Many times we have had discussions of dead technologies; CRT screens being popular around here, however even they got to be quite basic renditions towards the end with nothing much special done with them compared to the few years earlier when many inputs, widescreen, features aplenty were popular (I am still regretting not picking those up, though unlike games I did not have the room for a warehouse full of CRTs).
However before things die we often see lowest price/utterly basic but actually functional versions made. For instance alarm clocks 25 years ago were actually quite fancy; all sorts of vocal alarms and whatnot, today not so much and you might get a radio if you are lucky and beep beep beep as the alarm. Though that might be an unexpected casualty of mobile phones. I picked up a tape player alarm clock for an elderly friend somewhat recently (books on tape and a serious collection thereof) and it was actually quite well featured with nice audio, far more so than anything that might still sport it today.
All this then often leads me to have to keep an eye out for even older stuff made with top designs, possibly fix that as well. Other than CRTs many also lament CD burners/DVD burners of old had faster read and write speeds than you might find today (though I would still take a modern one where buffers are basically the whole size of a disc because it is more expensive to get in small chips). Sometimes it does not happen; I was eagerly awaiting people attaching a basic audio player setup on the end of a USB thumb drive being basically nothing but it did not come to pass.
To that end what technologies do you like that might still be available, or have functionally ceased in more recent times, where the last ditch takes on it were rather mediocre compared to the offerings more common or at least relatively cheap in the years prior?
However before things die we often see lowest price/utterly basic but actually functional versions made. For instance alarm clocks 25 years ago were actually quite fancy; all sorts of vocal alarms and whatnot, today not so much and you might get a radio if you are lucky and beep beep beep as the alarm. Though that might be an unexpected casualty of mobile phones. I picked up a tape player alarm clock for an elderly friend somewhat recently (books on tape and a serious collection thereof) and it was actually quite well featured with nice audio, far more so than anything that might still sport it today.
All this then often leads me to have to keep an eye out for even older stuff made with top designs, possibly fix that as well. Other than CRTs many also lament CD burners/DVD burners of old had faster read and write speeds than you might find today (though I would still take a modern one where buffers are basically the whole size of a disc because it is more expensive to get in small chips). Sometimes it does not happen; I was eagerly awaiting people attaching a basic audio player setup on the end of a USB thumb drive being basically nothing but it did not come to pass.
To that end what technologies do you like that might still be available, or have functionally ceased in more recent times, where the last ditch takes on it were rather mediocre compared to the offerings more common or at least relatively cheap in the years prior?
