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Old 25th Mar 2015, 8:16 pm   #1
G6Tanuki
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Default Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Article in the Daily Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...-pictures.html

I'd happily add a few to that list.

Phone-boxes: the idea of having to track down a specific street-venue and then pay an exorbitant by-the-minute fee to make a simple phone-call? Include utter perplexity at the mess of "Buttons A and B" in a pre-STD phone-box.

"Twin-Tub" washing-machines [and their late-1940s tub-and-roller-mangle variants]. English-Electric delivered their "Liberator" automatic washing-machine to the UK in 1960. Within a few years the twin-tub was thankfully a matter of amusing history.
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Old 25th Mar 2015, 8:31 pm   #2
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Even something as simple as traditional window hardware seems to confuse anyone under 30 who visits our house, which has 1950s Crittall steel windows.

If they can work out how to get the big, side-hinged windows open, they invariably leave them unsecured to flap around in the wind.

And if they decide to close the little top-hinged ones, securing them in the closed position using the stay also seems beyond them.

N.
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Old 25th Mar 2015, 8:32 pm   #3
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Unless you were my Nan, in which case you carried on using a twintub for several decades.

It used to fascinate me with it's many tubes, settings and operations.
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Old 25th Mar 2015, 8:33 pm   #4
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Probably baffle some of the older generation as well....

I liked the twin tub, easy to fix but then again washing the clothes etc is not my department.

Lawrence.
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Old 25th Mar 2015, 8:49 pm   #5
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

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Originally Posted by Nickthedentist View Post
Even something as simple as traditional window hardware seems to confuse anyone under 30 who visits our house, which has 1950s Crittall steel windows.
Sash-windows can be confusing for the post-1960 generation, too.
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Old 25th Mar 2015, 9:00 pm   #6
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

My young nephew (born 1998) was almost pop-eyed with disbelief when he saw my newly-repaired Ferrograph series 6 in action. I lifted the deck and I'm sure he was scared of the large rotating flywheel!
BTW, that article says the Atari 2600 took 'tape cartridges'. As far as I recall, it took only solid-state game cartridges.
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Old 25th Mar 2015, 9:32 pm   #7
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Nice article, though there is one mistake in the description of the Atari 2600 video game. It says that it uses tape cartridges, which is not true. The games were stored on solid-state ROM chips which had the great advantage of instant loading. It's true that many of the early home computers like the Sinclair Spectrum and Commodore 64 used cassette tape for data storage, but the Atari 2600 never did.

Interestingly, they aren't the only ones to make that mistake. When I showed an 8-track audio tape cartridge to a teenager back in the late '90s, they thought it was a computer game cartridge too.

Other things of mine that have caused confusion when others have seen them: the 'military-style' portable radios and televisions that were briefly popular in the 70s. Some people actually thought they were ex-Army equipment!

More recently, I've occasionally brought vintage items into work for people to look at. Things such as a monochrome television with valves, portable radio with miniature valves and HT battery, piano-key Betamax video recorder, wind-up gramophone with vintage 78rpm records and radio-cassette 'Boombox'. Some people actually remembered these things, but for the younger ones it's "my smartphone can do all of that".

The camcorder is another piece of technology that has quietly disappeared. I suppose even the CD and DVD must be heading for extinction soon, with almost everything downloaded or streamed online.
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Old 25th Mar 2015, 9:59 pm   #8
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

15 years ago a 20 year old was at a house party I was throwing and was fascinated by me putting a record on.
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Old 25th Mar 2015, 10:06 pm   #9
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Which kinda reminds me of how 20 years ago my teenage nephew couldn't get the 'auto-ignition' gas hob at his parents' house to light and was both horrified and amazed in equal amounts when I simply used a match.

Being able to get it lit and so facilitate a stream of fried-breakfasts at 3AM for him and his collection of distinctly hung-over acolytes scored me a spectacular fistful of uncle brownie-points.
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Old 25th Mar 2015, 10:10 pm   #10
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Quote:
Originally Posted by G6Tanuki View Post
Within a few years the twin-tub was thankfully a matter of amusing history.
Am I missing something? You can still buy twin tubs. Or are you referring to something different? http://www.amazon.co.uk/TDE-TDE1-Twi.../dp/B0014FYAC4
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Old 25th Mar 2015, 10:27 pm   #11
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

A reminder that cars are off topic here. One post deleted and another edited so far, and we are only at number 10...
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Old 25th Mar 2015, 10:31 pm   #12
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

I wandered into the office at work about ten years ago, carrying a dial-telephone (RF-proof!). I noticed that the 'work experience' girl was staring at me, then the telephone.

'What's that round thing on the front?' she said. Boy, I felt old!
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Old 25th Mar 2015, 11:04 pm   #13
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

A couple related to me an amusing tale of their visit to an antiques and vintage fair. While in the car park they saw a chap of about 20 approach an older man. Older man says 'did you get anything?' Reply 'only this watch, it doesn't work, I'll try a new battery'. Older man says 'are you sure it needs one, have you tried winding it?' Response 'winding it?' _ 'with then little knob on the side' _'no,that's for setting the hands' young chap pulls it and adjusts hands. Older man says push it back in and turn it, young man does so. Nothing happens. _'wind it a bit more'. He winds it a bit more. Then his jaw drops in total disbelief as the second hand starts moving.
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Old 25th Mar 2015, 11:17 pm   #14
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Off topic, sorry. As a child I could never understand why the second hand on a watch was the 3rd hand. Back on topic.

Al
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Old 25th Mar 2015, 11:54 pm   #15
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hamid_1 View Post
... The camcorder is another piece of technology that has quietly disappeared. I suppose even the CD and DVD must be heading for extinction soon, with almost everything downloaded or streamed online.
Don't be so sure. Remember when CD was going to be the death of vinyl . Spectacular shrinkage yes but extinction no, I suspect.

Cheers,

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Old 26th Mar 2015, 12:00 am   #16
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Smile Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Hi,
I was demonstrating a Beethoven radiogram with a Garrard autochanger at a steam engine rally years ago. A ten year old girl came along with her father and showed an interest in it, so I asked her who her favourite singer was, and she replied that it was Elvis Presley. As I happened to have one of his 78s with me, I proceeded to stack it on the Garrard. She looked on in fascination while it dropped onto the turntable and the arm moved across to play it. "Oh WOW!" she exclaimed. "I never realised he was that old!"
I wasn't easy keeping my face straight!
Cheers, Pete.
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Old 26th Mar 2015, 12:03 am   #17
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

I don't think anyone born in the last 20 years would comprehend anything from the time I was brought up. We had a Crane solid fuel boiler in the kitchen for hot water, no washing machine or fridge but a wringer for getting most of the water out of the clothes.

When we got married we had a telephone but you had to lift the receiver and ask the operator to connect you. We had a Hoover washing machine with a wringer in the top so all the soapy water ran back into the tub. We did eventually get a secondhand 'automatic' washing machine, it was a Bendix, weighed a couple of hundredweight and had to be Rawl bolted to the floor.

Our central heating as powered by a back boiler behind the fire. We did have a fridge and an electric cooker but these came secondhand from the local electricity board.

We were happy though!

Peter
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Old 26th Mar 2015, 1:12 am   #18
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

Apropos wristwatches, the kids nowadays uses their cell phones as pocket watches. They take it up of their pocket, check the time and put it back. It is like a hundred years ago...
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Old 26th Mar 2015, 8:55 am   #19
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

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Originally Posted by daviddeakin View Post
Am I missing something? You can still buy twin tubs. Or are you referring to something different?
I'm amazed: I haven't seen one of them - whether in someone's house or on a junk-tip - for decades!

It never occurred to me that they might still be being made. Next you'll be telling me the "Baby Burco" washing boilers [traditionally used to boil up babies' nappies] are still available new.
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Old 26th Mar 2015, 9:10 am   #20
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Default Re: Obsolete Technologies that baffle the modern generation.

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

Hugh
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