Bring Back the Good Ol’ Days
We’ve gone through a lot of technology as a society. We’ve seen its ultimate highs and the embarrassing lows, and we’re here to walk through some notable examples of both! Let’s dive into which older tech we actually miss and which items deserved an early grave.
Takeshi Kuboki from Amagasaki, Japan on Wikimedia
1. Classic iPod
Music lovers had a good stretch for a while. Apple, the now-giant monopoly that makes a new phone every year, used to manufacture iPods—an amazing gadget that fit our entire library in the palm of our hands. Sure enough, the originals were phased out for objectively worse models and then the whole project was torched in 2022. We know it’s been 24 years, but we’ll never forget you, first gen.
2. Portable CD Players
If 24 years wasn’t old enough, don’t worry. We’re backing it up even further with the Walkman, a revolutionary device that let us listen to our favorite CDs whenever we wanted. Oh, what’s that? You’re tired of the same album? No problem because later models came with radio built in. Phew, what a time to be alive.
3. Landline Phones
It’s not that landline phones are inherently “better” than smartphones (though we’ll always miss their simplicity), it’s that we miss their designs the most. Do you want a hamburger phone? Done. How about a pastel rotary phone? Also done. Don’t even get us started on the transparent models.
4. Chunky Cellphones
Say what you want about yesterday’s cell phones—we have a soft spot for them. Sure, the quality wasn’t as good, and it may have taken nine minutes to send one text message, but they were also indestructible, reliable, and weren’t obsolete in a year.
5. Button Dashboards
Look, we like a lot of things about today’s cars. What we don’t like, however, is the touchscreen dashboard. (That and LED headlights.) Button dashes were perfectly fine. They accomplished all the same things and relied on muscle memory, not distracted driving, to use them.
6. Laptops With CD Players
It might seem silly to gripe about CD players. After all, we have endless streaming platforms available now, so who cares if laptops do it too? We do! We care! It was so much easier just to pop a disc into your laptop than to have to rent it off a streaming service.
7. Polaroid Cameras
Polaroid cameras are slowly making their way back into our lives and we’re glad for the resurgence. They were simple devices that captured the feeling of a moment over its aesthetics. We loved being able to print them out immediately and add them to our bedroom photo wall too.
8. Nintendo DS
We know the DS still exists, but we’re not talking about today’s models. No, we’re talking about the originals—the feats of technology that were unlike anything we’d ever seen before. Sure, it had clunky buttons and a little screen but that’s just part of the charm, okay?
9. DVD Players
Our gaming consoles might be able to play DVD players, but we still pine for the original device. They were game-changers back in the day, allowing us to build libraries of our favorite movies. They never took up that much space, they weren’t fussy, and they only played DVDs, which made them infinitely less finicky than multi-use tech.
Alan Levine from Strawberry, United States on Wikimedia
10. Typewriters
Not everyone remembers the nostalgic clack clack clack of typewriter keys, but it’s a sound unlike any other. While a totally obsolete piece of technology now, we still recognize the value in this little number: the charming grandfather of all that came after it.
Though history’s home to a lot of cool technology, it’s also a graveyard for retired pieces we’re glad threw in the towel. Let’s take a look at some old technology we’re happy hit the bricks!
1. VHS Players
Some can argue that VHS players walked so DVD players could run—but those clunky tapes barely crawled. The worst part about this archaic technology is how many equally unappealing accessories came with it. Rewinders, video cleaning tapes, splice kits…make it stop.
2. Phone Keyboards
We’ve already outed ourselves as keyboard sticklers, but Blackberries just didn’t get the job done. Those tiny buttons? Hitting three letters at once? No thank you. You eventually got the hang of it but that didn’t save how impractical these phones were.
3. MP3 Players
We like old technology as much as the next guy, and far be it from us to shame music devices, but MP3 players just weren’t that great. From terrible sound quality to lackluster batteries, these guys lacked the charm of their ancestors and the features of what came after. Their knock-offs were even worse.
4. Floppy Disks
We doubt any child today even knows what a floppy disk is (either that or it’s some weird slang term). Regardless, these multicolored pieces didn’t offer much. They were easily snapped and couldn’t hold very much on them, making them prime real estate for replacements.
5. Sony Reader
Many of us can’t live without our handy e-readers, but Sony’s models didn’t last very long. They had a decent lifespan of about eight years, often drawing people in with their no-frills choices, yet consumers gravitated to options with better battery life and less glare.
6. Apple TV
Though Apple TV isn’t technically discontinued, their models rarely last a year or two before they’re replaced with so-called upgrades—and we can’t wait for the whole thing to tank. We get what Apple was trying to do with this device but others do it way better (and with less hassle).
7. Nintendo Wii Accessories
We’ve already kissed the Wii goodbye, but now’s a great time to remember its insane accessories. Fishing rods. Steering wheels. They even had a bowling ball for crying out loud. All designed to enhance an already mediocre experience.
8. Dial-Up Internet
These darn kids today will never know the horrors of dial-up internet. It’s a good thing too because they’d never have the patience. We barely did! Trying to play games with a sluggish connection built into the phone? We still have nightmares about it.
9. Portable DVD Players
In a time before endless entertainment, we had to make our own by carrying this thing around. Though it sounds awesome on the surface, portable DVD players were really just cumbersome accessories with terrible battery life.
Santeri Viinamäki on Wikimedia
10. Apple “Hockey Puck” Mouse
Apple still isn’t off the hook. We’ll never forget their “hockey puck” mice—the clumsy, ugly, hamburger patty mouse with one button. Oh, it also came with a laughably short cable. Anyone who used this thing remembers it as a notorious flop, which is exactly how it was branded in the media.
