CDR-Data's Public Sector Blog: Outdated Devices That Make Us Feel Nostalgic

With the holidays around the corner, we can’t help thinking back to the good ol’ years.
The holiday season makes us nostalgic and I can’t help but think of all my techy Christmas
gifts that I’d be hoping and praying were under that Christmas tree. Needless to say,
technology has come far and thinking back at some of my favorite gifts also makes
me think about how far we’ve come. So without further ado, and in no particular order,
here are some Outdated Devices That Make Us Feel Nostalgic.

Motorola RAZR Flip Phone

First developed in 2004, this cellular flip phone dominated the market for four years.
With a flashy sleek design and a wide array of colors, this phone was a prime example
of how technology became a fashion. You couldn’t wait for someone to text you
so you could nonchalantly whip out this phone and slyly text back so everyone
could see you were in the in with fashionable technology. What said “I love you”
more than knowing exactly which color Motorola RAZR that person wanted?
Corded Phones

Can you believe there was a time before the cell phone? Mind blowing right?
How about before cordless phones? How did we survive that era? You wanted
to talk to someone on the phone? Try being tethered to a wall, usually in the most
public part of the house. What better gift than your own personal corded phone
in your own personal bedroom, possibly with your own personal phone line.
Mom, Dad, you shouldn’t have!
Sony Walkman

Not to be confused for the Discman that was later developed in the 1990s, the
Walkman was a portable audio cassette player. Do you remember cassettes?
They were those little analog devices that recorded music. No track bookmarking?
Cool, just let me push the fast-forward button and magically hope I got to the track
that I wanted. But hey, at least I can play music anywhere anytime; just have to
make sure I have an endless supply of AA batteries.
Mp3 Players

Skipping over the Walkman generation, the portable mp3 player symbolized
an exciting turn for portable music-playing technology. Holding a whopping
(/sarcasm) 32 MB – 128 MB of data when they first came to market, they
were more portable than the Walkmans and Diskmans and with way more
functionality. Commence the era of pirated file sharing.
Computer Games via Floppy Disk

If you think a 32 MB was a limited amount of data, try the floppy disk with
its groundbreaking 1.2 MB of data. To put this in perspective, a single
song (at an average of 3 MB) would require 3 floppy disks to store it. We use
to fit whole games on there (*cough* Oregon Trail). At least the floppy disk shall
be immortalized forever as an iconic symbol, more commonly known as the
“save icon”.
Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)

Symbolic of retro gaming, the NES was Nintendo’s first home video game console
in North America. Retailing at US$89.99 for the console, and an average of
US$50 a game, its 8-bit graphics along with its 8-bit music are still iconic today
sparking the popular franchised games like Super Mario Bros. and Zelda.
Nothing is more reminiscent of old school gaming like blowing out a video game cartridge.
Pager

That thing that all the doctors in our favorite dramas carry around? Yes, that was
actually used as a pretty standard communication device back in the day.
Whether it was the one-way pager or the two-way pager, this was the start of
commercial SMS (short message service). *Beep beep beep* “CALL ME”,
and then you ran to the nearest payphone (you know, that booth that Superman
used as a dressing room).
Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)

Wow, a computer in my hand? That is exciting! Granted it had a tenth of the
processing power of the average smartphone of today and were primarily
used by the business elite, it spurred the movement for the innovation of mobile
business devices.