Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

[G6Tanuki]

That's really just a tea-urn: the type of "Baby Burco" I was meaning held about 7 or 8 gallons and was traditionally painted white/blue.

here: http://www.gypsycreams.org/2011/04/baby-burco/ is an ad from the 1960s.

[Radio Wrangler]

Actually, a lot of kids will know of baby Burco boilers, though they won't associate them with clothes. Many of these classics have found a second life in stables, used to prepare bran mashes - a standard treatment for a number of ailments.

David

['LIVEWIRE?']

Perhaps slightly off-topic, but most young people today would perhaps find it hard to believe that television was once monochrome, and only 3 channels as well!! (Actually, like some other forum members I can remember when there was only one channel)

[Peter.N.]

It was only one channel when we first had it and that was on a home built set with no cabinet. In fact it was still only one when I started work.

Peter

[Radio Wrangler]

references in old films/TV to 'future technologies' can create a lot of disbelief that people could get it so wrong.

Spaceship computer technology may be the extreme case. The vision was of one computer per ship. It could do speech and speech recognition, but there were many routine tasks by todays standards that it couldn't do, though it could somehow determine the probability of Klingons within a few light years with 10-digit precision.

People who grew up recently cannot comprehend how people got it so wrong. We have so much now which was never envisaged, yet 2001's a long time past and no-one's been out to Jupiter, and no-one's got a self-aware computer going.

All the things we've developed haven't just been done in vacuo, they've been done amidst speculation and predictions of what the future was bringing. This makes perceptions and expectations much more complex.

David

[M0FYA Andy]

Don't forget the prediction from IBM in the early 50's I think it was, there may be a world market for ten computers...............
Andy

[G6Tanuki]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

Actually, a lot of kids will know of baby Burco boilers, though they won't associate them with clothes. Many of these classics have found a second life in stables, used to prepare bran mashes - a standard treatment for a number of ailments.

Yes - and I know of a couple that are used similarly by enthusiastic at-home beer-brewers too!

[mark pirate]

Perhaps slightly off-topic, but most young people today would perhaps find it hard to believe that television was once monochrome, and only 3 channels as well!! (Actually, like some other forum members I can remember when there was only one channel)

I had to laugh when a visitor commented that the colour was not working on my Bush TV24, I had to explain that it was a black & white set!

My friends young son was spellbound watching the autochanger in operation on my radiogram, he asked me if it could play CD's

Another comment was made about my laservision player, 'did old DVD's used to be that big'.

Mark

[G6Tanuki]

I'd also like to nominate "Phonecards". Which lasted a mere 20 years as a concept.

Wildly popular in the 1980s - as well as buying them from a post-office they were often given corporate branding then handed out at trade-fairs and events in the same way as ball-point-pens, business-card-holders and the like.

I used to issue a phonecard with £10 of credit to each of my field-service team so they didn't need to find loads of loose change to call the office from a payphone - but the arrival of cheap mobile-phones soon killed the phonecard concept stone dead.

See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2016366.stm

Phonecard-collecting was a bit of a thing, it seems - with some rare corporate-advertising ones once selling for ridiculous prices!

[emeritus]

A French lady who worked in my office once mentioned that when she had first come to the UK, she had been puzzled when people said things like "Turn the telly over and let's see what's on the other side", thinking it referred to physically moving the set. I explained its derivation from the era when there were only two channels, and showed her my dad's old book on TV servicing which has a photo of a Band III converter having a rotary switch for selecting either BBC or ITV.

[Station X]

A frequently heard question at model engineering society public running days is "What's that black stuff mister?". The answer is coal.

[Andrew2]

Party lines! Or even the idea of a hard-wired phone.
On the subject of washing machines, in the early sixties we had a second-hand English Electric washer. It was a large cylindrical tub on legs with a huge oscillating paddle inside. A kind of gearstick stuck out of the side. I recall it had a wringer on top.

[G6Tanuki]

Originally Posted by Andrew2

On the subject of washing machines, in the early sixties we had a second-hand English Electric washer. It was a large cylindrical tub on legs with a huge oscillating paddle inside. A kind of gearstick stuck out of the side. I recall it had a wringer on top.

The tub-with-an-agitator-and-wringer-on-top type of washing-machine was a popular post-war option: in the dim and distant recesses of my memory an "ADA" version of thisl was owned either by my parents or some other close relative.

http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/images/...0227PP-Ada.jpg

The one shown in the ad makes reference to the Coronation so would be 1953 vintage.

I rather suspect that to recent generations reared on spin-driers and tumble-driers, the wringer would appear both bizarre and dangerous!

[Alan Stepney]

Just to bring back radio to the topic, (even though the subject is not radios), ADA was a Philips company, and later was used as a Holding Company for various small concerns owned by Philips.
(ADA originally stood for Associated Domestic Applliances)
They also made the original Rolls washing machines, before production moved elsewhere.

Back on topic, show the average youngster a Rolls Razor (you had to "strop" them to maintain an edge, or to many, even a safety razor.

[WaveyDipole]

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

I'd also like to nominate "Phonecards". Which lasted a mere 20 years as a concept

I threw away my phonecard just last week! It was one of the original ones when they first came out and we were issued them at work (I worked for BT at the time). Not sure how long I have been carrying it around in my wallet for in case I ever need it in an emergency...

My grandad had a wringer - referred to by my mum as a mangle - which was probably closer to the truth!

Our TV had two channels - BBC and ATV - which I think could be picked up on a 'H' antenna. We had to have a new 'X' antenna installed to receive BBC2. There were no push button controls but a very unreliable rotary control manually selected numbered channels (40 odd to 60odd), the numbers of which I never understood until much later. You had to know which channel your BBC or ATV station was on! We then had to replace the TV to upgrade from 400 to 512 lines (early 70s I think). Both antenae were scrapped in favour of the current multi-element type which seems to have survived into the digital age, albeit with a slight modification. No VCR's, computer games, mobile phones, tablets. Just how did we ever manage?

Would foot driven sewing machines confuse the modern generation? (Where do you plug the power in...) We had a singer sewing machine (1920's -1940s at a guess) that folded down when not in use into a table. To use the machine would turn the table top flap to one side, lift up the machine and logk it nto place. The belt would then be engaged and you rocked the large metal foot pedal below too and fro to operate it. It was passed down from my grandmother and I made the mistake of giving it away to the house clearance people who convinced me (still grieving at the time after my fathers death) that it was scrap.

Do the modern generation still know what LW, MW and SW stand for on an old radio?
(I used to think it was how far the radio waves would travel - the longer the further... well I was only 8 at the time.)

Taking some photographs on a lovely sunny Sunday at the local pub (a shade too local!) the kids I where photographing (how come kids seem to have more fun at the pub?) spotted me and rushed round to see the pictures on the back of the camera. I was using a 1932 Leica, I did ruin a roll of film showing them how it works (well worth it) and their parents got a few prints the next week.

[G6Tanuki]

Which highlights another obsolete and youth-perplexing technology - flashbulbs!

For 1960s/1970s consumer-grade cameras I remember two kinds. One was a cube with a flashbulb in each face that plugged into the top of the camera and you twisted it to point an unused bulb at the target. 'Posh' cameras had a ratchet and gear that turned the flashcube for you automatically each time you wound the film on.
The other type was a flat bar containing six flash-bulbs which of course had the advantage of not needing to be rotated, but the plug-and-socket that mounted it to the camera was basically just an extension of the bulb-mounting PCB and could easily be snapped-off leaving a broken bit wedged inside the camera. From memory this flat-strip type was usually found with Polaroid cameras. Remember them?

[WaveyDipole]

Yes, my 126 camera took Magicube flash bulbs. My uncles camera had single flashbulbs that you plugged into a seperate flash unit. The reflector was made of metal segments that fanned out into a circle. It is just as well that my camera didn't take the bar, which as you point out, could be easily broken off and I was not particularly careful at the time, although I think Magicubes were more expensive. Neither were around for very long though.

My dad's camera (which I think he acquired from my uncle who was the one into photography) had a curious viewfinder. This camera was one of those with a concertina type bellows. When you opened the flap at the front the lens was extended out drawing the bellows behind it. You could look through the standard viewfinder at the back, or, you could look through this cube shaped finder at the front which I think was basically a prism with a small lens. You looked down into it from the top (or even from the side although I think the image orientation was changed) and it allowed you to compose shots with the camera at waist level. I'm not sure whether the idea was that this allowed you to hold the camera steadier or was just useful for smaller objects nearer to the ground like us kids. Later on one of my cameras had a Rangefinder attachment to help the photographer determine the distance and manually set the lens focus.

Photography has changed significantly by going digital. The concept of taking the film in to be developed and waiting a few days for your negatives and pictures to be returned must seem very strange nowdays except maybe for a few individuals still working with film. Oh, and does anyone still use slides?

[ColinTheAmpMan1]

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

Next you'll be telling me the "Baby Burco" washing boilers [traditionally used to boil up babies' nappies] are still available new.

Ha, but they are used for boiling water for tea and coffee. I don't think that anyone would thank you if you boiled the dirty nappies in it

[russell_w_b]

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

I rather suspect that to recent generations reared on spin-driers and tumble-driers, the wringer would appear both bizarre and dangerous!

We had a Hotpoint Empress when I was a two-year-old, and I was helping my mam put the washing through the mangle, connected via a 'power take-off' on the top. My hand went through the rollers and I still have the scar to this day.

Originally Posted by WaveyDipole

Oh, and does anyone still use slides?

I shot my last slide-film four years ago, but it's increasingly tricky to have them processed. I still use negative film (as well as digital) in my Pentax MX. And I wear a mechanical (self-winding) wristwatch!

I think familiarity with 'obsolete' technology is a matter of where you're brought up. Out here in the sticks our kids attended the local village hall where the Baby Burco tea-urn featured large at Christmas parties, etc..., Open fires are quite normal, people have dogs as pets, our former neighbour still uses a twin-tub...

When I was about six, the contemporary children's publications would have us all flying about in 'space cars', wearing silver one-piece suits, living on the moon and eating pills for dinner in the then-distant 21st Century.