Phone booths. They used to be everywhere. Can't remember the last time I saw one, but there have to be a couple of them somewhere.
sharephone books/yellow pages
shareThey still make them here, but they get thinner and thinner every year.
Zip drives.
Or any diskettes for that matter.
shareFor some reason, one always ends up in my mailbox like once a year. I don't know why they are still making them.
shareCRT TV / monitor
MiniDisc
PDA
Ball mouse
Good ones!
Blackberries. Are they the same as PDAs?
No. Blackberries are just smartphones. I think they even have Android now.
PDAs are the ones like COMPAQ iPAQ, Sony Clié, Palm Pilot, etc. They use tiny pen called stylus, and you have to really press the screen hard enough to register the strokes. Can't even make a phone call. Unbelievable.
VCRs
shareI think it's bizarre how we have gone backwards with phones.
It used to be the case that you could find anyone's phone number by finding the phone book for their location. So, you haven't heard from a friend for a long time, just go to he library, find the phone book for his city, and look him up!
Now everyone has a cellphone and there is no record kept of numbers. They are random and a person could get a phone in PA and move to CA and have the same PA number. There is no phone book for cellphones, they're all unlisted.
So, if a person moves, isn't on facebook, etc you can never find them again.
I think that's weird to the point where it seems socially destabilizing.
True. No way to find someone's phone number anymore if you lose it, or they change it. Hadn't thought about it, but you're right, it seems socially destabilising to me too.
shareA lot of effort was put into making phone books. Libraries used to have them for all major cities and areas, but then it all ended.
It's weird, with the internet, that there is no phone book. We could have one for billions of people, but we don't. There's no option to list your cellphone number anywhere.
It's bizarre and I wonder if it's a conspiracy. People have access to a handful of people in their immediate life and that's it.
Conspiracy or not, it's a great way to keep people divided.
Yeah. I wonder if a cell phone directory, where you add and update your own, would catch on.
Some people still have landlines. I didn't want to let go of mine, but couldn't justify paying for both it and a cell.
I'm not much for conspiracy theories, but it is true now people only have access to people in their immediate lives. Back before all this, when I had an address book, there were people in there I hadn't spoken with in eons, but I knew I could. Even if they'd moved and changed their numbers, chances were I could get ahold of them reasonably easily.
People change their email less frequently, so there's that.
I don't know if it's a conspiracy but it is bizarre there's no phone book. It's really sloppy if it's just an accident.
No one cares? There's no demand? It's bizarre.
I have an old friend and we used to do everything together. I would like to get in touch with him but I literally have no clue how to do it. He doesn't have face book. He has seven brothers. His name is unique, but I can't find any of them.
People might as well be dead.
I'm amazed this isn't an issue. But, other than here, when I bring it up, most people go blank. It seems to blow their mind.
I think it's just something that happened as a result of the development of these technologies.
Cell phones came along and people abandoned their (more static than not) landlines. What with different competing providers and so on, it's not uncommon for people to ditch their old cell numbers and get different ones.
Without landlines, there's not much of a need for phone books anymore.
At the same time, Facebook came along and grew so huge, most people are on it, so that's how most get and stay in touch. Doesn't help people like your old friend or me, who aren't and never will be on Facebook, or any of our friends who want to get back in contact, but can't.
It is weird that your friend and his brothers have unique names, yet you can't find any of them.
This is very true. I know people who move to small towns and have no landline. No way to contact them. They have to call me.
shareIn Sweden there's websites where you can type in a person's name and see where his location is (his house etc), his phonenumber and so on, and that's just the free websites.
shareThat's the way phone books used to work in the US.
When the internet started out there were free phone books then it all disappeared.
cassette players
MySpace
Kodak