Dead and dying technologies

[KennyR]

Times are changing faster than ever, and old technologies that have only just reached their pinnacle are being replaced. The technologies I grew up with are disappearing. I'll list a few of the more major ones.

The LP: I still remember vinyl records, I'm ashamed to say. The CD format is technically far superior and offers stereo, but some music conniseurs believe that CD sound is flat and soulless (that's more do to with the added harmonics of the LP needle than the reproduction of the music itself). But for all intents and purposes, LP is dead.

The audio tape: Crackly, fuzzy, mono, and offering less quality than radio, audio tapes are hardly ever used any more except for recording, and digital is replacing them there too.

The floppy disk: Standard 1.44 Mb but actually capable of around twice that, floppies just don't hold anything near the space we need today. Flash cards, USB sticks and packet-writing CD writer software have made them obsolete. Many PCs now are not sold with a floppy drive at all.

The incandescent bulb: being slowly replaced by fluorescents, LEDs and HID bulbs, all of which are much more efficient and last longer. The incandescent will stay for a while longer because it's so cheap and it still hasn't been matched in high output applications, but it's day is coming fast.

The CRT screen: cathode ray tube technology is under attack by LCD, TFT and plasma screens, all of which offer better compactness, efficiency, and visual quality. The CRT is likewise still around because its cheap. Expect to see it disappear totally within the next 10 years.

The VCR: betamax gets its eventual revenge. Digital is pushing this old analogue magnetic tech out of our lives after less than 15 years of popularity. Many stores have stopped selling VCRs totally and most movies are released only on DVD. We still lack a format to record as easily as VCRs did, but dvd-recorders and hd-recorders are making leaps and bounds.

Analogue broadcasts: Although they'll still be around a long time to come, analogue TV, satellite and radio transmissions are slowly in the way out, actually more for reasons of air bandwidth than the superior quality.

There's some of the technologies I've known in my lifetime that are now gone or swiftly on their way out.

Can anyone think of any more technologies that have been around for ages but that we're likely to see disappear in less than a decade?

[Cymric]

In a decade, now that's tough. I can think of a few which are definitely on their way out, though:

The compass --- to be replaced with the GPS/Galileo receiver. Doesn't suffer from magnetic declination effects. And works anywhere on Earth. Is still impossible to beat in terms of price and simplicity, which secures its use for a good many years yet.

The barometer for altitude measurement --- also to be replaced with the GPS/Galileo receiver. Doesn't suffer from weather conditions which require frequent calibration.

Penicillin --- thanks to sloppy prescription and use, bacteria have become more and more resistent to it. Superbugs which are nigh impossible to kill are appearing all over the world.

Any type of battery save very small or specialised ones --- to be replaced with fuel cells.

Hydrocarbon fuel --- to be replaced with hydrogen fuel. Is a very slow, expensive transition, but it will eventually happen.

The Amiga --- overpriced, underpowered. 'Nuff said.

[Karlos]

The sinclair ZX spectrum. Within a decade, I won't be able to find the parts needed to keep mine in working order :-(


;-)

[X-ray]

Conventional film cameras (and X-ray film too)

[KennyR]

Have they invented digital X-ray sensor cells?

[KennyR]

Cymric wrote:
Penicillin --- thanks to sloppy prescription and use, bacteria have become more and more resistent to it. Superbugs which are nigh impossible to kill are appearing all over the world.

Penicillin actually became useless around the late 60s thanks to mass perscription for every single ailment in the 50s. These days pharmasists use different penicillin derivatives and augmenting additives. Ever heard of augmentin, potassium clavulanate? It blocks the enzyme that bacteria use to protect themselves against penicillin. Once it's no longer effective they'll design others. The chemical war against bacteria will probably go on forever...

[Cass]

Innovation is good. Go for the new stuff!
________
Pov fantasy

[Vincent]

KennyR wrote:
The LP: I still remember vinyl records, I'm ashamed to say. The CD format is technically far superior and offers stereo, but some music conniseurs believe that CD sound is flat and soulless (that's more do to with the added harmonics of the LP needle than the reproduction of the music itself). But for all intents and purposes, LP is dead.

:-o Ashamed?  I'm proud to remember vinyl! :-D

The sound is not just to do with harmonics, but also the facts that music nowadays has the very top and bottom frequencies shaved off to get rid of the hiss.  You lose some of the original music when they do that.

I can never listen to Metallica's Fade to Black on CD (and it's not due to a bad transfer - the remastered versions are just as bad) because some of the sounds are missing or a hell of a lot quieter.

And vinyl isn't dead, it's just hard to find :-P

[Karlos]

Laser vinyl players have a sound quality (frequency range, power distribution, harmonic distortion etc) so far in excess of CD it's comical.

Those things really play exactly what was recorded - the only artifacts you hear are whatever the recording arm produced.

Let's be honest about it; CD audio sucks really. 16-bit is not enough resolution when dealing with logarithmic data and 44.1kHz is only just enough to satisfy the shannon-hartley rules for human hearing. They have to filter it with a 22kHz cutoff before they can digitize the sound reliably otherwise you get artifacts etc that are the bane of digital recording.

Compare CD audio to 96kHz 24-bit audio on high end systems and you will the difference. Laser vinyl sounds much more comparable to the latter ;-)

[Cymric]

The idea is to keep on forcing people to buy the same music over and over again. Unfortunately, once the 96 kHz, 24-bit music makes its entry in the living room, there is no need any longer for further improvement: humans simply can't hear any better. (Some people claim that they do, well, some people claim to have been abducted by aliens too :-).) Besides, if you look at the utter crap (amplifier, speakers) people use to listen to their CDs, you can really, really wonder what good encoding at the higher frequency range will do. Then there is the problem of the acoustic properties of the room, and so on, and so forth.

So I think the recording industry will continue to sell lots of CDs for quite a while yet :-).

[Dan]

@ Karlos
And thats not even mentioning that with a optical pickup you can play even old broken stonecakes. Swedish radio bought a pair of advanced swiss recordplayers just for that.

[Dan]

KennyR wrote:
The floppy disk: Standard 1.44 Mb but actually capable of around twice that, floppies just don't hold anything near the space we need today. Flash cards, USB sticks and packet-writing CD writer software have made them obsolete. Many PCs now are not sold with a floppy drive at all.

It was the USB-memory that finally did it.

The CRT screen:.

Forgot OLED that is gonna take away the last advantages of CRT brigthness and angel.

The VCR:

It gets integrated to a computer system. Because frankly harddiskrecorders is expensive and cheap dvd-recorders is crap.

Analogue broadcasts:

"Silent keys" in CB-amateur magazines. Analog is literaly dying.

Can anyone think of any more technologies that have been around for ages but that we're likely to see disappear in less than a decade?

The CD-ROM: It´s in the same position floppys was a few years ago, around only because it´s bootable.

The oilburning boiler:Its too expensive. And it´s not becoming cheaper..
The electrical home heating:It´s already dead.
3G mobiles:People like mobiles with actual coverage :lol:

[X-ray]

@ Kenny

"...Have they invented digital X-ray sensor cells?..."

Yes, they have. The first such unit I used was in 1996 here in London. It was a charged selenium drum, the surface charge of which was altered by the X-rays that had passed through the patient. A set of brushes then 'reads' the charge difference and maps it out digitally. That DICOM image goes straight to a dry laser printer.

These days: we have other detectors, some semi-flexible in casssette form (you can even do portable X-rays with them) and others are rigid trays that are housed in couch and wall-mounted X-ray units.
Thus you can have an entire hospital that is filmless, which means you don't need a darkroom, or any processing chemicals at all. The Hammersmith Hospital in London has been filmless for almost 7 years. The radiographs are now stored on a computer database instead of hardcopy films being stored in a filing room.

This also means that you can have a chest X-ray done at one of these facilities with digital imaging and the radiograph can be reported by the radiologist at home (over the net) or even a specialist overseas.

[that_punk_guy]

McCain's Micro-Chips.

[Vincent]

that_punk_guy wrote:
McCain's Micro-Chips.

:lol:
Are they going to be replaced with real cardboard? ;-)