5 ms·

Extinct tech you forgot existed

21 points by astdb 8y ago

rwmj 8y ago
An iPad or PowerPoint may be more "sophisticated" than an overhead projector and dry wipe pen, but I'm not certain they are better. (Actually now I wonder if there is a tablet application which faithfully replicates the overhead projector and roll of acetate experience?)
- raverbashing 8y ago
  Not a tablet app, but there are "smart whiteboards" that do a nice job of combining showing things + scribbling/writing.
- 2muchcoffeeman 8y ago
  You probably want to have both though. I don’t want to sit in a lecture taking notes. But OHPs were great for worked examples and answering questions that needed diagrams.
  - rwmj 8y ago
    Honestly I'd never remember a thing if I didn't take notes. I take notes even today, whenever I'm in meetings or presentations: https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2017/11/24/keeping-a-work-notebook/ https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2017/11/24/keeping-a-work-noteboo...
- magicalhippo 8y ago
  The best lectures I had at uni were some math lectures where the professor had an overhead with a transparency roll. He'd write on the transparency as if it was a blackboard, and could roll up and down as needed to review older equations or make room for new. Blackboard worked well too, but not as good, since the professor could sit in front of the overhead so things lined up better, and the transparency pens had much better visibility than chalk on a (green) blackboard. Most other lectures used PowerPoint, due to the professors being forced by the uni administration, but for me a PowerPoint lecture was barely worth the time. The information just wouldn't stick, since the PowerPoint format doesn't lend itself well to writing notes from, and without writing notes I hardly remembered anything.
  - rleigh 8y ago
    The other factor is the pacing. If the lecturer is writing, on a transparency or blackboard, you can take notes at the same pace. PowerPoint allows stupid amounts of information to be delivered, which just washes over you--it's too much to transcribe, and too much to digest on the fly. Writing constrains the lecturer to delivering a reasonable amount of material, so that the participants can actually focus on it and retain it. PowerPoint might be good for business proposals, sales and marketing, etc. But I personally think it's a travesty for educational use; there are few lectures I've attended which I found better for the unnecessary use of technology.
    - magicalhippo 8y ago
      Yes, pacing is a huge factor. Written notes naturally lend themselves to be written, and with the professor writing them live, you usually have time to write them down and think about what you're writing as you go. I caught many small mistakes, missing signs etc, while taking notes. I would not have caught that when looking at some slide.
    - extra88 8y ago
      I has a number of faculty who would print "slides" on acetate sheets to display using an overhead projector, they had the same potential for being overloaded.
      - rleigh 8y ago
        It's possible to be a bad lecturer and use acetates. But physical constraints still act against it: they are bulky, you can't easily manage a lecture with 100 acetates, they have a tendency to slide onto the floor and make a jumbled mess, and they also cost money to make and take up physical space to store and move around. While you can still abuse them, these factors limit how far you can take that abuse. PowerPoint knows no bounds. I only used to print diagrams and figures onto acetates, leaving writing for the blackboard/whiteboard/blank acetates. You would use one or two for an entire session. I try to do the same with PowerPoint (well, Beamer), but some organisations increasingly mandate the whole thing be word for word on slides and stored in Blackboard for students to get. I find this wholly detrimental to the purpose of giving and attending a lecture, since it constrains the lecturer to this terrible presentation style.
yitchelle 8y ago
The cassette tapes are still relatively popular in Germany. In my last trip into Saturn (a large retailer here in Germany), there had a good range of up-to-date music and audio books still for sale. However, most of titles are targeted towards to younger kids.
- sdrothrock 8y ago
  Do you have any idea what drives their enduring popularity in Germany in particular?
  - bhaak 8y ago
    I think the main driver is the selection for kids. Cassette players are quite sturdy things. Even if cassettes themselves are not as good as the players, they are still better than CDs. Kids like to handle things, the haptic sensation is important, so you can't give them something with a touch screen early on (although that changes quickly with age). I would be surprised if this is specific to Germany.
  - Lutzb 8y ago
    As a German my guess would be the kids market. A mixture between the reliability and indestructibility of tapes vs CD. Also it is very easy for young kids to understand the UX of a cassette player.
lbriner 8y ago
I read about a singer who still uses a childs cassette player to do their vocal warmups for the simple reason that it is bombproof: suitable for the mechanical demands of being on the road. https://goo.gl/images/ZEoG6M https://goo.gl/images/ZEoG6M
rahimnathwani 8y ago
This is the first site I've noticed using a 302 redirect to force people to use unencrypted connections: curl -v https://www.bbc.com/future/gallery/20180816-do-you-recognise-these-obsolete-technologies https://www.bbc.com/future/gallery/20180816-do-you-recognise... .. * Connected to www.bbc.com (212.58.244.27) port 443 (#0) .. * SSL certificate verify ok. .. > GET /future/gallery/20180816-do-you-recognise-these-obsolete-technologies HTTP/1.1 > Host: www.bbc.com .. < HTTP/2 302 < content-type: text/html < date: Mon, 20 Aug 2018 10:44:09 GMT < location: http://www.bbc.com/future/gallery/20180816-do-you-recognise-these-obsolete-technologies http://www.bbc.com/future/gallery/20180816-do-you-recognise-... < content-length: 0
- jgh 8y ago
  I wonder if they got the redirect configuration backwards...
  - rahimnathwani 8y ago
    It seems to be specific to certain pages. See here for one which redirects the other (normal) way: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45098190 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45098190
bhaak 8y ago
I was about to say "Teletext is not extinct!" which is true but then I pondered when I last time used it? I was an avid user of Teletext in my teenage years and later on, using it daily to catch the news and look at the TV programme listing. And that's why I use it much rarely nowadays. I don't watch regular TV anymore and thus have much less opportunities to quickly start up Teletext.

21 points by astdb 8y ago

rwmj 8y ago

An iPad or PowerPoint may be more "sophisticated" than an overhead projector and dry wipe pen, but I'm not certain they are better. (Actually now I wonder if there is a tablet application which faithfully replicates the overhead projector and roll of acetate experience?)

raverbashing 8y ago
Not a tablet app, but there are "smart whiteboards" that do a nice job of combining showing things + scribbling/writing.
2muchcoffeeman 8y ago
You probably want to have both though. I don’t want to sit in a lecture taking notes. But OHPs were great for worked examples and answering questions that needed diagrams.
- rwmj 8y ago
  Honestly I'd never remember a thing if I didn't take notes. I take notes even today, whenever I'm in meetings or presentations: https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2017/11/24/keeping-a-work-notebook/ https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2017/11/24/keeping-a-work-noteboo...
magicalhippo 8y ago
The best lectures I had at uni were some math lectures where the professor had an overhead with a transparency roll. He'd write on the transparency as if it was a blackboard, and could roll up and down as needed to review older equations or make room for new. Blackboard worked well too, but not as good, since the professor could sit in front of the overhead so things lined up better, and the transparency pens had much better visibility than chalk on a (green) blackboard. Most other lectures used PowerPoint, due to the professors being forced by the uni administration, but for me a PowerPoint lecture was barely worth the time. The information just wouldn't stick, since the PowerPoint format doesn't lend itself well to writing notes from, and without writing notes I hardly remembered anything.
- rleigh 8y ago
  The other factor is the pacing. If the lecturer is writing, on a transparency or blackboard, you can take notes at the same pace. PowerPoint allows stupid amounts of information to be delivered, which just washes over you--it's too much to transcribe, and too much to digest on the fly. Writing constrains the lecturer to delivering a reasonable amount of material, so that the participants can actually focus on it and retain it. PowerPoint might be good for business proposals, sales and marketing, etc. But I personally think it's a travesty for educational use; there are few lectures I've attended which I found better for the unnecessary use of technology.
  - magicalhippo 8y ago
    Yes, pacing is a huge factor. Written notes naturally lend themselves to be written, and with the professor writing them live, you usually have time to write them down and think about what you're writing as you go. I caught many small mistakes, missing signs etc, while taking notes. I would not have caught that when looking at some slide.
  - extra88 8y ago
    I has a number of faculty who would print "slides" on acetate sheets to display using an overhead projector, they had the same potential for being overloaded.
    - rleigh 8y ago
      It's possible to be a bad lecturer and use acetates. But physical constraints still act against it: they are bulky, you can't easily manage a lecture with 100 acetates, they have a tendency to slide onto the floor and make a jumbled mess, and they also cost money to make and take up physical space to store and move around. While you can still abuse them, these factors limit how far you can take that abuse. PowerPoint knows no bounds. I only used to print diagrams and figures onto acetates, leaving writing for the blackboard/whiteboard/blank acetates. You would use one or two for an entire session. I try to do the same with PowerPoint (well, Beamer), but some organisations increasingly mandate the whole thing be word for word on slides and stored in Blackboard for students to get. I find this wholly detrimental to the purpose of giving and attending a lecture, since it constrains the lecturer to this terrible presentation style.

yitchelle 8y ago

The cassette tapes are still relatively popular in Germany. In my last trip into Saturn (a large retailer here in Germany), there had a good range of up-to-date music and audio books still for sale. However, most of titles are targeted towards to younger kids.

sdrothrock 8y ago
Do you have any idea what drives their enduring popularity in Germany in particular?
- bhaak 8y ago
  I think the main driver is the selection for kids. Cassette players are quite sturdy things. Even if cassettes themselves are not as good as the players, they are still better than CDs. Kids like to handle things, the haptic sensation is important, so you can't give them something with a touch screen early on (although that changes quickly with age). I would be surprised if this is specific to Germany.
- Lutzb 8y ago
  As a German my guess would be the kids market. A mixture between the reliability and indestructibility of tapes vs CD. Also it is very easy for young kids to understand the UX of a cassette player.

lbriner 8y ago

I read about a singer who still uses a childs cassette player to do their vocal warmups for the simple reason that it is bombproof: suitable for the mechanical demands of being on the road. https://goo.gl/images/ZEoG6M https://goo.gl/images/ZEoG6M

rahimnathwani 8y ago

This is the first site I've noticed using a 302 redirect to force people to use unencrypted connections: curl -v https://www.bbc.com/future/gallery/20180816-do-you-recognise-these-obsolete-technologies https://www.bbc.com/future/gallery/20180816-do-you-recognise... .. * Connected to www.bbc.com (212.58.244.27) port 443 (#0) .. * SSL certificate verify ok. .. > GET /future/gallery/20180816-do-you-recognise-these-obsolete-technologies HTTP/1.1 > Host: www.bbc.com .. < HTTP/2 302 < content-type: text/html < date: Mon, 20 Aug 2018 10:44:09 GMT < location: http://www.bbc.com/future/gallery/20180816-do-you-recognise-these-obsolete-technologies http://www.bbc.com/future/gallery/20180816-do-you-recognise-... < content-length: 0

jgh 8y ago
I wonder if they got the redirect configuration backwards...
- rahimnathwani 8y ago
  It seems to be specific to certain pages. See here for one which redirects the other (normal) way: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45098190 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45098190

bhaak 8y ago

I was about to say "Teletext is not extinct!" which is true but then I pondered when I last time used it? I was an avid user of Teletext in my teenage years and later on, using it daily to catch the news and look at the TV programme listing. And that's why I use it much rarely nowadays. I don't watch regular TV anymore and thus have much less opportunities to quickly start up Teletext.