21st Century Buggy Whips

[ScottM]

Are pay phones really obsolete? Does everyone have a cellphone?
And the reality is that there are areas of the country without cell coverage.

That is the reality. Those places not covered by cell also are not covered by a pay phone. The revenues generated by payphones has basically become so low that it is not worth the money to maintain a payphone access point.

 

[Pilawt]

Printed telephone directories and "Yellow Pages".

There are four "Yellow Pages" books published in our town and these ya-hoos keep raising our ad rates even though usage of these books is tumbling as people turn to internet searches instead.

Just as rotary phones bit the dust, I expect pushbutton phones will soon be phased out in favor of touch screens.

 

[Flyfishingpilot]

Lightbulb (LED)
Encyclopedia (internet)

 

[tonycondon]

True, but I'd rather buy $20 worth of bearings than a $300 hub.


Trapper John

yea but ive never changed bearings so id have to hire a mechanic to do the bearings, and my hub only costs 120 bucks and i know how to turn a wrench.

 

[Everskyward]

Printed telephone directories and "Yellow Pages".

A couple months ago someone dropped off a load of "Yellow Pages" in our subdivision mailbox structure. They are still lying there.

 

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

yea but ive never changed bearings so id have to hire a mechanic to do the bearings, and my hub only costs 120 bucks and i know how to turn a wrench.

Typically, they have to be pressed out / in of a FWD hub (you need a parts store with machine shop capability). I've had mixed results going that route.

The old stuff you could do with a hammer...

 

[Matthew]

Sorry for starting the whole car repair thing - it's been an expensive last couple of months trying to maintain three cars with >100k miles each. It gets old when you can't just fix or replace a $20 part, you have to swap out a much more expensive module.

---

In my lifetime:

- We used to have milk delivered to the front door on a regular basis when I was a kid.
- Diaper services used to pick up dirty diapers and replace them with clean.
- Mechanical cash registers have given way Point of Sale systems with touchscreens.
- When's the last time anybody saw one of those credit card things with the carbon paper?

 

[ScottM]

yea but ive never changed bearings so id have to hire a mechanic to do the bearings, and my hub only costs 120 bucks and i know how to turn a wrench.

That is a shame as it is all ball bearings these days.

The key is making sure you have properly prepared the Fetxer valve with 3 in 1 oil and gauze pads.

 

[gismo]

Driving or flying commercially.

Teleportation?

 

[gismo]

Fanfold paper (and printers for that).
Punched cards.
Mainframe computers.
Floppy disks.
DIY "tune up kits" for your car.
8 track tapes
Vinyl records.
Cassette tapes.
Laser Video Disks.
Analog TV.
Dialup modems.
Teletypes
WeatherFax
Local FSS
Full service gas (where full service meant cleaning the windshield plus checking tire pressure and oil level.
Classified adds in the newspaper.
Writing checks to pay when shopping.
Guessing "dealer invoice".
Replacing car exhausts every 2-3 years.
Cars that rust out in 3 years.
Buying a new car every 1-2 years.
Home delivery of milk.
Using maps in a car.

 

[vontresc]

Mainframe computers.

don't count ol big blue. The Mainframe is still around, and I think it will stay for quite some time yet. With the newer Z/OS you can run Linux natively on an LPAR. Besides the Mainframe still works extremely well for manipulating large volumes of data.

 

[Keane]

We had a similar conversation (about pay phones) at work not long ago. One of my coworkers asked all of us, when is the last time you've used a pay phone?

As the youngest guy on the team, I've never actually made a call on a pay phone. At the moment, I don't even know where there IS one close to me.

 

[jesse]

LOL. Jesse, for one.

And probably only one

I never thought I'd get one. Now that I have one -- I really like having it.

 

[EdFred]

- When's the last time anybody saw one of those credit card things with the carbon paper?

Last month at an FBO.

 

[EdFred]

That is a shame as it is all ball bearings these days.

The key is making sure you have properly prepared the Fetxer valve with 3 in 1 oil and gauze pads.

eye sea wot ewe did hear.

 

[SkyHog]

Calling cards. Was a time when they were huge. Not so much anymore.

 

[ScottM]

Calling cards. Was a time when they were huge. Not so much anymore.

I still use one for work. Cheaper than using a cellphone sometimes.

 

[wbarnhill]

Calling cards. Was a time when they were huge. Not so much anymore.

Hah... I still remember using the various "10-10" numbers... on our (extremely long) corded phone... to talk to a girl I knew in Kansas.

 

[wbarnhill]

I still use one for work. Cheaper than using a cellphone sometimes.

We use them when we're up at Fontana Village. No cell reception in that area.

 

[ScottM]

We use them when we're up at Fontana Village. No cell reception in that area.

I do a lot of conference calls and it is cheaper to do them from the hotel room phone if I am on the road or my home phone, if working from home, with the calling card than to do them on the cellphone. Not to mention doing on the cellphone can really kill the battery.

 

[Matthew]

Not exactly what Ron was getting at, but:

Lunar rovers (and other lunar landing inventions) - replaced by ... apathy?

 

[jason]

Letter writing (by e-mail/facebook/etc.)

 

[tonycondon]

Letter writing (by e-mail/facebook/etc.)

mostly, although summer before last when Leah worked in the BWCA we spent 3 months writing letters. It was kind of neat in a novelty sort of way.

 

[AdamZ]

Great Thread!

-Dot Matrix Printers
-DF Steering
-Secretarial short hand or steno
-soon News Papers by the internet
-Day planners/Filofax by Computer and cell phone calendars
-tube socks by ankle socks

 

[wbarnhill]

Pilots by UAVs...

 

[michael Killacky]

we had one in our house that i grew up in. i loved it.

When my mom died 5 years ago, I had to ship her leased, rotary wall phone back to Ma Bell or they were gonnna charge something like $200. I figure my folks paid well over $800 for that thing over the course of their lives.

I can still hear the old man telling me, " If anything ever happens to it, Ma Bell has to come out and fix it for free."

Mike

 

[Ted]

Letter writing (by e-mail/facebook/etc.)

My mom and I were having a discussion about this the other day. Back when she was my age (which, suffice it to say was before the days of the internet), she was attempting to make an intercontinental relationship succeed. Not only did the internet not exist back then (at least not for civilians), international phone calls were prohibitvely expensive, and letters had roughly a 10 day turnaround time. It ended up not working out, and she was wondering if things might have turned out differently had she'd had the benefit of the internet. eMails, Skype, etc.

Fast forward [undisclosed number] of years, and you've got me in the internet age. While I've never tried an intercontinental relationship, I've done my share of long distance relationships (I suppose some bad ideas are genetic). Generally, the relationships have relied upon phone and eMail (I haven't gotten into the Skype thing), but have also included writing letters. There's a certain romance about it that's still appealing, even if from a practical standpoint it's not that great.

 

[Areeda]

Loran

Madness, I say. A GPS/Loran unit that used the best available information with the same user interface would be the correct way to do. Satellite and LPV when available (99.9%) and a ground based system to save my bacon in the other 0.1%

Analog watches replaced by digital watches only to be replaced again by analog watches.

with digital internals. This is my preferred watch.

Joe

 

[Ted]

I can still hear the old man telling me, " If anything ever happens to it, Ma Bell has to come out and fix it for free."

My mom has something similar. I'm sure she's pad hundreds of dollars for a $15 phone because of it.

 

[alaskaflyer]

-tube socks by ankle socks

21st century technology?

Besides, ever try to wear ankle socks with ropers?

 

[Maxmosbey]

Dwell meters and timing lights aren't of much use any more.

I set the timing and the mixture on my motorcycle with a laptop.

 

[alaskaflyer]

When my mom died 5 years ago, I had to ship her leased, rotary wall phone back to Ma Bell or they were gonnna charge something like $200. I figure my folks paid well over $800 for that thing over the course of their lives.

I can still hear the old man telling me, " If anything ever happens to it, Ma Bell has to come out and fix it for free."

Mike

In college the hardware store I worked for was still a leasing agent for ATT handsets. Not that long ago - at least that is what I tell myself.

 

[Matthew]

The box of matches on the stove - replaced by pilot lights.

 

[EdFred]

The box of matches on the stove - replaced by pilot lights.

Pilot lights don't start the bonfire in the backyard!

 

[Everskyward]

We had a similar conversation (about pay phones) at work not long ago. One of my coworkers asked all of us, when is the last time you've used a pay phone?

As the youngest guy on the team, I've never actually made a call on a pay phone. At the moment, I don't even know where there IS one close to me.

I was just doing research on AT&T for something totally unrelated and I came across this...

Payphone removal


Empty AT&T payphone booths in Kansas City, KS.

On December 3, 2007, AT&T announced it would remove all of its 65,000 remaining payphones by the end of 2008.[13] BellSouth already had removed its payphones years before being acquired by AT&T, and Qwest sold its pay telephone services in 2004. Verizon Communications will be the only Baby Bell that will continue to operate pay telephones following the removal of AT&T pay telephones,[14] and currently has no interest in leaving the business.[15]

 

[wbarnhill]

I was just doing research on AT&T for something totally unrelated and I came across this...

Yeah, I remember reading something about the drastic reduction in pay phones in places like NYC. Considering how they used to be... just amazing.

 

[Keith Lane]

Oil can spouts. How's that for obscure.

 

[wsuffa]

Analog Radio

Analog TV. Digital radio ain't there yet (if ever).

Fax machines.


Paper road maps.

 

[Geico266]

we had one in our house that i grew up in. i loved it.

My mom still has one.

 

[Geico266]

Certified airplanes (replaced by experimentals )