07.080 --> 0:38:10.080 one calls because you actually can of the dispatch, can 0:38:10.120 --> 0:38:12.719 actually see where you are with that kind of thing. 0:38:13.000 --> 0:38:15.640 But these days I believe you can set your home 0:38:15.680 --> 0:38:17.799 location with E nin one one, so at least you 0:38:17.800 --> 0:38:22.120 have that kind of functionality built back in. Although analog 0:38:22.880 --> 0:38:25.200 just regular landlines in general just they run with no 0:38:25.280 --> 0:38:28.080 power since this power always going through them. Is there 0:38:28.120 --> 0:38:30.839 a digital version of that that exists where you can 0:38:30.840 --> 0:38:32.880 have power going to it all the time, you know? 0:38:32.960 --> 0:38:35.319 I don't. I've never heard of one. I've always seen 0:38:35.400 --> 0:38:38.719 the digital lines having to get supplemental power, so I 0:38:38.800 --> 0:38:41.200 don't know. I also don't have a landline. I really 0:38:41.280 --> 0:38:44.680 like solely on cell phones now. Um. In fact, I 0:38:44.760 --> 0:38:49.080 haven't had a landline and probably a decade. UM. It's 0:38:49.160 --> 0:38:52.200 it's been a really long time since I bothered to 0:38:52.200 --> 0:38:54.520 to maintain one. I know there are a lot of 0:38:54.520 --> 0:38:57.440 people who advocate that you should keep one like a 0:38:57.640 --> 0:39:00.560 just a phone just plugged in somewhere, even if you 0:39:00.600 --> 0:39:02.880 don't have a regular phone line, just in case of 0:39:02.920 --> 0:39:05.560 an emergency. UM. I know a lot of my friends 0:39:05.560 --> 0:39:07.799 out in San Francisco do because that's part of their 0:39:07.840 --> 0:39:12.440 earthquake preparedness kit. But here in Georgia, I don't have 0:39:12.520 --> 0:39:14.719 to worry about that. We get if we get an earthquake, 0:39:14.800 --> 0:39:18.560 it's likely not strong enough for us to notice it, So, um, 0:39:18.600 --> 0:39:21.719 I haven't bothered with it, But yeah, I can see 0:39:21.719 --> 0:39:24.600 why this one's on the obsolete list. It's still again, 0:39:24.640 --> 0:39:27.440 if you live in an area where you have to 0:39:27.440 --> 0:39:32.200 worry about various kinds of power outages or whatever, often 0:39:32.280 --> 0:39:34.160 the phone line, not all the time, but often the 0:39:34.160 --> 0:39:38.120 phone line can remain unaffected by that depending on the 0:39:38.200 --> 0:39:41.399 nature of the outage, and it can be a really 0:39:41.480 --> 0:39:43.960 useful tool. I just it's just one that I never 0:39:44.000 --> 0:39:47.319 really think of. How about p d A S. Did 0:39:47.320 --> 0:39:50.680 you ever have a personal digital assistant? I did. I 0:39:50.760 --> 0:39:55.160 had a Handspring Visor, and uh, if you guys don't 0:39:55.200 --> 0:39:57.200 know what that's like, it's kind of like a smartphone 0:39:57.200 --> 0:40:01.000 without the phone connectivity. But the Visor was show because 0:40:01.040 --> 0:40:03.160 it had the ability to have something called springboards in 0:40:03.160 --> 0:40:05.480 the back, kind of like a game Boy cartridge slot. 0:40:05.520 --> 0:40:08.600 You'd remove this little plastic placeholder you put in something 0:40:08.640 --> 0:40:11.440 like a physician's dictionary, dictionary if you wanted, or encyclopedia, 0:40:11.520 --> 0:40:14.799 that is. You could even attach a cell phone attachment. 0:40:15.239 --> 0:40:18.560 So I actually my first cell phone was a Visor phone, 0:40:19.040 --> 0:40:21.960 which anytime I handed to other people to use, they 0:40:21.960 --> 0:40:24.440 did not understand that they had to use a stylist 0:40:24.560 --> 0:40:28.400 or touch the screen to actually dial a number. And 0:40:28.440 --> 0:40:30.080 they were like, what about all the face grease. You're 0:40:30.080 --> 0:40:32.040 putting your face against the screen. That's just really weird. 0:40:32.440 --> 0:40:34.759 This is back in like two thousand and two, I 0:40:34.760 --> 0:40:36.839 want to say, so this is a long time ago. 0:40:37.480 --> 0:40:41.680 That concept was very foreign back then. Were you a 0:40:41.719 --> 0:40:44.839 p D A guy? I was not. I never had one. 0:40:45.080 --> 0:40:50.960 I I was actually a late adopter of cell phones. Um, 0:40:50.960 --> 0:40:53.200 but once I did adopted, I never looked back. So 0:40:53.480 --> 0:40:58.640 I went from not having any kind of personal digital assistant, 0:40:58.680 --> 0:41:00.960 nothing like that. I had a computer at home, and 0:41:00.960 --> 0:41:03.719 I had a landline at home, and that was it. 0:41:03.800 --> 0:41:05.279 You know, if I was out and about, there was 0:41:05.320 --> 0:41:07.360 no getting in touch with me and I if I 0:41:07.400 --> 0:41:10.200 needed to call somebody, I had better have that phone 0:41:10.239 --> 0:41:12.040 number memorized because that was the only way I was 0:41:12.080 --> 0:41:14.360 going to get it, unless they happened to be in 0:41:14.400 --> 0:41:17.640 the phone book. Yeah, we used to have phone books. Boy, 0:41:17.719 --> 0:41:22.279 I remember those two. Yeah, I still get them, even 0:41:22.280 --> 0:41:24.840 though I have put myself on the do not send 0:41:24.920 --> 0:41:30.480 list multiple times. But yeah, it's that is certainly one 0:41:30.480 --> 0:41:33.040 of those things the Internet has helped replace. But yeah, 0:41:33.080 --> 0:41:35.480 I never I never carried one around and by the 0:41:35.480 --> 0:41:38.160 time I would have cell phones were a thing, and 0:41:38.200 --> 0:41:42.160 they were. They had enough basic functionality for me to 0:41:42.280 --> 0:41:44.360 have a list of contacts with the people that I 0:41:44.360 --> 0:41:47.200 would call more frequently than anyone else. Um and I 0:41:47.320 --> 0:41:51.680 never really worried about using them to keep schedules because uh, 0:41:51.840 --> 0:41:53.719 no one ever wanted me to go to anything, so 0:41:53.760 --> 0:41:57.279 I didn't need it. Um. Yeah, I was more of 0:41:57.280 --> 0:41:59.080 a second gen p d A guy. I just realized 0:41:59.080 --> 0:42:02.080 that my dad used to have the radio shack Rolodex, 0:42:02.600 --> 0:42:04.680 like the large one that you would pair with a 0:42:04.760 --> 0:42:07.279 smaller one with I R so you can actually send 0:42:07.320 --> 0:42:09.640 it over. And these little the small ones like a 0:42:09.680 --> 0:42:13.680 clamshell little device. It kind of looked like a business 0:42:13.680 --> 0:42:17.640 card holder had very very like the spongy little keys 0:42:17.680 --> 0:42:19.680 on it. It It kind of like rubber membrane that you 0:42:19.800 --> 0:42:22.279 push and actually input stuff. But if you didn't want 0:42:22.320 --> 0:42:24.239 to do that, you could use the larger Rolodex one 0:42:24.560 --> 0:42:28.120 that had much larger keyboard. It looked like a child's 0:42:28.280 --> 0:42:31.600 cashier kind of toy if you wanted to remember that 0:42:31.640 --> 0:42:34.279 look like. And then for myself not only have the 0:42:34.360 --> 0:42:38.520 visor phone back in college, I had some p d 0:42:38.680 --> 0:42:41.360 A with a stowaway keyboard, because back when I was 0:42:41.360 --> 0:42:44.560 in college, kids didn't use laptops for anything, and we 0:42:44.560 --> 0:42:46.560 didn't really have We didn't have WiFi. I'm not even 0:42:46.600 --> 0:42:49.399 making this up. There's no WiFi and cell signals are 0:42:49.480 --> 0:42:53.480 basically for the really wealthy. So I would download my mail, 0:42:54.160 --> 0:42:57.640 I'd be between classes, type out the responses, and then 0:42:57.680 --> 0:43:00.879 go back to my dorm and then sink it back 0:43:00.960 --> 0:43:04.600 to send out my messages. That was a long time ago, 0:43:05.040 --> 0:43:09.719 and that is really scary. Yeah, I skipped all that. 0:43:09.800 --> 0:43:13.080 And see the thing is that these truly are obsolete. 0:43:13.200 --> 0:43:16.840 The smartphone has completely negated any need for the p 0:43:16.960 --> 0:43:20.040 d A. The smartphone can do everything that the PDA 0:43:20.120 --> 0:43:23.640 could do and more so. Uh, these days, I can't 0:43:23.640 --> 0:43:27.040 even imagine not having my smartphone with me. In fact, 0:43:27.200 --> 0:43:29.640 I start to go through withdrawal if I haven't, if 0:43:29.680 --> 0:43:31.680 I've left it behind. If I happened to leave the 0:43:31.719 --> 0:43:34.719 house and I realized I left the smartphone back at 0:43:34.760 --> 0:43:38.160 the house, it starts to gna me, which really is 0:43:38.200 --> 0:43:41.360 more of an issue with my psychology than anything else. 0:43:41.719 --> 0:43:44.680 But uh, you know, I have to force myself to 0:43:44.719 --> 0:43:48.480 go on vacations where I don't have cell service or 0:43:48.520 --> 0:43:51.640 WiFi so that I can just get away from it. 0:43:51.640 --> 0:43:56.080 It's funny because it's something that I never used until 0:43:56.200 --> 0:43:58.200 the smartphone came along, Like I never used the p 0:43:58.320 --> 0:44:01.279 d A or anything like that, and now I can't 0:44:01.280 --> 0:44:04.840 imagine not using it. I think. I think that speaks 0:44:05.400 --> 0:44:08.839 highly of the technology and not so highly for me. Yeah, 0:44:08.880 --> 0:44:12.799 you are definitely somebody we should all pity so with you. 0:44:13.200 --> 0:44:15.680 That's fair. So what about pagers? Did you ever have 0:44:15.719 --> 0:44:18.120 one of those? I really wanted one when I was 0:44:18.160 --> 0:44:21.120 a kid, but my folks were like, no, not getting 0:44:21.120 --> 0:44:23.000 a pager, and they were right because who would be 0:44:23.080 --> 0:44:25.120 calling me? It was like an eighth grade. There's no 0:44:25.160 --> 0:44:27.520 reason for an eighth period to have pages. But my 0:44:27.560 --> 0:44:30.919 friends had them, and I'm like, wow, that's so cool. 0:44:30.960 --> 0:44:33.719 Who's calling you? And you'd have these cool messages, like 0:44:33.760 --> 0:44:36.960 the special number code because you couldn't text yet, so 0:44:37.040 --> 0:44:39.120 they'd be like, I know, four one one means there's 0:44:39.120 --> 0:44:40.960 some information, or there's nine one one means there's some 0:44:41.000 --> 0:44:43.520 kind of emergency. I better go home or whatever it was, 0:44:43.880 --> 0:44:46.160 or you call those people back. But I did not 0:44:46.320 --> 0:44:50.480 personally have a pager because I was deemed not popular enough. 0:44:51.440 --> 0:44:54.640 I didn't have a pager either, and I never got one, 0:44:54.719 --> 0:44:59.080 mainly because I couldn't imagine a scenario where someone needs 0:44:59.080 --> 0:45:01.879 to get in touch with me that badly, where if 0:45:01.920 --> 0:45:05.279 I wasn't next to my phone, uh, that it would 0:45:05.320 --> 0:45:08.680 be something necessary, you know, that they would need to 0:45:08.760 --> 0:45:11.960 go to that extra step to get my attention. I 0:45:12.000 --> 0:45:16.600 figured my phone and my answering machine were enough to 0:45:16.680 --> 0:45:20.000 take care of all of that. Uh. And again, now 0:45:20.000 --> 0:45:23.839 that we've got cell phones and smartphones, pages are largely obsolete, 0:45:23.880 --> 0:45:26.920 So I agree with it being on this list. What 0:45:27.040 --> 0:45:31.239 about portable television? Well, I'm being reminded in my head 0:45:31.280 --> 0:45:34.520 that pages aren't dead. I mean, doctors use them, and 0:45:34.560 --> 0:45:37.920 there there are other versions that are available, like when 0:45:37.920 --> 0:45:39.560 you go to a restaurant and they give you a 0:45:39.600 --> 0:45:42.799 pager and still technically a pager. So so everybody wants 0:45:42.800 --> 0:45:44.359 them writing to go. They're not dead. They're not dead. 0:45:44.719 --> 0:45:46.800 We just think that, you know, these days, you wouldn't 0:45:46.800 --> 0:45:49.680 be going to the store to get a pager. Right. 0:45:50.280 --> 0:45:53.240 What was the the other item you just mentioned, portable TVs? 0:45:53.440 --> 0:45:56.680 Oh man, I I wanted them to work. These are 0:45:56.719 --> 0:46:00.600 definitely this is obsolute, like crazy, because there's enough streaming services. 0:46:00.640 --> 0:46:03.560 You can get things on your phones. But I had 0:46:03.600 --> 0:46:08.280 a Sony Watchman. Okay, do you know what that is? Yes, Okay, 0:46:08.280 --> 0:46:10.680 So if folks I don't know, it was this portable 0:46:10.680 --> 0:46:14.080 television had about two point two inch screen. It was 0:46:14.440 --> 0:46:17.840 like a brick. It was pretty large, had a telescoping antenna. 0:46:18.160 --> 0:46:20.960 It was black and white. I had a mono speaker. 0:46:21.560 --> 0:46:25.840 And because the old days before the transition, UH, pretty 0:46:25.920 --> 0:46:28.680 much getting a signal on the go kind of impossible. 0:46:28.719 --> 0:46:31.640 So if you were in a moving car it was useless. 0:46:31.680 --> 0:46:35.799 You basically couldn't watch anything. It was really about. You 0:46:35.840 --> 0:46:38.000 could bring it with you and you can stop and 0:46:38.040 --> 0:46:40.600 look at it, and it just it didn't do a 0:46:40.680 --> 0:46:42.520 very good job when it came to that. Battery life 0:46:42.560 --> 0:46:47.040 was terrible, the audio was terrible. And then something like 0:46:47.360 --> 0:46:49.880 recently there was a version of this that came back 0:46:50.040 --> 0:46:53.399 for cell phones called media Flow or flow TV. They 0:46:53.400 --> 0:46:56.840 had their own spectrum. Once the analog to digital conversion 0:46:56.840 --> 0:46:59.839 happened with television waves here in the US, they were 0:46:59.840 --> 0:47:04.040 all these free frequencies. So they had bought this frequency 0:47:04.200 --> 0:47:06.239 and it was gonna be here. People are gonna have 0:47:06.320 --> 0:47:09.320 sort of cable like TV on their phones, it folded 0:47:09.360 --> 0:47:11.840 within a couple of years. Apparently nobody really wants to 0:47:11.840 --> 0:47:16.120 watch live TV on the go. I'm not sure why 0:47:16.200 --> 0:47:18.560 that is, but that's what apparently has been happening. I 0:47:18.600 --> 0:47:21.720 think I think live TV in general has really taken 0:47:21.719 --> 0:47:24.719 a hit. I mean, we've had so many ways of 0:47:24.800 --> 0:47:28.759 watching stuff on demand whenever we are ready to watch it, 0:47:28.840 --> 0:47:31.359 you know, so that we are not held to the 0:47:31.360 --> 0:47:36.240 schedule of a television station or a channel or anything 0:47:36.280 --> 0:47:40.600 like that. I think that's really kind of filtered out 0:47:40.600 --> 0:47:43.799 through the entire spectrum of platforms that you would get 0:47:43.840 --> 0:47:49.000 television on. Granted, there's still shows that I will set 0:47:49.040 --> 0:47:51.640 myself down so that I can watch it when it 0:47:51.719 --> 0:47:53.960 comes on, but there I think there are only two 0:47:54.160 --> 0:47:56.239 that I do that for right now, and only one 0:47:56.239 --> 0:47:58.520 of them is what I like. I watch a show 0:47:58.520 --> 0:48:04.279 I don't like when it comes on ahead? Which one? 0:48:04.320 --> 0:48:07.040 Is it? Sleepy hollow? Oh? You just watched as you 0:48:07.040 --> 0:48:09.600 can criticize it? Is that right? That's yeah, it's mostly 0:48:09.600 --> 0:48:13.920 so I can feel superior by criticizing the historical inaccuracies 0:48:13.960 --> 0:48:16.719 and ridiculous plot holes in that show. I think my 0:48:16.760 --> 0:48:20.560 favorite I think you tweeted about a scientific inaccuracy, you 0:48:20.560 --> 0:48:22.200 do my it seems like, yeah, you can let go 0:48:22.239 --> 0:48:26.080 of the anachronisms, you can let go of the license 0:48:26.200 --> 0:48:28.480 is being taken. But when they can't get basic science 0:48:28.560 --> 0:48:34.440 right at times, that's your Your tweet was quite hilarious. Yeah, 0:48:33.800 --> 0:48:37.120 I go a little bonkers with that. Yeah. I can 0:48:37.160 --> 0:48:40.600 handle the fact that there is a headless horseman walking around. 0:48:41.960 --> 0:48:45.000 But if you get basic science wrong by trying to 0:48:45.080 --> 0:48:50.040 create gunpowder by just lighting sulfur on fire, then I 0:48:50.120 --> 0:48:53.440 really flip my lid. But listeners of tech stuff, no, 0:48:53.560 --> 0:48:56.239 we did a full episode about fireworks and I explained 0:48:56.239 --> 0:49:00.680 how to make fire gunpowder essentially, and they know you 0:49:00.719 --> 0:49:03.320 can't just light sulfur on fire and have it explode 0:49:03.320 --> 0:49:05.600 and be gunpowder unless you live in the world of 0:49:05.640 --> 0:49:09.200 sleepy Hollow. I guess I'm getting off track, all right. 0:49:09.320 --> 0:49:11.960 Our next one is another batch which I think we 0:49:12.000 --> 0:49:14.600 can just kind of dismiss out of hand, which is 0:49:14.719 --> 0:49:21.200 um led watches, TV watches, the Saco wrist, computer calculator watches. 0:49:21.520 --> 0:49:24.880 Basically all the little gimmick watches and watches in general 0:49:25.360 --> 0:49:29.040 have really taken a hit. I mean, they're largely used 0:49:29.080 --> 0:49:32.880 as an accessory now as jewelry because almost all of 0:49:32.920 --> 0:49:35.399 us have some other device on our person that has 0:49:35.440 --> 0:49:39.120 the time on it, so they're not as necessary. In fact, Uh, 0:49:39.160 --> 0:49:41.560 it's gotten to the point where even the smart watch, 0:49:41.600 --> 0:49:45.560 which is still trying to make headway into the consumer market, 0:49:46.239 --> 0:49:49.000 is having some issues because a lot of people ultimately say, well, 0:49:49.840 --> 0:49:53.239 why do I need this? So I definitely agree that 0:49:53.320 --> 0:49:57.960 these watches and watch form factors are all suitably on 0:49:58.040 --> 0:50:00.600 the obsolete list. Yeah, and I think there's a need 0:50:00.640 --> 0:50:03.440 for him other than fashion. I have my own wristwatch 0:50:03.480 --> 0:50:05.560 that i'd like to wear, and the big reason why 0:50:05.560 --> 0:50:07.880 I wear it is because it's a kinetic watch. That 0:50:07.960 --> 0:50:11.520 technology has made watches a lot more palatable to me 0:50:11.600 --> 0:50:14.560 because then they never die. That's the big thing holding back. 0:50:14.640 --> 0:50:16.320 I think a lot of these things, like the spot 0:50:16.320 --> 0:50:19.240 watch back when Microsoft tried it, or like the smart 0:50:19.239 --> 0:50:21.680 watches that are coming out in this generation, is the 0:50:21.680 --> 0:50:24.279 fact that you have to charge something every day or 0:50:24.320 --> 0:50:26.600 it could die. And this is not the device you 0:50:26.640 --> 0:50:28.399 want to die. You actually want to know the time. 0:50:28.400 --> 0:50:31.040 It's relatively important because you know your life might have 0:50:31.040 --> 0:50:36.280 a schedule. So uh, these gimmick watches, yeah, nobody, nobody 0:50:36.280 --> 0:50:38.759 really needs to have like a time X watch you 0:50:38.800 --> 0:50:41.319 hold up to a cr team monitor that flashes a 0:50:41.440 --> 0:50:44.600 signal that will give you the data. That was a thing. 0:50:44.640 --> 0:50:47.680 I love that idea because it was so ridiculous and 0:50:47.680 --> 0:50:49.279 and when I saw the demo it looked like it 0:50:49.360 --> 0:50:52.760 was going to induce seizures because the cr team monitor flickering. 0:50:53.760 --> 0:50:57.240 Which was brilliant idea of getting data from one device 0:50:57.239 --> 0:51:03.000 to another. It wasn't the greatest in execution. Definitely great curiosity. 0:51:03.000 --> 0:51:05.120 I loved these devices when they came out, but they 0:51:05.160 --> 0:51:07.840 just didn't hit it. It was a very creative approach 0:51:07.880 --> 0:51:10.160 to trying to solve a problem, just not one that 0:51:10.200 --> 0:51:15.000 was necessarily effective. Um. Yeah, and our our next one 0:51:15.120 --> 0:51:17.400 would be CRT. You it's good that you mentioned the 0:51:17.400 --> 0:51:21.360 CRT monitor because CRT monitors and CRT televisions are on 0:51:21.400 --> 0:51:24.680 the list now. These are cathode ray tube displays. They 0:51:24.680 --> 0:51:27.239 had a vacuum tube and an electron gun. The gun 0:51:27.280 --> 0:51:31.880 fired electrons at fluorescent screens and that would create the images. 0:51:32.360 --> 0:51:35.560 So uh, these were that This was like the main 0:51:35.640 --> 0:51:39.200 kind of television before you got all the great technologies 0:51:39.239 --> 0:51:41.600 like l C, D, l E ED plasma stuff that 0:51:41.640 --> 0:51:45.560 allowed us to have these super slim flat form factors. 0:51:45.600 --> 0:51:49.080 Everything before that was CRT uh, And by two thousand 0:51:49.600 --> 0:51:52.400 that technology was pretty much on the way out. And 0:51:52.640 --> 0:51:55.040 it's you know, depending on the store you go into, 0:51:55.160 --> 0:51:57.280 you may not even be able to find a CRT 0:51:57.520 --> 0:52:02.560 monitor or display in the door. Um, did you do? 0:52:02.600 --> 0:52:05.560 You have a CRT and e CRT displays laying around? 0:52:06.520 --> 0:52:09.680 Not anymore. I used to have some CRT suh. You can. 0:52:09.760 --> 0:52:11.440 You can probably pick up c RT s free on 0:52:11.480 --> 0:52:14.160 the streets to New York. I've seen them outside. They're 0:52:14.200 --> 0:52:16.000 just literally by the garbage and says free on it 0:52:16.000 --> 0:52:19.200 says working. But I mean, nobody's really using these devices anymore. 0:52:19.600 --> 0:52:22.920 It's like the idea of a thirty two inch television, 0:52:23.040 --> 0:52:25.160 Like that's really tiny nowadays. But if you're in a 0:52:25.160 --> 0:52:27.839 thirty two inch television and it's a CRT, you're talking 0:52:27.880 --> 0:52:30.280 about a good one hundred to a hundred and fifty 0:52:30.320 --> 0:52:33.960 pounds of television. So it wasn't like, hey, you wanted 0:52:33.960 --> 0:52:36.120 this TV upstairs, It's like, what is it? It's a 0:52:36.120 --> 0:52:40.239 thirty two in CRT. No, that is noting downstairs. Yeah 0:52:40.600 --> 0:52:43.719 that's gonna be the basement TV. Yeah that yeah, yeah, No, 0:52:43.840 --> 0:52:48.040 I I have some sitting in storage that I just 0:52:48.120 --> 0:52:51.160 never got rid of. I need to find a an 0:52:51.160 --> 0:52:54.480 electronics recycling program and put them through that way, because 0:52:55.000 --> 0:52:58.200 like a lot of electronics, CRT s can have some 0:52:58.200 --> 0:53:00.799 some materials in them that are toxic, and so you 0:53:00.800 --> 0:53:02.640 don't want to just throw it out if you can 0:53:02.680 --> 0:53:06.200 avoid it. Um, it's better to find a way of 0:53:06.200 --> 0:53:08.439 of taking that to a recycling area where they can 0:53:08.480 --> 0:53:10.960 they can strip it of anything that's useful and dispose 0:53:11.040 --> 0:53:14.879 of the toxic stuff in a responsible manner. But yeah, 0:53:14.920 --> 0:53:20.640 I was happy to get away from the CRT technology. 0:53:20.800 --> 0:53:23.719 It's just it's so bulky, it's inefficient to it. It 0:53:23.880 --> 0:53:29.640 uses up more electricity than other types of displays, so uh, 0:53:29.920 --> 0:53:32.240 you you can only get to a certain size before 0:53:32.280 --> 0:53:36.600 it just got too heavy to be practical and it 0:53:36.680 --> 0:53:40.440 was an electricity hog. So yeah, I was glad to 0:53:40.480 --> 0:53:43.160 see this on the list. I definitely agree that it's obsolete. 0:53:43.560 --> 0:53:46.560 I've seen, you know, some CRT s still being used 0:53:46.600 --> 0:53:49.120 in places, but usually it's because it's part of a 0:53:49.200 --> 0:53:52.120 legacy system. Once again, like I've seen c rt s 0:53:52.680 --> 0:53:58.040 in some um air traffic control towers, but these are 0:53:58.360 --> 0:54:01.960 usually older air traffic control towers that have it upgraded 0:54:02.000 --> 0:54:07.279 their systems yet, and they're relying on eighty pound CRT s. 0:54:08.239 --> 0:54:10.640 And I know this because I had to move them 0:54:10.719 --> 0:54:13.960 once upon a time. The syrtes were fascinating subject for 0:54:14.040 --> 0:54:16.319 me in school. They were in a physics textbook. They 0:54:16.320 --> 0:54:18.920 explained how how things worked when it comes to this. Uh. 0:54:18.960 --> 0:54:22.000 They mentioned the electronic gun that was in the back shooting. Basically, 0:54:22.040 --> 0:54:23.760 he's drawing the picture in line by line. It's happening 0:54:23.800 --> 0:54:26.680 so quickly, and it was it was drawing the screen 0:54:27.600 --> 0:54:29.520 like like the first line and the third line and 0:54:29.600 --> 0:54:31.840 the fifth and then it would fill in the even numbers. 0:54:32.040 --> 0:54:34.279 And that's why you have something called interlacing. So it's 0:54:34.280 --> 0:54:37.280 just interesting to see that this stuff actually does permeate 0:54:37.600 --> 0:54:40.399 and cause issues like even today with some DVDs. If 0:54:40.400 --> 0:54:43.080 you see interlacing, it's based on this idea of how 0:54:43.760 --> 0:54:47.400 these televisions were drawing the screen for you. It's the 0:54:47.400 --> 0:54:50.480 picture for you, which I was. I was fascinating because 0:54:51.040 --> 0:54:52.920 whoever thought this is the way we're gonna show a 0:54:52.960 --> 0:54:55.440 moving image is let's just fire a gun really fast, 0:54:55.440 --> 0:54:58.920 back and forth. Pretty freaking interesting. But yeah, the c 0:54:59.120 --> 0:55:02.520 RT they fully for my back and yours. Uh is 0:55:02.680 --> 0:55:05.440 no longer a modern day issue, except when you move 0:55:05.440 --> 0:55:08.640 eighty pound ones like you do. Yeah, that was not 0:55:08.680 --> 0:55:11.240 a fun job. I'm glad I don't have that job anymore. 0:55:11.880 --> 0:55:15.160 So we've got lots more to get through. But what 0:55:15.239 --> 0:55:18.600 I'm thinking, I AS, if you're amenable to it, is 0:55:18.600 --> 0:55:21.480 wrapping up this episode and then maybe chatting on a 0:55:21.560 --> 0:55:25.400 second one about the remaining ones. And uh, I just 0:55:25.440 --> 0:55:28.040 have a discussion about any kinds of technology that we 0:55:28.080 --> 0:55:30.240 think are obsolete that should have made the list but didn't. 0:55:30.680 --> 0:55:33.120 That would be excellent. I'd love that all right. Well, 0:55:33.200 --> 0:55:36.040 for our listeners who might not be familiar with your 0:55:36.080 --> 0:55:38.319 work or where to find you, what would be the 0:55:38.360 --> 0:55:40.880 best way to track down I as actor, you know, 0:55:41.040 --> 0:55:44.279 in a totally friendly kind of way, not a scary 0:55:44.400 --> 0:55:46.640 Liam Neeson kind of way. Right, So, if you want 0:55:46.680 --> 0:55:48.520 to be able to find me on the internet, the 0:55:48.520 --> 0:55:51.319 easiest way is to find me on Twitter. My husue 0:55:51.400 --> 0:55:54.160 name is i As I y A Z. I got 0:55:54.160 --> 0:55:57.000 it early, so I'm usually just i AS on the Internet. 0:55:57.160 --> 0:55:59.439 If you want to find me, like at where I work, 0:55:59.680 --> 0:56:02.439 check see net dot com. I have penn some things 0:56:02.480 --> 0:56:04.560 every now and then I do some videos every now 0:56:04.560 --> 0:56:07.880 and then, uh so check me out and I usually 0:56:08.120 --> 0:56:10.040 mostly Twitter. I just if you want to find out 0:56:10.040 --> 0:56:12.120 what I'm doing, like second to second and find out 0:56:12.160 --> 0:56:15.680 what's irritating me today, Twitter is the way to go. 0:56:15.840 --> 0:56:17.440 There you go. And if you want to get in 0:56:17.480 --> 0:56:19.880 touch with us, you can send us an email the 0:56:19.920 --> 0:56:23.279 addresses tech stuff at how stuff works dot com, or 0:56:23.360 --> 0:56:26.400 you can drop us a line on Twitter or Facebook 0:56:26.719 --> 0:56:30.120 or Tumbler that's the third one, or handle it all 0:56:30.160 --> 0:56:32.919 three is tech Stuff H s W. And we will 0:56:32.960 --> 0:56:40.600 continue this obsolete discussion releases for more on this and 0:56:40.680 --> 0:56:52.879 thousands of other topics. 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