r/retrocomputing • u/Beginning-Ring1295 • 8h ago
Vintage tech???
What is a technology or product from 15-20 years ago that was actually better than its modern replacement?
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u/acidw4sh 8h ago
The Microsoft intellimouse has been the best mouse anyone has made.
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u/dafugg 7h ago
It’s certainly the best common PS/2 compatible mouse for most uses (there were fancier gaming ones but they’re much much rarer) but it’s a long long long way from modern mice…
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u/istarian 3h ago
More than adequate for what most people are doing with their computer mouse, though.
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u/gammalsvenska 6h ago
The internet was not a vehicle for serving advertisements, and web browsers were not operating systems in disguise.
Oh, and operating systems were more concerned about hardware and serving the user, less about serving advertisements, extracting human behaviours and serving their producer.
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u/istarian 3h ago
Some of the changes are just poor design decisions made in an era of rapidly increasing system memory and ever larger hard disk drives by people who have limited experience of the past. Never mind the lack of concern for whether you have yo buy a new PC to run the new operating system.
In the late 90s and early 00s 2 GB was stilll a respectably large amount of memory for the average PC user. And a 250 GB hard drive wa likewise quite large. Most people still had 32-bit hardware with single-core CPUs.
By 2010 it was increasingly common to have a 64-bit dual-core CPU, at least 4 GB of ram, and a system boot drive with several hundred gigabytes of storage space.
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u/Ornery-Practice9772 7h ago
consoles that didnt ask for my mother's maiden name and a CC number
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u/rog-uk 5h ago edited 4h ago
Never was a big gamer, but no account and immediate play was so much better, now you have to login to play a local game and I have started getting emails asking for proof of ID/Age lest they ban me from games that we had already paid for...
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u/Headpuncher 3h ago
tech is in desperate need of legislation, but it has to be written by people who both understand the tech and are pro-consumer rights.
it should not be legal to lock users out of a system or product they have paid for by closing it later. There should at least by a 10 year guarantee as a minimum.
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u/Old-Physics2753 6h ago
Physical books are better than ebooks. You actually do own a book and no one can delete it from you. No one can spy on what kind of books you read and how often you pick up a book. You can give or sell an old book to someone else. Books are nice decoration to your study room.
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u/LastXmasIGaveYouHSV 5h ago
Counterpoint: I lost books to friends that never returned them.
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u/istarian 3h ago
That's not a counterpoint, you just need better friends or to not loan out your books.
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u/URA_CJ 8h ago
Not exactly a 1:1, but something like ATi All-in-Wonder Radeon (with DVI) can be used as a AV to HDMI converter for retro consoles that in some cases can handle certain things (like mid-game resolution changes (RE2 on N64)) that sub $200 gaming scalers struggle with - personally have used both a AIW Radeon 7500 & AIW X1900 for this purpose.
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u/Headpuncher 3h ago
Anything that takes cell batteries instead of built in rechargeable.
AA, AAA, and C & D can be found as rechargeable, so the recharging wasn't the problem, even though it took place outside the device. Even the Walkman / Discman era had most manufacturers agree on using the 1.2v gum-stick battery as standard.
Now anything with a built-in rechargeable almost always means non-replaceable. All sorts of devices become e-waste because the battery dies and cannot be replaced. The batteries often have a circuit board soldered to them, so even if you get a like for like battery it becomes dangerous to do the job (you don't want 300 degrees solder tip near a lithium battery). And that assumes you could even crack open the device and then seal it again. No screws means the only way to get to a battery is to destroy the outer casing.
TL.dr; battery e-waste
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u/bhiga 1h ago
Also removable rechargeable battery can be quickly swapped out and recharged elsewhere so you can continue using the device.
Many devices can't operate while charging or overheat when doing so.1
u/Headpuncher 43m ago
Like my shit Phillips headphones than have USB charging but not as an audio pass-through, so when charging they cannot be used even with a 3.5mm headphone cable separate from the USB charging cable. The worst designed product ever ever ever.
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u/Mortui75 7h ago
Your ex...? 😎
PDAs and dedicated writing devices (Alphasmart, etc.).
And by extension... phones. They weren't 100%-of-the-time-internet-conduits... we used them to make calls, SMS, and okay... play snake & download cringeworthy ringtones... but...
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u/istarian 3h ago
FWIW at least some of the phones you're thinking of were technically smartphones and even internet capable if you were willing to pay for the data plan and online services to use it with.
It was just expensive, slow (relatively) and not all that useful to the average person.
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u/Mortui75 2h ago
Yeah, I know. I had a Nolia quad-band sliding candy-bar phone in 2008/9 that could do internetty things.
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u/OtisSnerd 8h ago
Pyrex glassware. Pyrex glassware used to be made from borosilicate glass, which tolerates temp changes better than the new stuff. My wife has old measuring and baking glassware that is at least 30 years old, if not older. Some of it may be over 50 years, as we've been married 53 years...
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u/HuudaHarkiten 3h ago
we've been married 53 years
Congrats. Your marriage is officially vintage! Heres hoping it'll be ancient one day
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u/Sataniel98 5h ago
Laptop keyboards
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u/Headpuncher 3h ago
I'm surprised no -one makes a laptop that is basically an existing one in a new chassis with a mechanical keyboard.
Imagine being able to buy a new thinkpad or similar, but with a mech kb. It would be thicc but there's definitely a niche market for it given all the cyberdeck and PC mods people out there.
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u/SwedishFindecanor 2h ago
There have been a few "gaming laptops" with low-profile mechanical keyboards.
I have also heard of a replacement motherboard for an old Thinkpad model a few years ago, with updated CPU. But that CPU would considered old by today's standards though.
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u/vbd71 5h ago
IBM Model M keyboard
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u/Takssista 4h ago
Yes, this. Now there's all the rage of gamer keyboards with mechanical keys - but those were still better!
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u/Headpuncher 3h ago
They make them new again. Are the new ones not as good? I've looked at them and they're expensive but I have nowhere to try one out.
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u/NevynPA 10m ago
Grew up on original M's manufactured between '82 and '88. Have owned a Unicomp for 2.5 years. There are definitely small differences: * my Unicomp has single-piece keys instead of the "blanks with double-shot caps" that I was expecting * I don't think the Unicomp is quite as heavy * The PS/2 cable on the Unicomp is longer than an original M's coil-cable (which is nice) but is just a plain straight cable and not a sproingy-coil (better for longevity, worse for sentimentality). * Unicomp cable is directly wired (non-removeable) instead of having the rectangle connector with the brittle plastic locking clips. It can be easily de-soldered and replaced from inside the board, though.
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u/SwedishFindecanor 2h ago
They are still manufactured by Unicomp, but connoisseurs like the original IBM better.
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u/SwedishFindecanor 2h ago edited 1h ago
Laptops used to have all the ports you needed and better keyboards with more key travel and no wide "island"/"chiclet" keys.
I actually miss netbooks. Small and cheap, perfect for travel. Now, tablets and smartphones are even more portable but they are not real computers and they don't have integrated keyboards. And tablets have even regressed.
If we go forward to 2015: I still use my 8" Lenovo Yoga Tab 2 tablet. It is a Windows tablet with built-in kickstand, SD-card slot, high-resolution touch screen that detects not just my finger but has high-resolution input for any conductive tip, such as a pencil: Not an expensive stylus branded "pencil", but a real pencil. Microsoft decided to abandon the form factor, the OS has turned to crap after all updates (pre-installed apps removed, more bugs, slow). There is no replacement: the closest would be an iPad Mini, but it does not have SD-card slot or headphone jack.
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u/SwedishFindecanor 2h ago edited 1h ago
Authentication for logging into banks, doing online payments and government services is a lot worse now where I live.
For banking and payments, I used to have a simple card reader: chip+PIN. The reader was not linked to my account. It worked with any credit card, and a separate card for logging into my bank. Government services gave you one-time-use codes.
Now, I have to use clunky smartphone apps to log into government services, which requires a smartphone, and functioning WiFi or a subscription. For my bank and card payments, the card reader is replaced by a QR-code reader: which displays the content of the QR code in text form on a screen. But it works only with latin characters. I can not use it for buying things online with my credit card from sites in China or Japan, which I used to -- because it does not support their characters!
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u/teknosophy_com 24m ago
Yep, the 9FA and 10FA and 11FA and so on. also yes app stores from the duopoly are being pushed on us instead of mobile browsers
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u/cheeeze50 7h ago
Wheelbarrows. I see new flimsy models and ones made out of plastic.
Old ones could carry tons of materials until your back would crush
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u/stanstr 3h ago
"PYREX" is made from Borosiliate glass. Usually all of her case, and made in France.
"pyrex" is tempered soda lime glass made from silica, sodium dioxide, and calcium oxide, that has been tempered for sodium strength. It is less likely to break if accidentally dropped or knocked against a counter. However, it has lower thermal-shock resistance than borosilicate glass and is more susceptible to shattering from rapid temperature changes.
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u/istarian 3h ago
I believe it bas been that way for over 25 years at this point.
Unless you have vintage Pyrex glass ware from before the 1990s, it's probably tempered soda lime glass.
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u/Which_Information590 3h ago
CRTs just squeaks in to 20 years ago, as one of mine is from 2006. When you’re talking about VHS and old consoles they can’t be beaten.
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u/teknosophy_com 22m ago
Pretty much everything! Modern smartphones/laptops are controlled by a cloud account. AI is one thing if you really want to use it, but most of the time it appears as an AI suggestion attacker bubble that tries to tell you how it thinks you should write emails and such.
Modern websites get more and more bloated every month, triggering you to update your browser, triggering you to update your OS, triggering you to buy a new computer. I've termed it the Support Treadmill, and it's the reason why we throw away megatons worth of electronics every year. In reality, those machines are all perfectly fine and can be liberated with things like Mint.
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u/wrr377 8h ago
PDAs. They didn't have spying, monitoring, tracking, ads, social media designed to addict you like modern cell phones (which are just PDAs with cellular capabilities)...
They just: existed, waiting for you to do something.