Charming old gadgets that are almost gone

New Delhi: Have you ever reminisced about the technology you used as a child or teenager? It’s amazing how excited we were back then with electronics like the Nintendo game console or a mobile phone the size of a toolbox.

All types of different gadgets enter and leave our lives. Some stay for years and are cherished well past their prime. Others we lose, whether sold off in our youthful ignorance or lost in some other equally tragic way.

Let us take a trip back to our charming childhood days and have a look at the gadgets that used to fascinate us. Each of the gadgets has since been substituted with better gadgets or systems, but the significance they contributed to their field of use may never be replaced.

 

Walkman

The Walkman TPS-L2 was the first portable audio cassette player that the world had ever seen. Sony had sold 220 million units worldwide since its introduction in the 1979. Back then, Sony had predicted a sales rate of 5000 units per month, but instead, a whopping 50,000 units were sold within the first two months.

That was perhaps not surprising given that it was the first time people could listen to music on-the-go. People were no longer confined to listening to music on the radio at home or in the car; the walkman allowed music lover to bring favorite music on the bus or train, or when out for a jog. It was such a popular device in the 1980s that the term ‘Walkman’ was officially included in the dictionary in 1986.

 

Video Home System (VHS) Technology

VHS was a household item for about 35 years. Users back then knew how horrible it was to ‘programme a VCR’. What initially began as a joint collaboration between JVC, Sony Corporation and Matsushita Electric (aka Panasonic) to create a home video standard for the Japanese consumer eventually fell apart – JVC eventually developed VHS (1973) and Sony developed Betamax (1975).

In 1980, the total number of videocassette recorder (VCR) units sold for VHS and Betamax formats were level at 10 million units each. But a mere 8 years later, VHS had the lead with over 200 million units; Betamax remained stagnant at 25 million units since 1984. VHS became the agent that brought movies from the theatres to the living room. The last major Hollywood motion picture released in VHS was in 2005 – A History of Violence.

 

Famicom

The 8-bit video game console was an immediate hit when first released. In the Asian market, the console was marketed under the name ‘Family Computer’ or ‘Famicom’, except in South Korea, where it was known as ‘Hyundai Comboy’. By the end of 1984, Nintendo sold over 2.5 million units of Famicom in the Japanese market.

NES had developed video game hits such as Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988), which had grossed over $500 million after selling more than 7 million copies in America and 4 million copies in Japan, earning itself the title of most successful standalone home video game in history.

 

Discman

With the introduction of Discman, CDs gained popularity in the early 80s. In 1984, the D-50 portable Compact Disc (CD) player of the Sony Discman was introduced. It had superior sound quality and the ability to skip tracks, giving users the choice to opt for higher quality audio formats. By 1999, Sony had shipped more than 10 million units worldwide.

The shift from physical audio storage to mp3 players began in 1997 with MPMan by SaeHan Information Systems, giving music lovers ease of access to music and larger storage space.

 

IBM PC & Compatibles

IBM decided in 1980 to market a low-cost single-user computer as quickly as possible in response to Apple Computer’s success in the burgeoning microcomputer market. On August 12, 1981, the first IBM PC went on sale. There were three OS available for it. The least expensive and most popular was PC DOS made by Microsoft. The line of true IBM PCs was discontinued in 1987.

Its influence back then was so widespread that its release resulted in the development of IBM Compatibles by other computer companies. These clones duplicated the key features of the original IBM PC and incorporated MS-DOS.

 

Floppy Disk Drive & Diskettes

Frustrated because your 4GB pen drive is full? Well, back when floppy diskettes were a thing, we made do with less than 3MB per diskette (with an M, not a G). Nowadays, you rarely see a floppy disk drive in a new PC anymore.

Before USB flash drives, memory cards, portable hard disk drives and CD/DVD storage, we used to store computer documents in portable floppy diskettes. The first floppy diskettes were commercially available in 1971 and were 8 inches in diameter. It became smaller over the years, decreasing from 5.25 inches (Shugart Associates, 1976) to 3.5 inches (IBM, 1982).

 

Dial-Up Internet Modem

While we may joke about how long ago dial-up feels like, it was only first introduced to the public in 1989 by The World. Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access developed in 1989 that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to establish a dialled-connection to an Internet service provider (ISP) via telephone lines.

It was the best of times (Yay, we’re connected); it was the worst of times (Oh! it’s still loading). Who can forget how mischievously World Wide Web (WWW) was termed as the World Wide Wait because of its slow and insufferable loading times!