Technology will evolve, and new technologies will replace the old ones. The new modern-age technologies will not just replace the old ones but will also make them go obsolete; make them disappear.
Growing up, most of us probably did not have access to a smartphone. After all, the 90s generation didn’t have smartphones. As kids, we only had rotary dial or push-button telephones with cord. We didn’t even have flat-screen televisions or Bluetooth speakers.
Show those old-techs to the new generation, and they will have a hard time figuring out those ancient gadgets since they are unaware of the tech that existed in the past. Whether it’s a good thing or not, it is hard to say, but new technology will always replace the old ones. At least that’s what history tells us. Okay, maybe not in the case of e-mails as we have been using them for the last 40 years. But most of the old tech has disappeared from the face of the earth.
In this article, we will look at five such old techs that are rarely used in today’s era.
Cathode Ray Tube televisions
They were bulky, heavy and looked ugly, but they were also the first piece of technology that offered visual entertainment. It is the cathode ray televisions that laid the foundation of LCD and plasma flat-screen televisions.
The technology can be traced back to 1869, but it only became commercial in the 1920s. After a century, these television sets finally went obsolete in 2007.
PDA
This one here stands for Personal Digital Assistant devices which were pretty similar to smartphones and came in the 1990s. They were the first handheld device that could be kept in the pocket and had features like storing contacts and internet surfing. However, the invention of smartphones made them look like dinosaurs from the Jurassic era. And just like dinosaurs, they went extinct.
Overhead projectors
Overhead projectors have served the schools and offices for more than 50 years. Their mechanism was pretty complex as the system projected images on a screen or wall by lighting up a high-powered bulb through a transparent sheet and into a mirror. The mirror redirected the light by forwarding 90 degrees.
Due to this reason, users of these projectors had to write notes on transparent sheets. The job of projecting became easy only in 2000 when digital projectors came into play.
Betamax
Betamax was a video player that used standard magnetic cassette and was developed by Sony in the year 1975. Its popularity was short-lived as VHS format was soon introduced in the 1980s and Betamax witnessed a crushing defeat.
Pagers
A Pager was considered as a cool device used by emergency personnel such as doctors, policemen and firefighters. They were originally invented in the 1950s but became immensely popular in 1980s.
Working on a frequency channel, the pagers could transmit written as well as voice messages.
