Out with the old, in with the new and Darwin's theory of evolution — both point to the fact that nothing lasts forever. Things either change or evolve. The same happened with technology. Innovation led to invention and the old ones were forgotten.
However, they still retain their charm. Though devices have been devised, it’s always good to know about the old ones. So, here are five that became history.
Tape the music
Cassette: Also popularly knows as tapes, they were widely used till the early 2000s. The mass production of Compact Cassettes began in 1964 in Hanover, Germany. Possessing a special kind of charm, these audio recording and playback devices helped to spread music throughout the world. From The Beatles to Led Zeppelin to Bryan Adams, songs of the most popular musicians and bands were made available to the public through them. People could also record their own compositions into them through a tape recorder, which further enhanced their appeal.
Big and floppy!
Floppy Disk: You might be used to your one terabyte hard drives, portable pendrives or DVD disks to save your files, but there was a time when people used floppy disks. These storage devices were rectangular in shape. The 133 mm and the 90 mm floppy drives, which were extensively used from mid-1970s to well into the 2000s, could store 322 KB and 1.44 MB respectively. But that was enough to store games like
Mario, Dave or Prince!
Wind it up
Gramophone: Don’t go by the name. A gramophone is not a phone, but an instrument to listen to music. Its journey started in 1877 when Thomas Edison invented his tin-foil phonograph, which was an instrument for recording and playing sound. At the same time, Alexander Graham Bell came up with his graphophone to rival the phonograph. But, both the instruments had their limitations. So, in 1887, Emile Berliner invented the gramophone and flat circular disks to record and play music. Several improved versions came up over the years and it became a major source of entertainment for millions of people.
Dial your number
Rotary dial phone: These days, if you want to dial or redial a number, all it takes is a tap on your phone’s screen. But there was a time when it took almost half-a-minute to dial a number. The rotary dial phones, that were widely used between the 1920s and 1980s, had the digits on them arranged in a circular layout. A finger wheel was attached to the phone on top of the digits which could be rotated with one finger to a fixed stop position. After dialling a number, the wheel would automatically go back to its default position. Though it may sound like a tedious process now, these phones were a rage back in those days and it was considered a privilege to have one of them.
Tip tap
Typewriter: You might have seen this instrument in movies like Sherlock Holmes, The Adventures of Tintin or Captain America. The first typewriter to be commercially successful was invented in 1868 by Christopher Latham Sholes, Carlos Glidden and Samuel W. Soule in Milwaukee, U.S. A classy and popular device, it was used by government officials, authors, publishers and thousands of people across the world for correspondence. It has the same key layout as the computer keyboard that you use today, but the early typewriters had a bell to warn the typist that they were nearing the end of the paper.
