Blast to the past: technology

I know it’s hard to believe now, but someday we’re going to look at our iPhones and tablets and whatnot and think “wow, that’s so old school”. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the technology of yore, and see how far we’ve come.

First, this bad boy who would make you king of the dorm.

This 3-disc CD changer, with a tuner and 2 tape decks. This amazing device allowed you to shuffle the songs on three discs. THREE. The party is here, people. And you could still record your favorite songs off the radio (as long as the DJ didn’t talk over the intro; I always hated that).

But what if you just want to chill and watch a movie? We’ve got you covered.

This is not just a VCR, friends. this is a Magnavox VCRplus+, which has a built in cable channel changer. Don’t get drunk with power, now.

There’s even a record button for taping your favorite episodes of Beachcombers.

But what are you going to watch your VHS tapes on? Why, this Philips FlatTV, of course.

Razor thin.

Our old tv was almost 2 feet deep, so this would have been crazy impressive at the time.

But what to do when you’ve got a hankerin’ for some karaoke but don’t want to go down to the bar?

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with the Craig Cd+graphics Karaoke System.

Components sold separately, in this particular case.

And then there’s The Singing Machine (iSM 1028 x)

All right, enough with the recreational time. Let’s get down to business.

Although some places do still use fax machines, they’re so rare that I used FaxBurner to send a fax instead.

Somewhere out there, maybe there’s a guy with a Panasonic KX-FPG 376, who is looking for these ribbons. I hope he finds them.

Triple bonus points to whoever knows what this is!

For some of you, this is a deep, deep memory that was buried until now.

For those of you who went to high school after 2005 (and I’m being generous in my timeline here), this is a 3M Overhead Projector. The teacher would put the transparent sheets full of knowledge on the glass, where the light underneath would shine the reflection onto a mirror, and then the image would be projected on a roll-down screen that hung in front of the blackboard.

I also attended a church briefly in the 90s where the songs were projected on screen. The AV guy at church has a tough job now; imagine keeping all your overhead sheets in order and laying them down at the right time. Also, we rode dinosaurs to church.

If you really need one, $26 is an excellent deal.

Anyone remember RadioShack?

Business on the Brink has a great podcast episode on why RadioShack isn’t with us anymore.

While a weather radio might be useful in an emergency, having it require a plug might not be as good as having a battery-powered or crank one. In case there’s no power.

Now we’ll head into the slightly more current technology trends.

The Sony Cyber-shot 5.1 megapixel camera.

2592 x 1944 pixels, includes 32 MB card. Sweet.

Remember when iPods had wheels?

I do. The whole notion of a “touch-screen” was only an idea in futuristic movies. This screen was in color and you could load videos on it. Amazing. So of course, you gotta have a case for it.