Wednesday, August 3, 2011

RE: [HamBrewers] Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

 

Everyone is entitled to have their opinions. Having said that, the reality of the present day,technological world seems to hit us hams badly.

 

We love CW, HF SSB, EME, SSTV, FOX Hunt,QRPP DX and OSCAR and the list goes on, these were all considered break through technology / Space age stuff in the last century.

 

Whether we practice all these with an EL84 vacuum tube or with the powerful FPGA/DSP/SDR  based equipment, these aspects are not of great interest to the communications industry and the scientific community at present from a novelty point of view.

 

A good measure of hams are finding it increasingly interesting and easy to use Echolink kind of internet communication applications, whether echolink is really hamradio is the moot question here.

 

If we do not get into the merits of it, the apparent benefits are are,

no need to buy expensive and dedicated radio hardware

can operate from anywhere in the world without the headaches of obtaining reciprocal licenses.

XYL does not object to the echolink PC/Laptop sitting in the bedroom

Can co-exist with email, eQSL ….

Completely independent of propagation vagaries and zero QRM most of the time.

No TVI and telephone interference

No monitoring by wpc…  and no Pink letters.!

 

Irrespective of our infatuation with the hobby, if we see the outside worlds' point of view on our beloved hamradio, ( ignoring the increasing dependency on it as a disaster communication backup)  it appears pretty well justified being bunched with floppy disks and VHS tapes.

 

So what, why should we feel distressed with the reality. Just the other day, I heard some one celebrating Jagadish Chandra Bose's birthday on

40 meters, convincing others that JC bose was the real inventor of Radio and Marconi was a cheat.. and so on. What I mean to say is, a good number of hams have no problems what so ever, living in the Graham bell era..

 

When most of our country men had to stand in year long ques to get the ITI made black Bakelite Landline phones and connections, we hams carrying the coveted 2M handys might have made us feel like James Bond. Try the same today, the chances are that most people will mistake you for a courier deliver man, a cab driver  or a security agency employee.

 

Most  Marwari shopkeepers in SP road in Bangalore are no longer selling the radio parts. Same is the case in chandini chowk, Lamington road in Delhi and Bombay.

 

Our own kids and other kids in the street know IPhone, GPRS, WiFi, GPS, HDTV and 4G Broadband much better than an average ham. Even Pakistani terrorists are using VOIP enabled Blackberry/ Smartphones.

 

Sorry for the really long rant, the bottom line is no matter where the technological world is heading, most of us still love the hobby the way we did

it when we first came in contact with it, even though the rest of the world has moved on. The ham spirit and ingenuity has certainly made a big difference in my professional career. Long live hamradio and hams..

 

73

vu2ttp

 

 

 

From: HamBrewers@yahoogroups.com [mailto:HamBrewers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Sajeesh Pilakkat
Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2011 10:44 AM
To: HamBrewers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [HamBrewers] Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

 

Amature radio is not a "Vintage Technology"... Hi . Probabbly the equipment shown in the picture is a vintage stuff.

 

Recently heard that LP Records (Vinyl) are on a revival path now. At least there growing number of enthusiasists and collectors in this area

 

Sajeesh 

 

From: Raj <vu2zap@gmail.com>
To: hambrewers@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, 3 August 2011 10:22 PM
Subject: [HamBrewers] Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

 

Amateur radio ? !!

---------------------
Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

 Most of the technologies that we have used in the past have been eclipsed by the remarkable technology that we use today.

Advances in their design have occurred in tandem with the advances in technology in this digital era, with many large products being redesigned and miniaturized into amazingly small sizes.

While we may laugh at the fact that anyone ever found this technology to be cutting-edge, we can't discount its place in history as a forerunner for all of the technology that wouldn't exist today without its dinosaur ancestry.
Here is a quick look through history at vintage technologies that we no longer use.

1. Super 8/8mm Handheld Video Cameras

Kodak invented the Super 8/8mm video format in 1965. Soon after, handheld video cameras flooded the market and the living rooms of people everywhere were filled with families watching the hi-jinks at Freddie's sixth birthday party.

 Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

2. Betamax

Betamax was developed by Sony in 1975, a year before the ultimately more popular VHS format was invented as a response to Sony's attempt to control the format of the industry.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

3. VHS Format

Invented by JVC, VHS was the predominant video format by the 1980's, despite what some argued was the technical superiority of the Betamax format.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

4. Laser Disc Players

Initially marketed as aœ Discovisional, laser discs were the format choice of tech enthusiasts who had the money to put together a collection until the DVD format came out.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

5. Phonograph

The phonograph, or gramophone, was invented by Thomas Edison in 1877 and was on the mass market by the turn of the century. The gramophone was replaced by the considerably less bulky record player in the latter half of the twentieth century.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

6. Turntables

Record players are still in use in DJ booths, recording studios, and radio stations all over the world.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

7. HAM Radio

An estimated six million people are still involved with this hobby that began at the start of the 20th century. HAM radio operators communicate with each other over short wave radio. HAM radios have been featured in many popular movies, including The Shining and Contact.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

8. Reel to Reel

The first tape recorders were reel to reel and were the preferred technology for professional sound designers until digital formats rendered them obsolete.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

9. Cassette Tape Recorders

These devices were considerably less bulky then their reel to reel ancestors, and were used mostly for transcription.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

10. Transistor Radios

Transistor radios typically only picked up on the AM band and were a ubiquitous sight in schools and businesses in the seventies.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

11. Cassette Tapes

The compact cassette was originally developed for transcription purposes, and its users quickly realized that they could use it to record music and make aœmixed tapes .

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

12. Boom Boxes

Associated with hip hop, break-dancing, and other aspects of eighties culture, the boom box was introduced in the late 1970s as portable, all-in-one music devices. Earlier models took huge quantities of batteries and were very heavy.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

13. Telegraph

The telegraph was the precursor to telex and fax machines. Used by shipping operators and for military uses, the telegraph required a skilled operator to transmit and receive messages
.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

14. Telex Machines

These machines used radio and/or microwaves to transmit information over the airwaves. Variations of them are still in use today for communications by the hearing impaired.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

15. Wang Calculators

No, we didn't pick that just for the headline. In the seventies, Wang manufactured mini-computers that were a cut above your standard accounting computer, with exciting features like a FORTRAN IV compiler.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

16. Analog Telephones

While exactly who invented the phone is a topic of debate, the first patent was awarded to Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. They have evolved from rotary dial models to smart phones that we can use today to surf the internet.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

17. PDAs

Considered one of the biggest tech flops of all time, the Apple Newton was sold at a huge price point compared to other Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) that were on the market. Personal digital assistants were electronic timekeepers for the times when you couldn't fit a computer in your pocket. The Newton's development laid the groundwork for Apple's hugely successful iPod and iPhone. Who's laughing now?

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

18. Portable Televisions

Portable televisions, such as Sony's Watchman, were an idea that came a little before the ability of the media to catch up to it. With a limited selection of channels, they never really caught on.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

19. Walkman

The Walkman was invented for the co-chairman of Sony, Akio Morita, who wanted to be able to listen to his favorite operas on plane trips. It was initially marketed as the Sound about in North America, but the aœ Walkman name was used for the product up until the present day.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

20. Discman

Two years after the mass production of the Compact Disc, Sony released its portable player for it. While they were popular with audiophiles, who appreciated the quality of recording, earlier Discmans would skip and didn't allow for the popular aœ mix tapes until it became possible for computers to aœburnat CDs.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

21. Pagers

Pagers were commonly used from the seventies to the nineties, when widespread adoption of cell phones rendered them obsolete for mass market use. They are still used by emergency responders as they are not subject to network outages or similar disruptions in communication.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

22. LED Watch

The watch pictured is the Pulsar, the first LED watch. The watch's designer was inspired by the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, having worked on the timepiece props for the movie.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

23. TV Watch

While the concept of this watch was attractive, it faced the same lack of channel availability issues as the Watchman.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

24. Seiko Wrist Computer

The smart phone of 1984: this took the idea of aœ computer watch to a whole new level. Think this is too much? Consider the nuclear watch, whose invention was rumoured in this Time magazine article. Be very glad that never happened.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

25. Calculator Watches

The eighties saw watches infused with more gizmos than ever before. The most ubiquitous watch in geek culture was the calculator watch. Since most of us now have computers attached to our hips, it is no longer necessary. Unless you are Dwight Schrute.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

26. CRT Monitor

Just when you thought you were done with vacuum tubes in your computers, they put them in your monitors in the form of cathode ray tubes (CRT).

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

27. Massive Mainframes

While mainframes still exist, they generally don't take up entire rooms or store information on magnetic tape.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

28. Typewriters

While some writers still swear by them, most writers remember when they swore at them and have happily moved on.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

29. Dial-Up Modems

The dial-up modem was used everywhere until cable internet and DSL became available to the masses. While they are still in widespread use, everyone who has one wants to upgrade.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

30. Zip Drive

This short-lived technology was the bridge between 3.5" Floppy Disc and CD storage.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

31. Slide Projectors

These were classroom and office standbys for years, and were replaced by digital projectors and smart boards.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

32. 8" Floppy Disc

If you wanted to save one or two word processing documents, you could do it on these. Their smaller relatives are still in widespread use.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

33. 3.5" Floppy Disc

The 3.5" Floppy took over from its bulkier cousin with larger storage and a less destructible design. It had largely been replaced by the late nineties by CDs, DVDs, USB drives and other more convenient computer storage methods.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

34. Polaroid Cameras

While these cameras were largely replaced by digital cameras, the trademark has recently been purchased and the buyers are trying to breathe new life into the brand by hiring Lady Gaga as a spokesperson.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

35. Home Movie Projectors

Super 8 home movies and educational films were shown on these simple projectors. While they are still used in some schools, they have been largely replaced by digital projectors and the fact that you can now burn most home movies to a DVD.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

36. Vinyl Records

Vinyl was the dominant music format for the 20th Century. From your grandmother's old 78’s to the single 45 format, vinyl was perfected over the years to be as acoustically correct and cheap to press as possible. While they are still in use by DJs and radio stations, records have for the most part been relegated to the garage sale heap.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

37. CRT Television

The first widespread use of television was in Germany beginning in 1929, and the German Olympic Games of 1936 were the first to be broadcast on television. Televisions remained out of the reach of the middle class until the 1950s, when their ownership boomed globally and television shows became more popular. Cathode ray tubes gave way to the technologies that we use for television now, making sets less bulky and furniture-like.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

38. Tape Drives

Remember when backing up the computer meant changing the tape in the tape drive and letting it back up overnight? We are so glad those days are gone too. The clunky old tape drives of the past didn't store a lot of data and it would often take multiple tapes to back up important data. Old-school programmers started out as asœtape-apesa doing backups as junior programmers.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

 Most of the technologies that we have used in the past have been eclipsed by the remarkable technology that we use today.

Advances in their design have occurred in tandem with the advances in technology in this digital era, with many large products being redesigned and miniaturized into amazingly small sizes.

While we may laugh at the fact that anyone ever found this technology to be cutting-edge, we can't discount its place in history as a forerunner for all of the technology that wouldn't exist today without its dinosaur ancestry.
Here is a quick look through history at vintage technologies that we no longer use.

1. Super 8/8mm Handheld Video Cameras

Kodak invented the Super 8/8mm video format in 1965. Soon after, handheld video cameras flooded the market and the living rooms of people everywhere were filled with families watching the hi-jinks at Freddie's sixth birthday party.

 Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

2. Betamax

Betamax was developed by Sony in 1975, a year before the ultimately more popular VHS format was invented as a response to Sony's attempt to control the format of the industry.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

3. VHS Format

Invented by JVC, VHS was the predominant video format by the 1980's, despite what some argued was the technical superiority of the Betamax format.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

4. Laser Disc Players

Initially marketed as aœ Discovisional, laser discs were the format choice of tech enthusiasts who had the money to put together a collection until the DVD format came out.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

5. Phonograph

The phonograph, or gramophone, was invented by Thomas Edison in 1877 and was on the mass market by the turn of the century. The gramophone was replaced by the considerably less bulky record player in the latter half of the twentieth century.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

6. Turntables

Record players are still in use in DJ booths, recording studios, and radio stations all over the world.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

7. HAM Radio

An estimated six million people are still involved with this hobby that began at the start of the 20th century. HAM radio operators communicate with each other over short wave radio. HAM radios have been featured in many popular movies, including The Shining and Contact.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

8. Reel to Reel

The first tape recorders were reel to reel and were the preferred technology for professional sound designers until digital formats rendered them obsolete.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

9. Cassette Tape Recorders

These devices were considerably less bulky then their reel to reel ancestors, and were used mostly for transcription.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

10. Transistor Radios

Transistor radios typically only picked up on the AM band and were a ubiquitous sight in schools and businesses in the seventies.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

11. Cassette Tapes

The compact cassette was originally developed for transcription purposes, and its users quickly realized that they could use it to record music and make aœmixed tapes .

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

12. Boom Boxes

Associated with hip hop, break-dancing, and other aspects of eighties culture, the boom box was introduced in the late 1970s as portable, all-in-one music devices. Earlier models took huge quantities of batteries and were very heavy.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

13. Telegraph

The telegraph was the precursor to telex and fax machines. Used by shipping operators and for military uses, the telegraph required a skilled operator to transmit and receive messages
.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

14. Telex Machines

These machines used radio and/or microwaves to transmit information over the airwaves. Variations of them are still in use today for communications by the hearing impaired.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

15. Wang Calculators

No, we didn't pick that just for the headline. In the seventies, Wang manufactured mini-computers that were a cut above your standard accounting computer, with exciting features like a FORTRAN IV compiler.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

16. Analog Telephones

While exactly who invented the phone is a topic of debate, the first patent was awarded to Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. They have evolved from rotary dial models to smart phones that we can use today to surf the internet.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

17. PDAs

Considered one of the biggest tech flops of all time, the Apple Newton was sold at a huge price point compared to other Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) that were on the market. Personal digital assistants were electronic timekeepers for the times when you couldn't fit a computer in your pocket. The Newton's development laid the groundwork for Apple's hugely successful iPod and iPhone. Who's laughing now?

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

18. Portable Televisions

Portable televisions, such as Sony's Watchman, were an idea that came a little before the ability of the media to catch up to it. With a limited selection of channels, they never really caught on.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

19. Walkman

The Walkman was invented for the co-chairman of Sony, Akio Morita, who wanted to be able to listen to his favorite operas on plane trips. It was initially marketed as the Sound about in North America, but the aœ Walkman name was used for the product up until the present day.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

20. Discman

Two years after the mass production of the Compact Disc, Sony released its portable player for it. While they were popular with audiophiles, who appreciated the quality of recording, earlier Discmans would skip and didn't allow for the popular aœ mix tapes until it became possible for computers to aœburnat CDs.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

21. Pagers

Pagers were commonly used from the seventies to the nineties, when widespread adoption of cell phones rendered them obsolete for mass market use. They are still used by emergency responders as they are not subject to network outages or similar disruptions in communication.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

22. LED Watch

The watch pictured is the Pulsar, the first LED watch. The watch's designer was inspired by the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, having worked on the timepiece props for the movie.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

23. TV Watch

While the concept of this watch was attractive, it faced the same lack of channel availability issues as the Watchman.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

24. Seiko Wrist Computer

The smart phone of 1984: this took the idea of aœ computer watch to a whole new level. Think this is too much? Consider the nuclear watch, whose invention was rumoured in this Time magazine article. Be very glad that never happened.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

25. Calculator Watches

The eighties saw watches infused with more gizmos than ever before. The most ubiquitous watch in geek culture was the calculator watch. Since most of us now have computers attached to our hips, it is no longer necessary. Unless you are Dwight Schrute.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

26. CRT Monitor

Just when you thought you were done with vacuum tubes in your computers, they put them in your monitors in the form of cathode ray tubes (CRT).

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

27. Massive Mainframes

While mainframes still exist, they generally don't take up entire rooms or store information on magnetic tape.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

28. Typewriters

While some writers still swear by them, most writers remember when they swore at them and have happily moved on.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

29. Dial-Up Modems

The dial-up modem was used everywhere until cable internet and DSL became available to the masses. While they are still in widespread use, everyone who has one wants to upgrade.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

30. Zip Drive

This short-lived technology was the bridge between 3.5" Floppy Disc and CD storage.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

31. Slide Projectors

These were classroom and office standbys for years, and were replaced by digital projectors and smart boards.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

32. 8" Floppy Disc

If you wanted to save one or two word processing documents, you could do it on these. Their smaller relatives are still in widespread use.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

33. 3.5" Floppy Disc

The 3.5" Floppy took over from its bulkier cousin with larger storage and a less destructible design. It had largely been replaced by the late nineties by CDs, DVDs, USB drives and other more convenient computer storage methods.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

34. Polaroid Cameras

While these cameras were largely replaced by digital cameras, the trademark has recently been purchased and the buyers are trying to breathe new life into the brand by hiring Lady Gaga as a spokesperson.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

35. Home Movie Projectors

Super 8 home movies and educational films were shown on these simple projectors. While they are still used in some schools, they have been largely replaced by digital projectors and the fact that you can now burn most home movies to a DVD.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

36. Vinyl Records

Vinyl was the dominant music format for the 20th Century. From your grandmother's old 78’s to the single 45 format, vinyl was perfected over the years to be as acoustically correct and cheap to press as possible. While they are still in use by DJs and radio stations, records have for the most part been relegated to the garage sale heap.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

37. CRT Television

The first widespread use of television was in Germany beginning in 1929, and the German Olympic Games of 1936 were the first to be broadcast on television. Televisions remained out of the reach of the middle class until the 1950s, when their ownership boomed globally and television shows became more popular. Cathode ray tubes gave way to the technologies that we use for television now, making sets less bulky and furniture-like.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

38. Tape Drives

Remember when backing up the computer meant changing the tape in the tape drive and letting it back up overnight? We are so glad those days are gone too. The clunky old tape drives of the past didn't store a lot of data and it would often take multiple tapes to back up important data. Old-school programmers started out as asœtape-apesa doing backups as junior programmers.

Vintage Technologies We No Longer Use

 

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