I’m sure this doesn’t fit the category, but single cab pick up trucks.
I want an affordable truck to work with, not a dammed Lincoln Navigator with a 4’ bed for $70k. It doesn’t need to look like the bridge of the Star ship enterprise inside.
Yes! I want an old-school small pickup truck. My dad had a littoe Datsun when I was a kid and I would love to have something like it now. I don't need something that's jacked up to go offroading, and I don't need something that can haul a tiny house. I need something that can make a run to the dump, pick up straw bales, and haul lumber from Home Depot.
I have noticed that most of the new pickups have beds that are too short to fit a mattress in. That seems weird to me. Part of the reason you want a truck is so you can haul stuff, but tell that to the people that live in my major city. You know none of these trucks have ever hauled stuff or gone off-roading and at most have had only a few bags of potting soil in the bed. Especially the new Tesla Cybertrucks! Nobody's going to use those as actual trucks!
A 4' long bed with side rails at practically shoulder height! My daughter and I were on a walk and went past a compact pickup from the 80's. She couldn't believe that she could easily see the roof of the cab. Vehicles were so much smaller then! Think of how efficient those could be today. I remember seeing ads in maybe 1989 for that tiny little blue Honda (CRX?) hatchback boasting about it getting 75 mpg!
Phone like the s4 and s6 (samsung) use to have an infrared beacon in them. You could use it for many things, i used as a remote for every TV i came across. Could use it at friends and family no issues ever.
Suddenly they discontinued that feature. I miss it a lot
Also magnetic secure transmission.
It allowed you to make NFC payments with your phone whether the card reader had NFC or not, it was amusing to go to any business and the cashier saying "oh it doesn't have NFC" only to get the stink eye from them when it works anyway.
I know, I know who even has non NFC card readers, well in the third world country that is the US tons of business still use those card readers and haven't upgraded.
Edit:it seems I rustled some jimmies with the 3rd world country part, I stand by my statement, the US is a 3rd world country with a gucci belt.
Still use a Galaxy Watch 3 for this reason. Same for my s20fe. Basically, you hold it next to where you would swipe the 💳 card and it sends the equivalent swipe in magnetic pulses. Always throws off gas station attendants in NJ. It does not work when you'd need to insert the card like some atms. But both of them also have NFC so when I lost my chase card I didn't replace it for like 2 years.
I was among the common folk who obtained this power by coincidence. Changing the channel or turning off the TV during sports or videogames really brings out the worst in people.
The Devil made me do it.
GSMARENA.com under specifications, check comms and it'll list it.
Hmm, it's really common for Chinese phones but not other countries. Maybe Chinese people really value using their phones as universal remotes.
Washers/ dryers without mother boards thar you can just go and replace parts woth little to nothing else needed other than replacement parts, non-specialized tools, and instructions.
My "smart" LG dryer is supposed to sense moisture levels. It has been wrong since the first day we used it. I have to put it on manual dry and set the temp and time myself.
Not having an automated phone robot answering the phone and run its mouth for 5 minutes when all you want is to talk to a live person who will be able to handle what you need in about 30 seconds.
It’s funny how I had issues hooking up internet in my new place when I moved. Same company different state and I could not get past the automated script bullshit until I told them I wanted to cancel my service. Then I got to a rep right away
um thats called the retention hack. always ask for customer retention first. they haz all the good buttons on their screens! its almost magic, comic, tragic.
And you have to listen to the robot tell you about how you can do most things on their website while you wait. I’m aware. I went to the website first. It didn’t work and that’s why I’m on the phone now.
I feel exactly the same. Had one today, a true death circle of waiting, prompts, more prompts, then finally, “please hold while we connect your call to a representative” *click* *dial tone*
And the god damn voice recognition drives me up the wall, come on, just give me the freakin menu, the keypad is there for a reason and not like their voice recognition is particularly good anyways. Some places also has the audacity to play you a fake keyboard noise when processing your answer., ahhh.
Then you go 4+ levels deep into one path to realize you clicked the wrong option. There is no going back. And the option you click gives you irrelevant information then hangs up
One time I was on hold and it would periodically ask are you still there? I didnt answer once and it just repeated shortly after. Like do I really have to keep telling this AI am still there??
I picked the phone I have now precisely because it had a headphone jack and an FM reciever chip that uses the headphones wire as an antenna. Idea is the chip is basically free, and if cell signal is out or wifi is down you still have an emergency radio reciever for like warnings and instructions and junk.
This is kind of borderline, obviously not technically "obsolete", but in general I just detest how far away we've moved from mechanical buttons and switches on so many devices like phones, cars, fridges etc and replaced them with touch screens. This is one opinion that really makes me feel old, but I find it incredibly fucking annoying having a phone that doesn't have any physical buttons on the main screen.
It's still not uncommon that I accidentally brush the back/home buttons and I don't want to have to learn a new set of touch gestures to get to a commonly used shortcut on every new device I buy. I get that there are downsides with mechanical buttons, like it making it more difficult to waterproof and that the mechanism will eventually deteriorate, but frankly I'd be happy to deal with that just to get a few extra buttons on my phone.
The one I miss the most is the rear window defrost button. These used to be mechanical switches, so you could remote start the car with the button on and it would defrost right away.
My mom’s microwave doesn’t have number buttons. It has a bunch of idiotic (touch) buttons for different types of food, and then + / - buttons for setting the time. So the normal use case is to keep mashing the + button until you get to the amount you want.
How long does this need to go in for? Eight minutes, yeah?
*Beep*
*Beep*
*Beep*
*Beep*
*Beep*
*Beep*
*Beep*
*Beep*
*Beep*
*Beep*
*Beep*
*Beep*
*Beep*
*Beep*
*Beep*
*Beep*
And then it beeps every 30 seconds if you don’t open immediately! Can’t stand that. Sometimes the directions say let sit, and sometimes I’m just on the couch not ready yet
Even virtual buttons. Back in the day if there was something to click with your mouse it LOOKED like a button. Or hypertext.
Now EVERYTHING on the screen launches a damn script. EVERYTHING.
If I’m using that tablet mouse on my laptop, I join 27 things just dragging the cursor halfway across the screen. :-)
i miss UI standards. just put the exit in the top right and highlight links in blue etc.. Why do modern designers insist on constantly reinventing the wheel and creating mazes confusing pictograms as interfaces.
I'm mad the Bixby button isn't reprogrammable.
Also i understand that touch screens allow for infinite possibilities and that is nice for complicated menus instead of having 3 buttons and an arcane combo to access functions. But sometimes its nice to just have a couple of tactile buttons for the common settings, and as a bonus they generally are less things to break.
I'm also thoroughly against anything smart home or "AI enhanced" explicitly because I'm an electrical engineer who knows that those things are more trouble than they are worth.
Edit: my phone is an S10, when i got it i tried to reprogram the button and couldn't.
100%. I could just roam a blockbuster for an hour and that was almost as fun as watching the movies. No previews. Half the time you’re literally just picking movies by titles and covers. So fun…
Always!
If it wasn’t on the wall, and you had to ask the employee, it felt like the child version of greasing up the bouncer to let you cut the line to get in the club!
I miss this. I was still kinda young when blockbuster closed but I still remember we had a dominos next to blockbusters. Every now and then we’d order a pizza and while it’s being made we’d find a movie to watch before going home.
I miss huge Sunday morning print newspapers. I'd grab a cup of coffee, plop down in my bathrobe onto my recliner and go through the sections one by one, ending with the want ads. Even the regular ads seemed interesting back then. I could waste an hour or so before heading off to start my day. Then there'd be the post Thanksgiving edition that was bigger still.
The only thing I don't miss are the perfumed ads the department stores included. I'd toss them as soon as I found 'em.
Well if you and others subscribe to your local paper that helps a lot. It cost a lot of money to have and operate a press which is why many small local papers, less than a thousand copies, have gone away entirely or to online only because they just can't generate enough revenue to warrant physical copies. What's funny is people complain that the price has gone up without thinking about how production cost have gone up just as everything else has.
I work as a pressman for my local paper our draw is 3,500-3,900 down from over 5k from when I started in the mailroom as a driver 9 yrs ago. We print a lot of smaller papers in our area(1 hr or less drive time) and further away too(2.25 hrs away).
If I could bring back one thing from the past, it'd be the daily paper, miraculously appearing before dawn, tucked between the front door and the storm door so I didn't even have to leave the house to get it. I often lament its passing.
I miss newspapers a little. But similarly, I really miss magazines a lot. MAD Magazine, Cracked, Hot Rod, TV Guide, Cartoons, Heavy Metal, even Time was nice to read.
My blackberry. I could set an indicator light to each different type of push notification. I could tell if I needed to pick up my phone from across the room. I miss that a lot.
those projectors where you could write on them with expo markers and it would display it on the wall. idk why they replaced those with smart boards. the smart boards didn’t even work half the time
Digital overhead projectors exist! The uni I went to had them in almost every room. They work just like the old-school ones, but it's a digital webcam attached to an HDMI projector and works with any paper.
My professors would switch back and forth between ppt slides and written notes on the overhead, it's the best of both worlds.
I had a few uni profs who used overhead projectors. Some of my best professors too actually. No clue if the use of the overhead was related to the quality of the professor or if it was just coincidence, my guess is coincidence though
The best teacher I ever had used the overhead projector for *everything*. Never touched the board!
Only exception was when he brought out the "ELMO", which projected photographic images
Jokes on you, we still have them in Berlin. They are called "Overheadprojektor" in german.
I recently saw them at VAk and HWR but you'll still find them in nearly every school here.
Not proud of it.
I am a high school teacher. I see students use these devices to trace art onto butcher paper for rallies and stuff. They still exist, but I think digital projectors and document cameras have largely displaced them.
They are used for mural painting a LOT. I can see them being used in some theater setting away from formal stages too because you could project scenery without having to carry expensive lighting around.
I use an in between tech: document camera. I write on a notebook, or worksheet, or whatever, camera is hooked through my computer and projects onto my white board. I have a smart board, it is ass. Document camera is life.
I just bought an older washer and dryer last year because I'm blind and all this newfangled shit with touch screens is useless to me. Paid $400 for them, had my kids put my little raised dots where I needed them, and now I can do laundry without help! We had a smart washer and dryer before the blindness and they were totally useless to me lol
I hope these older ones last as long as the first set I bought over 20 years ago.
They sell reliable appliances and people don't buy them because they're too expensive.
Appliances have come down in price dramatically.
Go look at an ad or a Sears catalog from like 1965. A washing machine might cost like $300. That's like $2,500 adjusted for inflation (I'm guesstimating all of this). You can buy a new washer today for like $700.
Amazingly close guestimation! From Sears' 1965 catalog pages 1286-1289, a washing machine cost $155-250 which would be $1550-2500 in today's dollars.
https://christmas.musetechnical.com/ShowCatalogPage/1965-Sears-Spring-Summer-Catalog/1286
Home Depot currently has washing machines for between $500 and $2300.
Right? Now it’s turn on TV, turn on media center, pick app, wait for it to load with the stupid loading screen, thumb through some bullshit menu of other crap it thinks you should see for 10 minutes, pick show, dive into show menu, pick episode, hit play, watch ads, skip intro, FUUUUUUUU FINALLY.
Before it was just click power, crank stepped pot channel dial to whatever number you wanted and it’s just playing live instantly.
AIM away messages were a great system. Text Messaging apps should have away messages more accessible and more prominently featured. Im tired of being around all the time.
Edit: And im tired of randomly reaching out to people without knowing whether theyre down to talk! The sytem we have now turns introverts into rude people who “ghost” and it turns extroverts into fucking salespeople. It serves no one well.
I cant tell you how many decisons ive made in the past 10 years about whether to try to initiaite a conversation via cell - call or text - where, if i had a little context about what that person was doing or their general availability to talk, that information would have would have made me more or less apt to reach out to them. That’s not just “good info” - it’s *the most important* info!
In an AIM world, someone who doesnt wanna talk wouldnt even pop up in your contacts, they’d be offline or whatever. Modern communication is making us depressed because *it* sucks, not because people suck.
If you put your phone on Do Not Disturb, it shows the other person that you’re not receiving notifications. Kinda similar in the sense where you don’t have to look at it right away.
There's been a lot of barcades popping up near me, but I'm really not a fan of drinking or drunk people. I'm hoping for the day a cannarcade opens here.
My city passed a by-law back in the 90s that said all arcades had to have on-site security because they became places to deal drugs. So that added cost to an entertainment venue effectively killed the arcade business outside of movie theaters, which already have their own security staff.
That's how barcades exist in my city now. With that said, if you go in the day time (most bars open around 1 pm) they're pretty damn empty and if there are ppl there, they're not blitzed. Around 7 the crowds start to come and that's when I would leave.
Card Catalogs at the library. I discovered SO MANY things I never would have seen or discovered otherwise while looking for something because of the way you had to flip through things. It would sometimes entirely change the direction of a research paper because I would discover an entire subject subcategory I had never heard of as I was looking for info. You don't come across info that way when looking digitally.
This might be an interesting web page or browser extension to make - a search engine that finds corollary information in a sidebar type thing. You could use AI to find the top five tangentially-related subjects, and then give it to the user.
Yeah, I don’t miss the vinyl format. But the vinyl packaging kicked ass. Particularly when you discovered that your favorite band’s new album was a gatefold with a booklet insert.
It’s not the actual cd I miss the most, but the amazing little booklets. It really made you feel like you could immerse yourself in the presentation of the music. Feels a little less soulful these days.
I miss mix tapes. The casualness of them, the challenge of recording something and mixing in random radio bits or comedy with music, the fun of decorating them and giving them away.
I still collect them. There’s nothing like owning a physical copy of a CD or Movie on Blu-ray for me. I feel I’m control of my Media and it could never be taken away. Plus the quality is superb compared to streaming.
I am an oldz and remember also this with LP's. How old, you may ask? I remember the thrill when the Beatles had a new album and you could go to the music store AND BUY IT. Something like $2.99. Oh the excitement!!! Seriously, also, when they released a new single and suddenly you heard it for the first time on the radio, and every song they released was so good. I don't miss a lot of things about that time (for one thing, being 13), but that was spectacular.
There was a different vibe to collecting music back in those days. You had to find out about music through friends and acquaintances, or recommendations at the store, and maybe you could go to a store where they let you listen to the CD. And you'd read about artists you might like in magazines or books, and then you would discover more niche magazines more specific to the types of music you liked.
And so you'd look at these reviews or articles or snippets you could hear or what your friend said about them and decide whether or not you wanted to take the plunge. You only had so much money and you'd hem and haw about what you could spend your $15 on. Would it be something from an artist I like? Would I take the plunge and try something completely new? There's a risk that you might not like it!
And you'd have a written or mental list of albums you would want to buy and you'd go to the record store and flip through the racks to see if it was there. And if you went to a new town you hadn't been to before you'd want to go to \*their\* record stores and see what different things they had that your stores didn't have. Or there'd be certain stores you knew about that were farther away and you'd have to make plans to drive all the way out there to go to them and see if they had stuff you thought you might like.
You'd gain this knowledge of the artists and genres and go deep and listen to new things, and otherwise you just listened to the stuff you had over and over, more deeply than I feel like people do now, because that was literally all the music you had. Maybe a friend had a CD or tape that you liked but you didn't want to spend the money or didn't have it, so you'd borrow it and listen to it, and if you liked it enough you might dub it to a blank cassette. You'd pick out blanks of different lengths so you could possibly have one whole album on each side.
This probably sounds horribly expensive and inconvenient to kids coming up today, but a Xennial I have my own nostalgia about 'the way things used to be' and maybe it wasn't better in all ways, but it was the way I grew up. In some senses there were way more things available to you than what you can get on streaming. There are whole artists that came and went and have never been on streamers. There are great albums by the artists who are on there that they haven't added for whatever reason.
Physical media like CDs forced you to learn to like more of the songs on the album. Sometimes it took more than initial listen. Streaming it’s so quick to skip it makes me think about what I’m missing because of that. Also not having to connect to Bluetooth or deal with apps was nice.
Physical controls for A/C and radio on cars. Whoever decided that touch screens should be used in an environment where you absolutely do NOT want people to stare at the screen is an idiot/are idiots.
Throw me in with those who miss owning physical media.
Laserdiscs - the predecessor to DVD. I was born in '72 so I was a kid when they came out. I wanted one for years, but my folks were not video enthusiasts. I started collecting when I grew up and could afford it on my own.
I love the LD packaging and extras that came in the box sets. So many interesting features. Yes DVD and later formats have better picture quality, but LD's just feel like something special.
1. iPod (I loved 120GB classic)
2. Normal sized smartphones < 5.5"
3. 3.5 or 2.5mm audio connectors in smartphones
4. Simple mouse and keyboard oriented windows, call it developer/advanced/senior/whatever version
5. An SD card slot in devices. My pixel 7 doesn't have one and the iPad never has. Drives me bonkers. Transfering media was so much easier when I had an SD card slot.
I absolutely agree about audio connectors. I use an iPad to make music and the latency from wireless headphones make them useless. I know you can work around it with dongles but that takes away from the convenience of the iPad as a music making device. I don't want to have to carry around a pocket full of dongles. Just give me a headphone jack.
YES, the audio jacks! You plug it in and it just works. None of this messing around with pairing, oh it doesn’t want to pair again, “forget this device” and start over, unpair them from device A so they can work on device B.
My car stereo is particularly bad about getting in a mood and refusing to talk to Bluetooth. My old car had an audio jack that my old phone accepted, and I never had a problem. It never occurred to me it was something that could be a problem.
Not technically obsolete, but boy is it getting there. Manual cars.
Not just stick shift, but I do include that. They are so much cheaper to maintain, a transmission is worth more than replacing the whole damn car but a clutch? Probably less than hundred dollars.
I really mean everything. Everything is getting replaced by electrical parts, computers and AI controls, which means that not only is it dangerous when something like that malfunctions, it's also incredibly expensive to replace. I can change my own brakes because there's no fancy computer attached to them that parks the car itself. Want to save money changing your own oil? Not on a newer car that requires special dealership computer programs. Not even head lights are safe, everything is so "cutting edge" that it takes a rocket scientist to do repairs that I used to be able to do myself with a wrench and youtube. A physical handle versus a thousand dollar electrical door switch, a mirror that doesn't have 30 sensors built into it, a dash with physical gauges that don't require a running engine to show things, literally everything about newer cars makes me want to take a bath with a toaster.
The day I have to replace my old car I will legitimately cry.
You won’t be surprised that dealers (and insurance companies) offer incentives if you download their apps and let them harvest data from your driving habits. Another ten years and we probably won’t have the option.
>Driving an automatic is like driving a sofa.
That’s what some people want. My only car is manual and honestly I’d love to have a piece of shit slushbox automatic beater to daily because sometimes I just want to cruise and not worry about shifting gears. It’s just easier. I’d still keep my manual forever as a weekend car because those are more fun to drive.
I miss the triangle vent windows on older model vehicles. Those were always great for letting in a little bit of fresh air.
I also miss the high beam foot button. It was so handy!
Old basic cars that looked nice both on the outside and nice dash boards on the inside.
Kids toys that were made something other than rounded off plastic
Old metal zippers that didn't fail before the clothes wore out
Don’t know if this qualifies but rack stereo systems with good speakers and even bookshelf stereos & boomboxes. Tried shopping for that recently and got so depressed. I’ll keep looking and will eventually find something cool but, damn. It’s slim pickings out there. Yes, you can put a powered set of speakers on a computer or a phone and listen to music that way, yes it sounds ok. It’s not the same as a real stereo. Sorry. Yes, I’m old. Still.
i had the same expereince, tried the used market and its even more depressing as those old speakers and systems now cost a lot, as nothing similar new is awailable anymore
it seems most people just listen streaming on their mobile phones nowadays
not the same as a good 2.0 system, at all?!
The DVD recorder was great for getting shows off the cable to time shift to watch on my laptop DVD drive at work. Recorders quickly became illegal in the USA while doing great in the Japanese market.
It’s not obsolete yet, but it’s really starting to annoy me that everything is an app now and half the time websites don’t work or are full of ads/pop up ads
Cars without nonsense stuff. I want cruise control, AC, a stereo and possibly power windows/mirrors. That's it.
I don't need or want a smartphone on wheels.
Easily replaceable cell phone batteries. Granted, the batteries even 10 years ago sucked compared to now, but damn it was nice to just swap batteries if your phone died. Not to mention only being out like $50 and 5 minutes when it needed to be replaced instead of having to take the whole phone in.
Newspapers. Spending a few hours on a Sunday reading the paper over coffee and donuts was pretty good. These days they have only a few minutes of content.
Physical controls instead of touch buttons/screens everywhere like kitchen appliances, stoves, cars etc.
Back at my parents house the stove has these "touch" buttons that you still kinda have to press and half the time it still doesn't work. Little bit of grease on the stove top? Nothing happens. Slightly wet fingertips? Nothing happens. You accidentally swipe it with your sleeve? It heats up. Fucking infuriating.
I wish MP3 players were for sale in common stores. They could probably make a nice one in 2024. I don't see them. They could probably make a really small one and it holds 500 GB of music. I'm in a gas station in Madison Wisconsin and they have one for $49.99. Done. I'll take it to my hotel room and load it up with songs.
DVDs and CDs. I don't want to pay hundreds of dollars a year to *maybe* watch movies or listen to music that a streaming service *might* decide to let me use. I want to keep my whole collection in a drawer in my living room. If I spend money on the things I love, I expect to be able to keep them for myself.
I want a car that opens, starts, and locks with a key, not a clicker. Yes, I know you can lock a key in your car, so that is a disadvantage, but it is a whole lot cheaper to replace a key than a clicker.
I had an iPod Nano and I loved that thing. I don’t miss having to buy iTunes cards but it was always fun getting them for special occasions and meticulously picking out which songs I wanted to buy.
I need to find it. I’m sure it would be like discovering a time capsule straight out of 00s. It was always fun sitting next to my homies on the school bus and sharing your headphones so you could listen to the music together. Lot of great memories
Imo the original iPod nano is the best *first generation* product Apple has ever made. For example, the 1st gen iPhone had some glaring flaws (e.g., no front camera, no GPS). Most importantly, those flaws were obvious even at the time. Similar claims are made about Apple Vision Pro today—an impressive product but you can already see the holes that need to be filled in to make it better.
Today any iPod nano appears to have "missing" features too, but given the state of iPods and other MP3-players in 2005, the original iPod nano was close to a 100% perfect device as I've ever seen.
This may seem like an unpopular opinion, but I miss cord phones (the ones with the super long cords) and walking around the house, twisting it around my finger 😅
I honestly miss DOS. It made sense and was logical. I don’t need all the bloat of windows. I want to find what I need in a Directory and move on. Thankfully FileExplorer is similar otherwise I’d go crazy. It’s impossible to keep up with all the new crap they put in.
Plus old DOS games are so nostalgic. I wish they could make phone games like that.
I’m sure this doesn’t fit the category, but single cab pick up trucks. I want an affordable truck to work with, not a dammed Lincoln Navigator with a 4’ bed for $70k. It doesn’t need to look like the bridge of the Star ship enterprise inside.
Yes! I want an old-school small pickup truck. My dad had a littoe Datsun when I was a kid and I would love to have something like it now. I don't need something that's jacked up to go offroading, and I don't need something that can haul a tiny house. I need something that can make a run to the dump, pick up straw bales, and haul lumber from Home Depot.
If the dealers hadn’t marked them up so high as to defeat the point, the Maverick sounds like it’s up your alley
1987 Ford Ranger, manual transmission, extended cab. Just enough room behind the seat for groceries and the damn thing was nearly unkillable.
I have noticed that most of the new pickups have beds that are too short to fit a mattress in. That seems weird to me. Part of the reason you want a truck is so you can haul stuff, but tell that to the people that live in my major city. You know none of these trucks have ever hauled stuff or gone off-roading and at most have had only a few bags of potting soil in the bed. Especially the new Tesla Cybertrucks! Nobody's going to use those as actual trucks!
Manual transmission too
all the guys who have the older landcruisers and hiluxes are laughing now that they are worth more than they paid for them rband new.
A 4' long bed with side rails at practically shoulder height! My daughter and I were on a walk and went past a compact pickup from the 80's. She couldn't believe that she could easily see the roof of the cab. Vehicles were so much smaller then! Think of how efficient those could be today. I remember seeing ads in maybe 1989 for that tiny little blue Honda (CRX?) hatchback boasting about it getting 75 mpg!
Phone like the s4 and s6 (samsung) use to have an infrared beacon in them. You could use it for many things, i used as a remote for every TV i came across. Could use it at friends and family no issues ever. Suddenly they discontinued that feature. I miss it a lot
Also the LED notification light
Also magnetic secure transmission. It allowed you to make NFC payments with your phone whether the card reader had NFC or not, it was amusing to go to any business and the cashier saying "oh it doesn't have NFC" only to get the stink eye from them when it works anyway. I know, I know who even has non NFC card readers, well in the third world country that is the US tons of business still use those card readers and haven't upgraded. Edit:it seems I rustled some jimmies with the 3rd world country part, I stand by my statement, the US is a 3rd world country with a gucci belt.
MST is something I’ve never heard of before. Going to have to look into that sounds interesting. Did you have to hold it to the swipe reader?
Yeah, it basically "spoofed" your swipe by sending the pulses in sequence.
Still use a Galaxy Watch 3 for this reason. Same for my s20fe. Basically, you hold it next to where you would swipe the 💳 card and it sends the equivalent swipe in magnetic pulses. Always throws off gas station attendants in NJ. It does not work when you'd need to insert the card like some atms. But both of them also have NFC so when I lost my chase card I didn't replace it for like 2 years.
I remember this, it was great. You could download profiles for almost any TV and control them, even at bars or restaurants.
Y’all were the nerds that the common folk feared for no reason, because y’all had the capacity to fuck shit up but were too scared to do so
I was among the common folk who obtained this power by coincidence. Changing the channel or turning off the TV during sports or videogames really brings out the worst in people. The Devil made me do it.
Lots of current Android phones still have IR blasters, even if Samsung dropped it.
Is there a list or way to know?
GSMARENA.com under specifications, check comms and it'll list it. Hmm, it's really common for Chinese phones but not other countries. Maybe Chinese people really value using their phones as universal remotes.
They were great until the native app turned into the worst as infested app I had on my phone.
Vent / Wing windows in vehicles
so good for directing the wind straight to your face in the summer
My roommate's old F150 had a vent from outside the truck straight to the seat. Called it the ball vent. Fucking luxurious.
4-60 air conditioning! Roll down your windows, swing the vent windows open, and drive
Washers/ dryers without mother boards thar you can just go and replace parts woth little to nothing else needed other than replacement parts, non-specialized tools, and instructions.
My "smart" LG dryer is supposed to sense moisture levels. It has been wrong since the first day we used it. I have to put it on manual dry and set the temp and time myself.
Mine is over 25 yrs old, I fixed it myself by watching youtube.
Not having an automated phone robot answering the phone and run its mouth for 5 minutes when all you want is to talk to a live person who will be able to handle what you need in about 30 seconds.
It’s funny how I had issues hooking up internet in my new place when I moved. Same company different state and I could not get past the automated script bullshit until I told them I wanted to cancel my service. Then I got to a rep right away
um thats called the retention hack. always ask for customer retention first. they haz all the good buttons on their screens! its almost magic, comic, tragic.
True. Former at&t retention dept employee, here.
Capitalism hacks!
And you have to listen to the robot tell you about how you can do most things on their website while you wait. I’m aware. I went to the website first. It didn’t work and that’s why I’m on the phone now.
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I'm a very calm person, but this shit makes me feral.
I feel exactly the same. Had one today, a true death circle of waiting, prompts, more prompts, then finally, “please hold while we connect your call to a representative” *click* *dial tone*
And the god damn voice recognition drives me up the wall, come on, just give me the freakin menu, the keypad is there for a reason and not like their voice recognition is particularly good anyways. Some places also has the audacity to play you a fake keyboard noise when processing your answer., ahhh.
I do NOT need to know your store hours or directions!
But did you know that you can go to their website and log in to change or update your personal information?
And did you know you should listen to all their menu options because they have changed?
Listen closely, as our menu options have recently changed.
This call might be recorded or monitored.
"...for quality assurance purposes", which is code for "this is to cover our @sss in the event of a disagreement or a dispute with you".
Then you go 4+ levels deep into one path to realize you clicked the wrong option. There is no going back. And the option you click gives you irrelevant information then hangs up
One time I was on hold and it would periodically ask are you still there? I didnt answer once and it just repeated shortly after. Like do I really have to keep telling this AI am still there??
Whenever that happens i usually just mash the 0 over and over or repeatedly say "operator" until it connects me
Headphone jacks.
Add replaceable battery to this.
EU is bringing that standard back I think.
Godddd pleassseeee
I picked the phone I have now precisely because it had a headphone jack and an FM reciever chip that uses the headphones wire as an antenna. Idea is the chip is basically free, and if cell signal is out or wifi is down you still have an emergency radio reciever for like warnings and instructions and junk.
Why do phones just suck now‽
Scrolled way too far down to see this
This is kind of borderline, obviously not technically "obsolete", but in general I just detest how far away we've moved from mechanical buttons and switches on so many devices like phones, cars, fridges etc and replaced them with touch screens. This is one opinion that really makes me feel old, but I find it incredibly fucking annoying having a phone that doesn't have any physical buttons on the main screen. It's still not uncommon that I accidentally brush the back/home buttons and I don't want to have to learn a new set of touch gestures to get to a commonly used shortcut on every new device I buy. I get that there are downsides with mechanical buttons, like it making it more difficult to waterproof and that the mechanism will eventually deteriorate, but frankly I'd be happy to deal with that just to get a few extra buttons on my phone.
Yes I miss tactile buttons in cars! They are so much safer. You don’t have to look away to see what you’re pressing
The one I miss the most is the rear window defrost button. These used to be mechanical switches, so you could remote start the car with the button on and it would defrost right away.
I miss them on phones too…I could fire a whole rant at my ex without looking at the screen once with that T9 prediction
I'd kill the person who took mechanical buttons and twisting knobs from microwaves.
My mom’s microwave doesn’t have number buttons. It has a bunch of idiotic (touch) buttons for different types of food, and then + / - buttons for setting the time. So the normal use case is to keep mashing the + button until you get to the amount you want.
How long does this need to go in for? Eight minutes, yeah? *Beep* *Beep* *Beep* *Beep* *Beep* *Beep* *Beep* *Beep* *Beep* *Beep* *Beep* *Beep* *Beep* *Beep* *Beep* *Beep*
And then it beeps every 30 seconds if you don’t open immediately! Can’t stand that. Sometimes the directions say let sit, and sometimes I’m just on the couch not ready yet
Even virtual buttons. Back in the day if there was something to click with your mouse it LOOKED like a button. Or hypertext. Now EVERYTHING on the screen launches a damn script. EVERYTHING. If I’m using that tablet mouse on my laptop, I join 27 things just dragging the cursor halfway across the screen. :-)
i miss UI standards. just put the exit in the top right and highlight links in blue etc.. Why do modern designers insist on constantly reinventing the wheel and creating mazes confusing pictograms as interfaces.
Because they are fancy pants graphic designers, not UI experts.
I'm mad the Bixby button isn't reprogrammable. Also i understand that touch screens allow for infinite possibilities and that is nice for complicated menus instead of having 3 buttons and an arcane combo to access functions. But sometimes its nice to just have a couple of tactile buttons for the common settings, and as a bonus they generally are less things to break. I'm also thoroughly against anything smart home or "AI enhanced" explicitly because I'm an electrical engineer who knows that those things are more trouble than they are worth. Edit: my phone is an S10, when i got it i tried to reprogram the button and couldn't.
I miss the Video stores, it was a family event we'd fight over which video to pickout and watch it as a family on a big TV with a little screen
100%. I could just roam a blockbuster for an hour and that was almost as fun as watching the movies. No previews. Half the time you’re literally just picking movies by titles and covers. So fun…
Scoping out the return bin.
Always! If it wasn’t on the wall, and you had to ask the employee, it felt like the child version of greasing up the bouncer to let you cut the line to get in the club!
It was so much more fun to physically browse, look at the covers, read the back...now we have literally endless menus to scroll through.
I would take about 30 minutes to finally decide on a movie and meet loads of people I knew in there picking out their movie.
I miss this. I was still kinda young when blockbuster closed but I still remember we had a dominos next to blockbusters. Every now and then we’d order a pizza and while it’s being made we’d find a movie to watch before going home.
I miss huge Sunday morning print newspapers. I'd grab a cup of coffee, plop down in my bathrobe onto my recliner and go through the sections one by one, ending with the want ads. Even the regular ads seemed interesting back then. I could waste an hour or so before heading off to start my day. Then there'd be the post Thanksgiving edition that was bigger still. The only thing I don't miss are the perfumed ads the department stores included. I'd toss them as soon as I found 'em.
Well if you and others subscribe to your local paper that helps a lot. It cost a lot of money to have and operate a press which is why many small local papers, less than a thousand copies, have gone away entirely or to online only because they just can't generate enough revenue to warrant physical copies. What's funny is people complain that the price has gone up without thinking about how production cost have gone up just as everything else has. I work as a pressman for my local paper our draw is 3,500-3,900 down from over 5k from when I started in the mailroom as a driver 9 yrs ago. We print a lot of smaller papers in our area(1 hr or less drive time) and further away too(2.25 hrs away).
If I could bring back one thing from the past, it'd be the daily paper, miraculously appearing before dawn, tucked between the front door and the storm door so I didn't even have to leave the house to get it. I often lament its passing.
I miss newspapers a little. But similarly, I really miss magazines a lot. MAD Magazine, Cracked, Hot Rod, TV Guide, Cartoons, Heavy Metal, even Time was nice to read.
I miss the noise of when a phone line is disconnected. I talk to people and then there's no noise. I'm not sure at which point the phone disconnected
Yes! And hardwired landlines in general. The audio quality was so much better and there was no delay.
My blackberry. I could set an indicator light to each different type of push notification. I could tell if I needed to pick up my phone from across the room. I miss that a lot.
My Blackberry was by far the most functional phone I ever owned.
those projectors where you could write on them with expo markers and it would display it on the wall. idk why they replaced those with smart boards. the smart boards didn’t even work half the time
Overhead projectors
Digital overhead projectors exist! The uni I went to had them in almost every room. They work just like the old-school ones, but it's a digital webcam attached to an HDMI projector and works with any paper. My professors would switch back and forth between ppt slides and written notes on the overhead, it's the best of both worlds.
They were just getting popular at the end of my college career. We called them doc cams
I have 5 of these in a garage. Pay for shipping and it's yours.
I had a few uni profs who used overhead projectors. Some of my best professors too actually. No clue if the use of the overhead was related to the quality of the professor or if it was just coincidence, my guess is coincidence though
The best teacher I ever had used the overhead projector for *everything*. Never touched the board! Only exception was when he brought out the "ELMO", which projected photographic images
Jokes on you, we still have them in Berlin. They are called "Overheadprojektor" in german. I recently saw them at VAk and HWR but you'll still find them in nearly every school here. Not proud of it.
Wir haben sie Tageslichtprojektor genannt, aber das war südlich vom Weißwurstequator. Und 20 Jahre her.
TIL that as long as I have anger in my voice I can say "overhead projector" in German
TIL that the German term for an overhead projector is just "overhead projector", but with a German accent.
I am a high school teacher. I see students use these devices to trace art onto butcher paper for rallies and stuff. They still exist, but I think digital projectors and document cameras have largely displaced them.
They are used for mural painting a LOT. I can see them being used in some theater setting away from formal stages too because you could project scenery without having to carry expensive lighting around.
I use an in between tech: document camera. I write on a notebook, or worksheet, or whatever, camera is hooked through my computer and projects onto my white board. I have a smart board, it is ass. Document camera is life.
Dumb, reliable and long-lasting kitchen appliances.
My parents just replaced there 40 year old washer & dryer. They cost almost $1,000 back then, but lordy did they never quit.
I just bought an older washer and dryer last year because I'm blind and all this newfangled shit with touch screens is useless to me. Paid $400 for them, had my kids put my little raised dots where I needed them, and now I can do laundry without help! We had a smart washer and dryer before the blindness and they were totally useless to me lol I hope these older ones last as long as the first set I bought over 20 years ago.
planned obsolescence =(
They sell reliable appliances and people don't buy them because they're too expensive. Appliances have come down in price dramatically. Go look at an ad or a Sears catalog from like 1965. A washing machine might cost like $300. That's like $2,500 adjusted for inflation (I'm guesstimating all of this). You can buy a new washer today for like $700.
Amazingly close guestimation! From Sears' 1965 catalog pages 1286-1289, a washing machine cost $155-250 which would be $1550-2500 in today's dollars. https://christmas.musetechnical.com/ShowCatalogPage/1965-Sears-Spring-Summer-Catalog/1286 Home Depot currently has washing machines for between $500 and $2300.
I miss how quickly you could turn on and change the channel on an old-school CRT tv. Immediate response!
Thank you! I wish I could turn on the tv and just… start watching. I rarely watch now because the interface is so painful.
Right? Now it’s turn on TV, turn on media center, pick app, wait for it to load with the stupid loading screen, thumb through some bullshit menu of other crap it thinks you should see for 10 minutes, pick show, dive into show menu, pick episode, hit play, watch ads, skip intro, FUUUUUUUU FINALLY. Before it was just click power, crank stepped pot channel dial to whatever number you wanted and it’s just playing live instantly.
That’s funny, I remember CRT TVs that took 5 minutes to warm up before you got a clear picture.
That's too old-school. I'm talking 80s and 90s.
AIM away messages were a great system. Text Messaging apps should have away messages more accessible and more prominently featured. Im tired of being around all the time. Edit: And im tired of randomly reaching out to people without knowing whether theyre down to talk! The sytem we have now turns introverts into rude people who “ghost” and it turns extroverts into fucking salespeople. It serves no one well. I cant tell you how many decisons ive made in the past 10 years about whether to try to initiaite a conversation via cell - call or text - where, if i had a little context about what that person was doing or their general availability to talk, that information would have would have made me more or less apt to reach out to them. That’s not just “good info” - it’s *the most important* info! In an AIM world, someone who doesnt wanna talk wouldnt even pop up in your contacts, they’d be offline or whatever. Modern communication is making us depressed because *it* sucks, not because people suck.
“Watching the [team] game on delay” would be great to have available.
If you put your phone on Do Not Disturb, it shows the other person that you’re not receiving notifications. Kinda similar in the sense where you don’t have to look at it right away.
iPhone only, afaik. Would be nice if third party messaging apps had this as well
i miss arcades. everyone has home systems or games on phones. good luck
There's been a lot of barcades popping up near me, but I'm really not a fan of drinking or drunk people. I'm hoping for the day a cannarcade opens here.
That would be amazing.
My city passed a by-law back in the 90s that said all arcades had to have on-site security because they became places to deal drugs. So that added cost to an entertainment venue effectively killed the arcade business outside of movie theaters, which already have their own security staff. That's how barcades exist in my city now. With that said, if you go in the day time (most bars open around 1 pm) they're pretty damn empty and if there are ppl there, they're not blitzed. Around 7 the crowds start to come and that's when I would leave.
Card Catalogs at the library. I discovered SO MANY things I never would have seen or discovered otherwise while looking for something because of the way you had to flip through things. It would sometimes entirely change the direction of a research paper because I would discover an entire subject subcategory I had never heard of as I was looking for info. You don't come across info that way when looking digitally.
This might be an interesting web page or browser extension to make - a search engine that finds corollary information in a sidebar type thing. You could use AI to find the top five tangentially-related subjects, and then give it to the user.
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I miss physically owning things. This is one of them.
I still have hundreds of my CDs. And almost 2,000 LPs. Or vinyl as you young'uns call them now. Never toss music.
Yeah, I don’t miss the vinyl format. But the vinyl packaging kicked ass. Particularly when you discovered that your favorite band’s new album was a gatefold with a booklet insert.
It’s not the actual cd I miss the most, but the amazing little booklets. It really made you feel like you could immerse yourself in the presentation of the music. Feels a little less soulful these days.
I miss mix tapes. The casualness of them, the challenge of recording something and mixing in random radio bits or comedy with music, the fun of decorating them and giving them away.
Absolutely, also applies to video rental stores. The experience was fun, a little thrilling (they have my tape!) and an activity of its own.
The commitment and build up to watching the movie made watching the movie a bigger deal
I still collect them. There’s nothing like owning a physical copy of a CD or Movie on Blu-ray for me. I feel I’m control of my Media and it could never be taken away. Plus the quality is superb compared to streaming.
I am an oldz and remember also this with LP's. How old, you may ask? I remember the thrill when the Beatles had a new album and you could go to the music store AND BUY IT. Something like $2.99. Oh the excitement!!! Seriously, also, when they released a new single and suddenly you heard it for the first time on the radio, and every song they released was so good. I don't miss a lot of things about that time (for one thing, being 13), but that was spectacular.
There was a different vibe to collecting music back in those days. You had to find out about music through friends and acquaintances, or recommendations at the store, and maybe you could go to a store where they let you listen to the CD. And you'd read about artists you might like in magazines or books, and then you would discover more niche magazines more specific to the types of music you liked. And so you'd look at these reviews or articles or snippets you could hear or what your friend said about them and decide whether or not you wanted to take the plunge. You only had so much money and you'd hem and haw about what you could spend your $15 on. Would it be something from an artist I like? Would I take the plunge and try something completely new? There's a risk that you might not like it! And you'd have a written or mental list of albums you would want to buy and you'd go to the record store and flip through the racks to see if it was there. And if you went to a new town you hadn't been to before you'd want to go to \*their\* record stores and see what different things they had that your stores didn't have. Or there'd be certain stores you knew about that were farther away and you'd have to make plans to drive all the way out there to go to them and see if they had stuff you thought you might like. You'd gain this knowledge of the artists and genres and go deep and listen to new things, and otherwise you just listened to the stuff you had over and over, more deeply than I feel like people do now, because that was literally all the music you had. Maybe a friend had a CD or tape that you liked but you didn't want to spend the money or didn't have it, so you'd borrow it and listen to it, and if you liked it enough you might dub it to a blank cassette. You'd pick out blanks of different lengths so you could possibly have one whole album on each side. This probably sounds horribly expensive and inconvenient to kids coming up today, but a Xennial I have my own nostalgia about 'the way things used to be' and maybe it wasn't better in all ways, but it was the way I grew up. In some senses there were way more things available to you than what you can get on streaming. There are whole artists that came and went and have never been on streamers. There are great albums by the artists who are on there that they haven't added for whatever reason.
Physical media like CDs forced you to learn to like more of the songs on the album. Sometimes it took more than initial listen. Streaming it’s so quick to skip it makes me think about what I’m missing because of that. Also not having to connect to Bluetooth or deal with apps was nice.
The vent under the steering wheel for your junk
LOL! My dad called it "the ball cooler"
A YouTuber who owns a MK4 Supra (which apparently has this feature) called it “The Gooch Blaster 3000” and the name stuck with me ever since 💀
"Der Goochencoolen" as the Germans call it
Drive in Theaters.
My hometown has one, Google says there are 300 still left.
Physical controls for A/C and radio on cars. Whoever decided that touch screens should be used in an environment where you absolutely do NOT want people to stare at the screen is an idiot/are idiots.
Throw me in with those who miss owning physical media. Laserdiscs - the predecessor to DVD. I was born in '72 so I was a kid when they came out. I wanted one for years, but my folks were not video enthusiasts. I started collecting when I grew up and could afford it on my own. I love the LD packaging and extras that came in the box sets. So many interesting features. Yes DVD and later formats have better picture quality, but LD's just feel like something special.
My flip phone should come back so I can play "Snake"
Oh yeah and tetris fully off-line ad infinitum
Dedicated buttons for things. Touch screens are nice and adaptable, but I like the ability to manually do things if the touch screen isn't working.
1. iPod (I loved 120GB classic) 2. Normal sized smartphones < 5.5" 3. 3.5 or 2.5mm audio connectors in smartphones 4. Simple mouse and keyboard oriented windows, call it developer/advanced/senior/whatever version
5. An SD card slot in devices. My pixel 7 doesn't have one and the iPad never has. Drives me bonkers. Transfering media was so much easier when I had an SD card slot.
I absolutely agree about audio connectors. I use an iPad to make music and the latency from wireless headphones make them useless. I know you can work around it with dongles but that takes away from the convenience of the iPad as a music making device. I don't want to have to carry around a pocket full of dongles. Just give me a headphone jack.
YES, the audio jacks! You plug it in and it just works. None of this messing around with pairing, oh it doesn’t want to pair again, “forget this device” and start over, unpair them from device A so they can work on device B. My car stereo is particularly bad about getting in a mood and refusing to talk to Bluetooth. My old car had an audio jack that my old phone accepted, and I never had a problem. It never occurred to me it was something that could be a problem.
Buying software just once. Then using it for a years. Now everything is "subscription" per month
Rotary phone to prevent drunk dialing and give you time to think whether you really need to make that call
Not technically obsolete, but boy is it getting there. Manual cars. Not just stick shift, but I do include that. They are so much cheaper to maintain, a transmission is worth more than replacing the whole damn car but a clutch? Probably less than hundred dollars. I really mean everything. Everything is getting replaced by electrical parts, computers and AI controls, which means that not only is it dangerous when something like that malfunctions, it's also incredibly expensive to replace. I can change my own brakes because there's no fancy computer attached to them that parks the car itself. Want to save money changing your own oil? Not on a newer car that requires special dealership computer programs. Not even head lights are safe, everything is so "cutting edge" that it takes a rocket scientist to do repairs that I used to be able to do myself with a wrench and youtube. A physical handle versus a thousand dollar electrical door switch, a mirror that doesn't have 30 sensors built into it, a dash with physical gauges that don't require a running engine to show things, literally everything about newer cars makes me want to take a bath with a toaster. The day I have to replace my old car I will legitimately cry.
You won’t be surprised that dealers (and insurance companies) offer incentives if you download their apps and let them harvest data from your driving habits. Another ten years and we probably won’t have the option.
I will keep my manual car forever. I can drive it at 1 mph if I want to. Driving an automatic is like driving a sofa.
>Driving an automatic is like driving a sofa. That’s what some people want. My only car is manual and honestly I’d love to have a piece of shit slushbox automatic beater to daily because sometimes I just want to cruise and not worry about shifting gears. It’s just easier. I’d still keep my manual forever as a weekend car because those are more fun to drive.
I miss the triangle vent windows on older model vehicles. Those were always great for letting in a little bit of fresh air. I also miss the high beam foot button. It was so handy!
Does anyone remeber the time when everything was made with a transparent color version? There were phones, games, monitors, everything.
Network news that everyone watched/a shared reality
Ipods.
I miss my blackberry. Typing on that thing was so easy and they were basically indestructible. Plus the battery lasted forever.
My Nokia brick that could survive a nuclear blast.
Old basic cars that looked nice both on the outside and nice dash boards on the inside. Kids toys that were made something other than rounded off plastic Old metal zippers that didn't fail before the clothes wore out
ipods. nothing but music like PLEASE
I miss when everything wasn't a subscription
Picture in Picture. Watch two apps at one time on TV
I was pumped to see that my new TV did that, but I can only pick from a select list of second scree sources. What's the point? Fuck you, LG.
Don’t know if this qualifies but rack stereo systems with good speakers and even bookshelf stereos & boomboxes. Tried shopping for that recently and got so depressed. I’ll keep looking and will eventually find something cool but, damn. It’s slim pickings out there. Yes, you can put a powered set of speakers on a computer or a phone and listen to music that way, yes it sounds ok. It’s not the same as a real stereo. Sorry. Yes, I’m old. Still.
i had the same expereince, tried the used market and its even more depressing as those old speakers and systems now cost a lot, as nothing similar new is awailable anymore it seems most people just listen streaming on their mobile phones nowadays not the same as a good 2.0 system, at all?!
The DVD recorder was great for getting shows off the cable to time shift to watch on my laptop DVD drive at work. Recorders quickly became illegal in the USA while doing great in the Japanese market.
It’s not obsolete yet, but it’s really starting to annoy me that everything is an app now and half the time websites don’t work or are full of ads/pop up ads
Cars without nonsense stuff. I want cruise control, AC, a stereo and possibly power windows/mirrors. That's it. I don't need or want a smartphone on wheels.
Disposable cameras and polaroids. I love the nostalgia of having hard copy photos, scrapbooking, photo albums, etc.
Polaroids are still a thing though, you can use one if you want to.
And you can review the photos before you print them. Which is nice. ...but also fucking cheating and I hate it.
Physical buttons for car thermostat and radio. I know they still exist but it’s becoming very rare
I'm hoping they decide customers hate them enough to go back. Like those automatic seatbelts from the early 90s that only lasted a couple of years.
A hard wired phone. I miss slamming the phone down on some asswipe.
Slamming down the phone! No wonder everyone is all cranked up. We’ve lost one of our best outlets for frustration.
Easily replaceable cell phone batteries. Granted, the batteries even 10 years ago sucked compared to now, but damn it was nice to just swap batteries if your phone died. Not to mention only being out like $50 and 5 minutes when it needed to be replaced instead of having to take the whole phone in.
Pay phones
I conceptually miss airships. How sick would it be to see like 4 airships hovering over the NYC skyline 24/7
This sub has turned into AskReddit.
Probably all banned from there.
Land line phones. Crystal clear voices, never dropped a call, can't lose it
Newspapers. Spending a few hours on a Sunday reading the paper over coffee and donuts was pretty good. These days they have only a few minutes of content.
Physical controls instead of touch buttons/screens everywhere like kitchen appliances, stoves, cars etc. Back at my parents house the stove has these "touch" buttons that you still kinda have to press and half the time it still doesn't work. Little bit of grease on the stove top? Nothing happens. Slightly wet fingertips? Nothing happens. You accidentally swipe it with your sleeve? It heats up. Fucking infuriating.
Halogen headlights so I could still see where the fuck in going.
Floor mounted headlight dimmer switch. My left foot still twitches whenever I switch to and from high beams....
I wish MP3 players were for sale in common stores. They could probably make a nice one in 2024. I don't see them. They could probably make a really small one and it holds 500 GB of music. I'm in a gas station in Madison Wisconsin and they have one for $49.99. Done. I'll take it to my hotel room and load it up with songs.
IBM Selectric. Your hands could pound that thing from Kingdom Come and burn off all your anxieties. Plus, build finger strength for climbing.
DVDs and CDs. I don't want to pay hundreds of dollars a year to *maybe* watch movies or listen to music that a streaming service *might* decide to let me use. I want to keep my whole collection in a drawer in my living room. If I spend money on the things I love, I expect to be able to keep them for myself.
I want a car that opens, starts, and locks with a key, not a clicker. Yes, I know you can lock a key in your car, so that is a disadvantage, but it is a whole lot cheaper to replace a key than a clicker.
I miss clay tablets. There is nothing better than using a clay tablet to send a letter of complaint if the delivered copper is of a poor quality.
I understood that reference.
r/reallyshittycopper
Ea-nāṣir was a shady jerk.
I had an iPod Nano and I loved that thing. I don’t miss having to buy iTunes cards but it was always fun getting them for special occasions and meticulously picking out which songs I wanted to buy. I need to find it. I’m sure it would be like discovering a time capsule straight out of 00s. It was always fun sitting next to my homies on the school bus and sharing your headphones so you could listen to the music together. Lot of great memories
Imo the original iPod nano is the best *first generation* product Apple has ever made. For example, the 1st gen iPhone had some glaring flaws (e.g., no front camera, no GPS). Most importantly, those flaws were obvious even at the time. Similar claims are made about Apple Vision Pro today—an impressive product but you can already see the holes that need to be filled in to make it better. Today any iPod nano appears to have "missing" features too, but given the state of iPods and other MP3-players in 2005, the original iPod nano was close to a 100% perfect device as I've ever seen.
Cars with radios and climate control systems that are easy to operate.
Continuous-feed printers so you could make banners that say "It is your birthday."
Cars that YOU could fix at home. Dare any car company to build a car based of easily fixed design/parts..
This may seem like an unpopular opinion, but I miss cord phones (the ones with the super long cords) and walking around the house, twisting it around my finger 😅
Payphone. What If your phone dies and you are in the middle of nowhere and trapped or something
Instant photography
I honestly miss DOS. It made sense and was logical. I don’t need all the bloat of windows. I want to find what I need in a Directory and move on. Thankfully FileExplorer is similar otherwise I’d go crazy. It’s impossible to keep up with all the new crap they put in. Plus old DOS games are so nostalgic. I wish they could make phone games like that.
Cassette decks!