10 Things That Are Practically Obsolete Now that We Have Smartphones

Yep
And for writing my detailed engineering reports
I need a REAL COMPUTER
MY OLD SAYING
my phone and my computer. Tge Twain Shall NEVER meet

It’s funny that you mentioned that... In a post I just did, I mentioned how much I still love my HP-41CV!

Mark

“Hey man, where’s da equals key?”

Still have my Sony reel to reel tape deck that I bought in HUE before the TET OFFENSIVE, still works great.

Gotta love some of that Janis Joplin and Diana Ross and The Supremes still have some of the greatest memory songs you will ever hear.

That’s my coffee pot. Although I use a smart plug that works with Alexa. I tell Alexa “turn on coffee pot.” Coffee is ready before I get out of bed.

55 and over? BITE ME KID!

(just kid’en, but your still a kid).
Gotta have a sense of humor you know!

If I recall Disneyland correctly from when I was a kid, that’s;
E
N
C
Y
C
LO
PEDIA.

Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

Rpn sucks, stack logic is so obsolete.

"Smart phones are quite impractical for most of the country as there is not that much cell coverage."

When I E-Mail somebody, next to my Tel. No.#: is the following "( Land Line only, no cell service, too many trees)"

I'm just approx 45-50 North of Seattle (a.k.a. The San-Fran-Freak-O of the North.)

Well ... I’m “only” 58. And most of the stuff I own is near half my age, or a bit older.

I use a flip phone, because I live in rural Nebraska - not many phone booths around here. Actually, we still have one fully enclosed phone booth in town.

I have a TI calculator I bought for college, back in the early 90’s. I’m on my 4th computer, only because the damn things don’t last, and I do need them for my AutoCAd work.

I still have a FAX machine and a push-button phone. I still use a Rolodex! I use address books, one which is a vest pocket type that I always carry with me. I do all my accounting using the old style bookkeeper’s ledger (my wife is a teacher, and she still uses bound planning and grades books). I have many Road Atlases and paper fold-up maps, collected over the years, from all my road trips. One journey was 8000 miles, done over the course of 2 weeks: beginning in Massachusetts, up into Montreal, over the Great Lakes on the Trans-Canadian Highway, then down through t6he Midwest, out to Vegas, making the “Big U-Turn” in California, and finally heading east back to Massachusetts along the southern route. Did 23 states and 14 National Parks - including piloting a boat across Lake Superior to Ilse Royal.

I have all manner of old electronic equipment, which I collected while in trade school (1978). Most of it came off of SAC aircraft. My electronics teacher was an Air Force communications officer, and he would bring all this really neat “surplus” hardware into the classroom. One day, he decided to toss most of it; so I asked for most of this hardware, and he agreed to let me keep the “junk.” One day he brought in a Zerox copy machine, and it was a monster! We took it apart, and I got a stash of micro switches, electromagnets, servos - and these two parabolic mirrors with a xenon lamp. I even managed to talk this guy out of a 1940’s vintage oscilloscope, which I would later hook up to my 1966 Sears 1457 Silvertone electric guitar (had the amplifier built into the guitar case.)

My vehicle is a 1998 Subaru Forester, with near 300K miles. It’s on it’s second engine, which I pulled from a junkyard after the original engine had a timing belt failure (0-tolerance engine). I bought the Forester in 2002, when it had about 30K miles. It’s my 5th Subaru - the 1st was a 1978 GF Coup. I had a 1977 Plymouth Valarie, but I ran that into a bridge abutment on I-290, one night while driving from Hartford CT, on my way home to Worcester MA. Asleep at the wheel! I lived in South Florida for 3 years (Broward County, no less!) and leased a 1986 Toyota Corolla GTS, bright red - the cops loved me, and pulled me over once a month for whatever reason they could think of at the moment.

Most of our furniture is 40+ years old, only because we cannot afford to buy anything new.

I still have souvenirs from my childhood - one of which was a sailboat plaque, purchased in August 1968, from the state penitentiary at Thompson, Maine.

I cannot believe you have a working toaster that is 40 years old - I’m lucky to get one that last more than 2 years before it craps out. I used to have some old appliances from my parents; but they eventually bit the dust after many moves across the country, chasing.

I have a 100-year old Winchester shotgun, a model 1912 20-gauge that was manufactured in 1915. All my other firearms are from the 90’s and newer.

All our silverware and china are from 1982 or older - some belonged to my wife’s great grandmother. My mom gave us some crystal stemware she picked up at a yard sale, the age of which I have no clue; but the style appears to be from the 1950’s.

Still have my High School year book (1978), the “baby book” my dad made for me in 1960, the grammar school scrap book he also made (K through 8th grade), a 1930 Funk & Wagnalls Standard Desk College Dictionary, and various physics, Trigonometry and Calculus books from the 1940s. All my astronomy books and star charts are from the early 1980’s and 90s.

Still have the 1968 Mass Missal that my dad gave me for First Communion, a 1945 Latin Mass Missal, and the oak Cross with brass corpus that came off an antique ‘Stations of the Cross,’ which belonged to my great grandmother. At the foot of the cross was Mary, Mother of Jesus, Saint John and Mary Magdelline. There was a set of wooden spindles, mounted inside an oak pedestal box, which contained a moving canvas. Upon this canvas were painted the various Stations of the Cross, and these would pass beneath a piece of etched emerald and clear glass when you turned the spindles. A very beautiful piece, which unfortunately got busted up somewhere along the way. All I have left is the original cross and corpus of Christ.

I have many old books, on various subjects. Many of which I have yet to read.

I still have a pair of dress shoes that I purchased in 2000, and suits, tailored in 1991, which no longer fit ;) My wife sews her own dresses, because modest women’s attire is difficult to find, and typically very expensive. So she buys material and does her best - but sometimes she needs to go to a seamstress when the pattern is too complicated.

Cameras - well, I have an old Richo AE that I purchased in 1980; however, it no longer functions and would cost more to fix that what the camera is worth - and the bearings have all worn out on my lenses. It also became near impossible to find film or locate a store that could develop the photos. My sister is a professional photographer, and has her own darkroom - but she’s back in Massachusetts. So, I had no choice but to go digital - broke my heart.

Yet I have my Techniques direct-drive turntable, with laser-guided, linear tracking tonearm - and the original elliptical diamond stylus. I bought the unit around 1986, in Hollywood, Florida. I still play LPs from the 1950’s up through the 1990’s, and also have a few 45’s. My Rotel 550XL radio receiver (1982) and my “Dual Donzel” cassette deck (1991) both crapped out a few years ago. But my BSR graphic equalizer (1991) is running like a champ! I bought new speakers in 2005, after I blew out my original 100-Watt monsters - too much volume while playing my Aerosmith albums, I guess.

We have lots of old clocks, including an old wind-up “Big Ben” alarm clock that belonged to my mom.

Lots of old glass slides and photos - many much older than I, including some of the first B&W Polaroid or from other Kodak Instamatic cameras, made back in the 60’s. No longer have the projector, and not sure if I could find a model that would take these slides (most are 3”x3”) Used to have an old “box” camera with leather bellows and a tripod, which belonged to my uncle; but I gave that to my sister years ago, because it was quite old and the bellows were deteriorating.

My 1980 drafting table and mag lamp are both in good shape, although the lamp’s plastic diffuser has yellowed. Also have a collection of T-Squares, a German drafting set, architectural and engineering scales, a very old slide rule, drafting triangles, fountain ink-style drafting pens, etc - most of which date back to the 1940’s and 50’s. Still have my Staedtler Mars graphic pencil set, which I purchase at “Spag’s” in Shrewsbury, MA, at age 16 - for $5.49! Also have all my oil paints, brushes, pallet knives, pallet and wooden carry box, which I bought in the 80’s.

We have a 3D-cell ‘Mag Lite’ flashlight in every room, along with a fire extinguisher. I have innumerable survival and camping gear that I’ve collected over the years. All my Snap-On aviation mechanic’s tools I bought the late 70’s and early 80’s. I have old hand saws, hatchets, hammers, carpenter squares, metal multi-drawer storage cabinets, and various power tools - all of which I purchase at estate auctions.

There’s a handmade marble chessboard, and all its pieces (I have no idea how old) which was given to me by a worker at a Brox asphalt testing lab, back around 2004. I have the original Stratego, Monopoly and Parcheesi board games, purchased in the 70’s. Used to have large shopping bags filled with LEGO blocks and other LEGO kit parts (1972-1976). My brother got his hands on them when I moved out of my parents home, and I never saw them again. Same goes for my Lincoln Logs set - and they were from the early 1960’s. I have some old Lionel trains, and a few matchbox cars from my childhood. All the plastic ship and aircraft models I ever built - including the original lighted Enterprise from Star Trek - never made it through my teen years.

I have more “junk” than I can list, and all of it is at least 50 years old, but of which I am unwilling to part ways.

Of course, my wife also has her collection, much of it from her childhood, including the pencil set her dad bought her for her first day in school - in Peru! She still has clothes and shoes from when she was a teen! A lot of her memorabilia and jewelry came from her great grandmother.

So, yes, being older than I, you “win” - but, at 58, I’m still “just a kid!”

You want to see a millennial have a complete “deer in the headlights” stare? Seat them in a vehicle that has a 5-speed manual transmission. Better still, tell them you have a manual “tranny”- and watch the smoke pour out of their ears, as they try to determine whether they should be “triggered” for your “hate speech!”

Oh, and the folding map - yeah, that would be a hoot watching them attempt to fold it correctly ... Hand them a lensatic compass and a set of caliper points - even better show.

I have a 2008 Ford Escape. I don’t have to run my car to charge my cell phone. I do not understand why many cars stop charging when the ignition is turned off.

Well it is a typical SUV or luxury car feature to have an unswitched 12V outlet but not all vehicles do.

There are exceptions like the 16 yo girl in a Toyota Celica 5 speed who picked up my girl the other day.

Oh, and in your other comment it should be “Plymouth Volare”.

Except when someone is looking at one in a movie theater.

A flashlight is a tool. A smartphone flashlight is fine in some situations, but for many others it is utterly useless.

Traditional flashlights are in no way “practically obsolete”.

Tom-Tom....

Yet I have my Techniques direct-drive turntable, with laser-guided, linear tracking tonearm

Back in the day, I came "this" close to buying a Technics SP-10 but eventually bought a H-K/Rabco ST-7 with straight line tonearm which was replaced by a Linn LP-12.

Earlier this year, Technics re-introduced top-of-the-line DD turntables: SL-10R (no tonearm) and the SL-1000R (w/tonearm). Pricing is $10k for the SL-10R and $20k for the SL-1000R.

TECHNICS SL-1000R

Except possibly for the radar detector. Let me know if I’m wrong. This could come in handy since they are illegal here in Virginia.

Curious about the date of the ad. Early-mid 1990s I would guess.

I'm retired and work my cattle on the farm.

Time is of no matter out here in the country.

RPN forever! I still use my HP-15C every day, and dread the day it dies.

If it's any consolation, you can buy a reissue of the 15C. Only one slight problem. It costs as much as a high-end smartphone.