Another fun and exciting year of tech is coming to a close and it’s amazing how gadgets have evolved to adapt to our needs. Yet somehow, there are a few devices/services that just don’t fail to put a smile on our faces whenever we remember them, particularly to those who lived through the 80’s and 90’s era.
1) Pager
Pager, or beeper as some would coin it, was an alternative way to communicate in the past. Pagers were available in two flavors; one-way pagers can only receive message, while response or two-way pagers can both receive and transmit messages. In its earlier versions, a telephone was needed to confirm sending and receiving messages back then.
2) Party Line
Back in the days when private phone lines were limited to the rich and famous, majority of the people opted for the more wallet-friendly Party Line service. It does, however, have some major drawbacks (especially privacy) and was used by nosy kids to pull a prank on their neighbor (dialing their own phone number and hanging up).
3) Collect Calls
The introduction and steady rise of cellular phones and VoIP services has slowly made phone services like Call Collect obsolete. For the uninitiated, Call Collect is a reverse charge service wherein the person receiving the call will be charged for the call instead of the person placing the call.
4) Mixed Tape
Unlike today, music lovers in the past have to be a little bit creative in compiling all of their favorite songs and putting all of them in a single source or what is commonly known as a Mixtape. But despite of the fact that cassette tapes have become a thing of the past and millions of songs are readily available through music streaming services, the process of creating a Mixtape, whether in the form of a digital playlist or by burning it in to a CD, still lives on today.
5) Trackball Mouse
From its military used as far back as the 1940’s, the trackball has undoubtedly changed the way we interact with our computing devices. Think of it as an upside-down mechanical mouse with the ball exposed on top. Instead of moving the whole device, only the ball is wheeled into X and Y axes with the thumb, fingers, or the palm of the hand to move the cursor on screen.
The debut of optical and laser mice was a huge blow for the popularity of Trackball in the consumer market, but it has made its way to other devices like some of the older Blackberry handsets.
6) Dot Matrix Printers
Before inks became the norm, there were ribbons. Dot Matrix Printers were the predecessors to the digital printers of today. They are computer-operated machines which use a print head that moves back and forth, or in an up and down motion, on the page and prints by impact. As the name goes, the printer only produces dots to achieve graphics and text on paper. Think of it as an automated typewriter.
7) Electronic Typewriter
Speaking of typewriters, who wouldn’t remember them? Electronic typewriters have been a staple before the popularity of computers. Some of these machines are equipped with a plastic or metal daisy wheel mechanism, a disk with the letters molded on the outside edge of the “petals” that impact on the paper when a key is pressed.
The coolest thing about them is that you type a whole sentence, press enter, and the whole line is printed out in one swoop. There’s also the option to actually delete or erase the print-outs (the typewriter memorizes the letters and a white marker over-writes on top of them just like White-Out).
8) Calculator Watch
Before the advent of smartwatches, one of the more successful attempts at incorporating other features on watches is adding calculator functions which gave birth to the Calculator Watch. Pulsar and Hewlett-Packard were the first to introduce the calculator-infused timepieces back in the 70’s, but it was Casio who put the Calculator Watches on the map.
9) Tamagochi
If you’re 90’s kid, then you’ve most likely wished for a Tamagotchi for your birthday or as a stocking stuffer for Christmas. Luckily, if you still haven’t had enough of taking care of virtual pets, or you want your kids to experience the fun of owning, Bandai is still selling a new and improved Tamagotchi Friends which we featured late last year.
10) iOmega Drive
Rounding up this list is a portable storage medium in the 90s. The iOmega drive was a ZIP drive superfloppy — a variation of the floppy drive. It boasted 100 MB, later 250 MB, and then 750 MB amounts of storage. Though it never reached the popularity of the 3.5-inch floppy drives, it was the most popular of all superfloppy media produced.
Have you used these devices before? Share with us your experiences at the comments section below.
Carl Lamiel contributed to this article.
YugaTech.com is the largest and longest-running technology site in the Philippines. Originally established in October 2002, the site was transformed into a full-fledged technology platform in 2005.
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Anony Mouse says:
I’ll tell you what’s no longer around that should be missed — Citizen’s Band (CB) radios. Di ba, Roger? Copy that, 10-4!
weryou@ says:
Haha I remember those days…
knives says:
Sinu yung “WE” na tinutukoy dito? Lahat tayo o lahat ng nasa Yugatech?
Kasi kung yugatech lang yung “WE” from the title… then there’s no point arguing kung tama yung list.
lawrence says:
Dot-matrix printers are still in use today specially in offices needing to print multi-copy forms. banks still use these type of printers too. it still is a valuable piece of equipment that offices need. the technology will not die just yet.
Jonathan says:
Ang negative karamihan ng comments. Hahahaha. Can’t you just guys enjoy the article? Accurate, accurate. Di naman news ‘to. Opinion lang ni yuga yan. Asenso tayo guys. :-)
James Santiago says:
Buhay pa yung 6. USB na ang connector ng mga bagong dot matrix printer ngayon.
Number 8 is resurrected as smartwatches.
Nemo says:
I’ve used pager, I omega drive bought twice , dot matrix printer (a lot), calculator watch, track ball mouse (it gathers dust inside so you have to clean them once in a while).
Ghosthunter says:
As for the pager, I had one and I don’t miss it.
Mixed tapes… a little nostalgia but honestly the amount of time need to make a mixed tape compared to the convenience & speed of loading an MP3 device with dozens of songs from an audio library… no comparison.
Dot matrix printers,… I never though this tech would still be essential for businesses up to this day. But it does the job for very little cost. I just wish it can be quieter.
Electric typewriters… heck, our office still have manual typewriters. Some stuff gets done quicker with a manual machine.
Ghosthunter says:
I had an iomega zip100 drive. I just loved it especially during the time where there was no practical way to carry hundreds of megs of software aside from having a fragile internal hard disk with you. The iomega was a godsend in my work as a technician. I can bring all my software and have quick access. (Alternative was to plug-in an internal HDD as a slave to the PC being worked on). Until the arrival of the USB drive, the iomega zip100 drive and a couple of early custom written CDRs were my tools to fix PCs onsite.
BTW, my iomega zip100 was an early model bought from abroad. The build quality was 1000% better than the ones that came out much later. I never encountered the click of death with my drive. I had other zip100 drives used as backup systems and those suffered click og death eventually.
John Ray Cabrera says:
i will add some thing to the list:
1) Diskette/CD Digital Camera(e.g., Sony Mavica)
2) VHS and VHS Rewinder
3) Cabinet type TV(e.g., Radiowealth TV)
4) Robot Transforming Wrist Watch
5) Game & Watch
6) Brickgame
Easy E says:
Who still provides paging services? Matagal nang in-allocate sa cellular service yung spectrum ng paging.
g33k says:
The #7 image refers to an ‘electric’ typewriter (ibm selectric) not an electronic typewriter as described in the item. This image (http://education-portal.com/cimages/multimages/16/typewriter_electronic_400.jpg) serves a better example.. B-)
Boybayagbag says:
most of these are still being used by our government agencies lol
XeviousD says:
No, seriously. Ang Dot Matrix printers ginagamit pa yan ng hospitals up to now. Trackball Mouse? Ang mga Gamers natin dito sa Pinas, may ibang paraan paanong gamitin yung device na yan! Mixed Tape/s ay para sa mga field Reporters/Researchers o yung gumagamit ng hybrid tech: Analog/Digital. Calculator Watches “are still available in selected Clock/Watch stores” interesting….. Special Mention natin ang Game & Watch. Parang sinabi nitong Article na ito: Atari 2600 is outdated! Retro Gamer ako. Yung mga outdated tech na yan are more costly kumpara sa mga next gen gaming tech. P9,000 for a Super Castlevania 4 cart para kay SNES. (Don’t get me started sa Tiangge paraan na yan!) Pagdating ng 2030, digital collection. Ang sasabihin niya: “Is it “WORTH” my time?”
goodha says:
Ang hindi lang dumaan sa buhay ko sa listahan ay #10. Im still using the concept of the trackball mouse up to now with my Blackberry curves and pearls (83xx/81xx series).
How about adding those PDAs made by Sharp,Casio,HP and Sony(clie).
qazw says:
Agree with this. PDAs are now obsolete, whereas most of the items in this list are still in use (dot matrix printers, pagers, trackballs).
jim says:
#6 and #8 are still in use today…please change your lists..try to be accurate
Ralph says:
Dotmatrix printers are still widely used inside the offices of major companies they used it printing payslips or whenever you pay your electric bill. So it is not yet obsolete like the other items on this list.
qazw says:
Iomega drives. Do I miss it? Nope. Those things are so unreliable.
Toby says:
I can’t believe I actually used all of them. Not tried, but used and was dependent on all of them at some point
Ginuhit says:
*Miss
10 Old Tech We Sorely Miss
bryan_mmx says:
#6 still widely in use by shops to print receipt. inks and laser aren’t really cost effective when in comes to this job. and though there’s the bottomless tank alternative, ink printers (in my experience) tend to “chew” your receipts unless you’re using a better paper quality
#8 I’m still using mine. But what I think you should put here is the TV remote/calculator watch. That one I sorely missed (to prank A/V rooms in school XD XD XD)
dvancleef says:
No alternative to dot matrix for printing 6-carbon waybills and pretty much anything else that requires carbons.
ewanlangha says:
i remember creating a stencil on an Epson LX300
then using the silkscreen method to print my (back then) GF’s image on a shirt and on a slab or marble.
yep the EPSON LX-300 has been updated to some 24pin silent type model, i forgot the exact detail
denise says:
i think 1,5,6. 7 and 8 are still in use by some. Pagers are still being used by doctors, trackball mouse still on sales in some computer stores, electric typewriters still in some government offices (sometimes the manual type especially in notary public) and the calculator watch are being sold online as vintage watches.
Butt Sniffer says:
Actualy ginagamit parin ang mga pagers s ibang mga hospitals. Dun m nalang xa mkkita s panahon ngayon.
Doc says:
Sorry to burst your bubbles but Doctors does not use pagers anymore. We are like you people we use mobile phones too.
dvancleef says:
Have used trackballs for well over 20 years and no plans of quitting. Its the only way to avoid pain for people with carpal tunnel.
Jeric says:
yes, we do still have it and still in use at my dads office.. hehe. LX-300+
Labay says:
#6 Still in use…
Vekou X Aitenshi says:
Same here, we still use Epson LX300+ II at our office. Though I miss creating banners using continuous paper!
Abe Olandres says:
I wish I did not sell my old Epson LX300!