Unusual technological nostalgia

[shawmat]

The Lotus 123 spreadsheet. To be honest, I've forgotten the exact commands but it was something like /fo to open a file, /fs to save it. Just like people could briefly write texts at super-human speeds, so you could drive a spreadsheet without waiting for the previous command to complete.

 

[xotGD]

Five-and-a-quarter inch floppies and three-and-a-half inch 'stiffies'.

The pneumatic tube systems you used to see in some department stores for sending cash from the tills to the cash office.

The choke in a car.

 

[ABB125]

I also like T8 florescent tubes, though I'm not sure why! They're also quite efficient, around 90lm/W; most built-in LED fixtures are around 100lm/W, whilst "LED tubes" can often be less efficient that the fluorescent tubes they're meant to replace. Although some fluorescent light energy is wasted through the ballast (and I think I read somewhere that the ballast can use up to the same amount of power again as the tube itself).
Having said that, I'm also a big fan of LEDs: recently I managed to persuade my dad to upgrade the lighting in his garage; we went from an ancient* 2x6ft T8 fitting and two modern 4ft T5 fittings to four beautiful 60W/7200lm LED fittings. I'm not exaggerating, it's as bright as daylight in there now!

*So old, it was made in West Germany. Apparently the fitting came from my granddad's workshop (presumably when he retired), but my granddad bought it second hand! So it could easily be 50 years old!

 

[birchesgreen]

Ah yes manual chokes, my first car (a Lada) has one. Though none of the cars i had driven when i was learning had manual chokes... luckily i managed to figure it out pretty quickly so i could drive home!

 

[D365]

I've been using my EHIC card for this purpose. It's been nowhere this year and as of Jan 1st it'll likely be useless for anything else.

Oh goodness, don't remind me

 

[yorksrob]

The traditional flourescent tube is a good source of light, but very fiddly to replace. Rigmarole of checking whether the ballast or the tube has gone, trying to insert the thing etc.

I do miss the clickety clack of solari boards as others on here.

 

[SuspectUsual]

Very low tech: does anybody still use old credit cards to clean ice off the windscreen? Or at least similarly shaped plastic cards that don’t give away bank details. I remember the near derision that would be directed at anyone who bought a proper windscreen ice-scraper.

Hotel loyalty cards for me

And also, variously:

- what I believe was known as a “trimphone”, the narrow first generation button-push phones

- Atari games console complete with wood effect finish

- Sony Walkman (although i don’t miss cassettes). I had one that actually had a rewind button, many of them didn’t at first. The height of cool and luxury

 

[xotGD]

Thought of another one: The Banda Machines they used to have in schools for making copies of worksheets, etc.

 

[GusB]

When we first had a landline, it was an old 700-series telephone that was hardwired to the wall in the kitchen. When it eventually went on the blink, it was replaced with a similar model, but the BT engineer installed the then new-fangled sockets and an extension which meant we could move it into the hall - I've also had many conversations while sitting on the stairs! The phones were rented rather than bought in those days.

Somewhere I have a recording of the ringing sound which I used on my mobile for many years, and it used to generate a few comments.

 

[SuspectUsual]

The pneumatic tube systems you used to see in some department stores for sending cash from the tills to the cash office.

Yes, this! Argos in Cov used to have one, as a little ‘un I was absolutely enthralled by it

 

[nlogax]

Just thought of another one; those huge black security cameras hovering overhead in 1980s stores (C&A and Woolies are ones that stick in the mind). Menacing rotating hemispheres of doom containing what turned out to be terrible quality cctv cameras.

 

[birchesgreen]

I have a couple of fluorescent tube lights (to be honest half the stuff mentioned in this thread i have in this house, i feel like i live in a museum!) I had to change the bulb last week in one of them, quite a palaver until i remembered that i need to bend one of the metal prongs with a pair of pliers first so it fits!

 

[yorksrob]

Just thought of another one; those huge black security cameras hovering overhead in 1980s stores (C&A and Woolies are ones that stick in the mind). Menacing rotating hemispheres of doom containing what turned out to be terrible quality cctv cameras.


View attachment 86101

There's a blast from the past. Haven't seen one in years !!

 

[61653 HTAFC]

The pneumatic tube systems you used to see in some department stores for sending cash from the tills to the cash office.

According to Futurama, they'll still be in use in the 31st century...

A possibly apocryphal tale about those systems comes from my cousin who as a teenager worked in a Virgin Megastore. Allegedly during quiet times the staff would amuse themselves by er... "floating an air-biscuit" into one of the capsules and then sending said capsule upstairs to the gaming dept.

 

[Ianno87]

Just thought of another one; those huge black security cameras hovering overhead in 1980s stores (C&A and Woolies are ones that stick in the mind). Menacing rotating hemispheres of doom containing what turned out to be terrible quality cctv cameras.


View attachment 86101

There's a blast from the past. Haven't seen one in years !!

Little me used to be fascinated watching them rotate back and forth!

 

[nlogax]

Little me used to be fascinated watching them rotate back and forth!

I used to genuinely believe they were upside-down security Daleks embedded in the shop ceiling.

 

[RichT54]

When I worked at Heathrow in the 70s there were several pneumatic tube systems (referred to as 'Lamson Tubes' after the manufacturer) that we used to send and receive documents and charts to various parts of the airfield. The main system had smaller carriers that had rotating collars that you could set to indicate a destination address using a combination of letters and digits such as 'B1' which was for the teleprinter section. Quite often the carriers would get jammed in the works, usually because someone hadn't fastened the end cap properly and the contents had come out causing subsequent carriers to get stuck. A workman then had to go around the system to find and clear the blockage, then all of a sudden, half a dozen carriers would fly out of the pipe in rapid succession. Several of the airlines had their own end-to-end systems including B.O.A.C, B.E.A. and Pan Am. - names that have long since vanished!

 

[Peter Mugridge]

- what I believe was known as a “trimphone”, the narrow first generation button-push phones

The original Trimphones still had rotary diallers on them.

 

[birchesgreen]

The original Trimphones still had rotary diallers on them.

Yes there was a push button phone which looked very similar to the trimphone but come a bit later.

 

[david1212]

My first laptop, an NEC with Windows XP, it had pre installed programmes, office for example.
XP was so much more user friendly than any of the later versions, am now on Windows 10 and it's dreadful, also had to pay a fortune for office, which to be honest I rarely use.
....

I still get the occasional PC running Windows NT4 put in front of me to somehow bring back to life.

As to the laptop I'm using to post this when Win10 came along I swapped to Linux specifically Mint. Libra Office is included while WPS is very good for Powerpoint files.

 

[Westcountryman]

Five-and-a-quarter inch floppies and three-and-a-half inch 'stiffies'.

The pneumatic tube systems you used to see in some department stores for sending cash from the tills to the cash office.

The choke in a car.

They still have the tube system in some Tescos, although I don't know if they're still used. One system I distinctly remember from my childhood is a cash carrying arrangement in a shop in Acton High Street, where the assistant put money in a little carriage attached to a wire, then used a spring trigger arrangement to fire the carriage along the wire to a central cashier. The cashier would sort out the cash, and place the change in the carriage which would then be pinged back to the assistant. There were several wires crossing the shop ceiling.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Nov 2020 ==

Hotel loyalty cards for me

And also, variously:

- what I believe was known as a “trimphone”, the narrow first generation button-push phones

- Atari games console complete with wood effect finish

- Sony Walkman (although i don’t miss cassettes). I had one that actually had a rewind button, many of them didn’t at first. The height of cool and luxury

Actually, trimphones originally had dials. see here:

Classically Elegant BT Fully Operational Rotary Dial Cream (Off-White) Trimphone | eBay

Find great deals for Classically Elegant BT Fully Operational Rotary Dial Cream (Off-White) Trimphone. Shop with confidence on eBay!

www.ebay.co.uk

EDIT: apologies, I didn't see similar responses which I hadn't seen. But at least there is a picture.

 

[RichT54]

They still have the tube system in some Tescos, although I don't know if they're still used. One system I distinctly remember from my childhood is a cash carrying arrangement in a shop in Acton High Street, where the assistant put money in a little carriage attached to a wire, then used a spring trigger arrangement to fire the carriage along the wire to a central cashier. The cashier would sort out the cash, and place the change in the carriage which would then be pinged back to the assistant. There were several wires crossing the shop ceiling.

I remember back in the 60s, there was a wire system like that in the Plummers department store in Folkestone.

The Jacksons department store in Reading still used a Lamson pneumatic system for handling payments right up until it finally closed at the end 2013.

 

[birchesgreen]

Actually, trimphones originally had dials. see here:

Classically Elegant BT Fully Operational Rotary Dial Cream (Off-White) Trimphone | eBay

Find great deals for Classically Elegant BT Fully Operational Rotary Dial Cream (Off-White) Trimphone. Shop with confidence on eBay!

www.ebay.co.uk

EDIT: apologies, I didn't see similar responses which I hadn't seen. But at least there is a picture.

I wonder if the OP meant the Viscount phone?

 

[Gloster]

I remember back in the 60s, there was a wire system like that in the Plummers department store in Folkestone.

I can remember there being one in one of the stores in Guildford, not Plummers (that was much too modern), and being fascinated by the criss-crossing tubes when they had the ceiling down for some reason. Actually, it may have been a compressed-air system, although I may be mixing up two shops. Made a lovely Whoomph when the container left.

 

[headshot119]

I wonder if the OP meant the Viscount phone?

That takes me back! A hotel in Devon we used to stay in when I was young had them in every room. All cream coloured, though they had a red one in the reception to call the local taxi firm from.

 

[DB]

I still pine for DOS as an operating system.

Windows still has much of that command line functionality, and in the IT world it's used regularly, along with Powershell, which has evolved from it.

One which I can't understand - cassettes. They seem to have a cult following, but why? The sound quality was never great and gets worse with use. They jam, get chewed, etc. Their only benefit was portability, but digital files now do that much better.

 

[Trackman]

I wonder if the OP meant the Viscount phone?

I think the Viscount was one of the first BT phones to support tone dialling (with a switch on the back).
I'm not sure, but I think BT still support pulse dialling.

 

[birchesgreen]

I think the Viscount was one of the first BT phones to support tone dialling (with a switch on the back).
I'm not sure, but I think BT still support pulse dialling.

I assume they do, Virgin do as i can still use my GPO 746.

 

[PeterC]

On a railway (and airport) theme - Solari mechanical flip-panel displays.
- used to love the rhythmic click-click-click at major stations as the departure boards updated regularly.

Saved on announcements as it prompted you to look up at the board whenever anything changed.

 

[Ducatist4]

Very low tech: does anybody still use old credit cards to clean ice off the windscreen? Or at least similarly shaped plastic cards that don’t give away bank details. I remember the near derision that would be directed at anyone who bought a proper windscreen ice-scraper.

I use my Tesco club card but it only gets 20% off.