Posted on 08/06/2016 1:34:34 PM PDT by PROCON
Have you had to write a rent check lately? Or maybe fax some important documents? Despite things like Venmo and email that normal people use every day, these ancient bits of tech and culture just keep hanging on. There's clearly better technology, it's just that not everyone is using it.
Here are nine outmoded technologies that just won't disappear.
Fax Machine
When they were invented: 1843
Purpose: Sending copies of physical documents over phone lines
Where they're still used: Doctors' offices, lawyers, the CIA (which demands the FOI requests be faxed, rather than mailed or sent online), people in Japan
Why they're still used: Sometimes you have to send a paper document, and sometimes you have to send it where there is a phone line but no internet access. Faxing can also be more secure than email; faxes are hard to intercept because they are a direct communication from the sender to the receiver, while emails get moved through a central server. That means you need physical access to a specific phone line at just the right moment to intercept a fax instead of being able to just access the main server everything goes through. Though if it's just left on the machine, a fax is particularly easy for any random person in the office to pick up. Nowadays, fax machines are most widely used in Japan, where 1.7 million fax machines were purchased in 2013 for use in for business transactions, restaurant orders, and other communication.
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
I kept all my turntables, including my linear.
I have software that plugs them into my PC so I can make MP3s of albums I can’t find on CDs.
It’s good to be a pack rat.
:)
I have a Crosby turntable that does the same, but have never made any CDs out of my records.
My Pioneer turntable lasted me 30 years. It was not a direct drive either. That rubber band held forever.
My Disc Cleaner on the other hand; thank God for the internet or I would have never known how to make record cleaner.
A lot of early tech was bulky, expensive and affordable only to large institutions and corporations.
When that tech evolves to the point prices fall and the market is ready they are brought to the typical consumer level.
Somewhere in this house, I have several of these, from the 80s.
http://www.soundstagedirect.com/Discwasher-D4%20Vinyl-Record-Cleaner.shtml
:D
I also have two ION turntables that automatically convert LPs to digital.
You can find them, weirdly enough, on clearance at BedBathAndBeyond, sometimes.
Does it also come with the gun, was it for anti-static? I have the whole kit with the little cleaning brush, also from the 80’s.
I’ll have to look for it at Bed Bath and Beyond. Wish I could go shopping there right now, I could use a travel steam cleaner.
Sunday afternoon was traditionally the time I would play records after Mass as I cooked lunch. Once a neighbor dropped by and she found me playing my records on the front veranda. She thought I was a real character.
Here’s to the record player, long may it turn.
:o)
“When I sold my family home about 15 years ago we had lots of vinyl that went back to the 1950s.”
You’re talking about old vinyl house siding here or what?”
Uhh . . . . Fax machines were invented in 1843? Before the phone? Sending a fax by morse code must have taken hours if not days.
bmfl
Last time I used a travel agent was in 1985 and it totally messed up my honeymoon. The agency used a company called Pleasant Hawaiian Holidays, now known as Perillo Tours. We ended up in the Bahamas instead of Hawaii as originally planned, and had to pay penalty to boot. My wife and I have been to Hawaii three times since I retired in 2011.
Still have a Sony camera that uses a memory stick and ... a 3.5 floppy disk. Works great. My printer can fax.
Take it from an old stew burner most of us can't hear all those sounds that vinyl claims to produce anyway. Sort of like the King's new clothes. We can't tell a thousand dollar bottle of wine from a cheap muscatel either.
Saw the last reply was to your post so had to answer.
Agreed. I’ve always thought CDs are heavy on the treble side. And your analysis makes sense. We think of digital as superior, but it works in 1 and 0. Losing all the fractions in between.
The first Mac with a 400k floppy contained the complete operating system along with MacWrite, MacPaint and had room left over for your documents. Incidentally those 400k floppy drives sold for about $400.00 as I recall.
My first 1gig hard drive set me back about $850.00, last week I bought an 8T WD MyBook for $219.00
It may refer to people who don’t have bank accounts and so have to receive paper paychecks, etc. as opposed to via direct deposit.
In secure military locations, and I assume other similar nonmilitary facilities, the USB ports are filled with epoxy.
It would be very unlikely that a user would find an 8 inch floppy in the parking lot and put it in the computer to see what is on it. Based on actual user history, that would make the 8 inch floppy much more secure.
Invest in a slide scanner or pay to have someone do it for you, then you can view those pictures on a 4k big screen.
Find my Friends is cool too.
I think they used drum scanners.
Stand alone? Didn’t even know they still made them.
I have a printer/scanner/fax machine, hard to use the fax without a land line though.
Best scene in the movie! In response to “PC load letter? What the f**k does THAT mean?!)
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