Once upon a time, before smartphones were everything (and did everything) and all our data was stored in the cloud, tech looked very different – and unsurprisingly, it was a lot more physical. More hardware, generally speaking, and everything was bigger and more clumsy, for lack of a better explanation.
From clunky cassette players to beeping pagers, these old-school gadgets were once cutting-edge, and in many cases, completely essential. At the time, they were mind-blowing feats of technological innovation and they changed our lives in ways that, at the time, we could hardly imagine. They made noise, took up space and often needed a few AA batteries to get through the day.
But, as technology moved on, many of these devices were quietly left behind, collecting dust in cupboards or ending up in car boot sales. Today, most of us have forgotten just how important they used to be (or how much joy they brought, hello Gameboy).
So, we’re going to take a stroll down memory lane and indulge in the nostalgia of our retro past, taking a look at vintage tech gadgets that shaped our daily lives and then vanished, almost without a trace. You might not want them back – I mean, they’re mostly completely superfluous these days – but chances are, at least one will spark a memory.
Here are the top 10 vintage gadgets that are bound to be an absolute blast from the past.
Walkman
When I think of “vintage tech”, one of the first things that comes to mind is the good old Sony Walkman – pretty much the symbol of portable cool in the ’80s.
Launched in 1979, the Walkman allowed you to take your music out into the world – and, on cassette tapes, no less. Whether clipped to your belt or hidden in your backpack, it gave teenagers the power to tune out parents, teachers and the general chaos of life.
Of course, looking at it now, the Walkman may seem big and clunky with its chunky buttons and clacky cassette door – the Walkman wasn’t sleek in any way by today’s standards. But, back in the day, it was revolutionary.
Eventually, the Walkman was replaced by CD players and later MP3s, but even so, it still holds a nostalgic place in the hearts of music lovers. And, for a whole generation, it was freedom with headphones on.
Nintendo Gameboy
Nintendo’s Game Boy hit the scene in 1989, and it completely changed handheld gaming. It wasn’t fancy – just a monochrome screen and a few buttons – but it didn’t need to be.
Known for the likes of “Tetris” (if you haven’t already, watch the movie “Tetris” for some insight into the develop of the Gameboy and just a whole lot of nostalgia), “Super Mario”, “Pokémon” and so much more, the Game Boy had it. Kids played it on school buses, at the dinner table even under the duvet with a dodgy clip-on light.
It ran on AA batteries and was virtually indestructible. Although later consoles added colour and touchscreens, there’s still just something undeniably charming about that green-tinted display. The Game Boy didn’t just entertain, it built an entire portable gaming culture that changed things in the industry (and world) forever.
PalmPilot
Before smartphones ran our lives, there was the PalmPilot. Released in the mid-1990s, this pocket-sized Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) helped busy professionals keep track of calendars, contacts and to-do lists with a stylus and a grey LCD screen – it was the ultimate hack for your classic ’90s businesspeople.
It didn’t make calls or stream music, but it felt wildly futuristic at the time. Businesspeople swore by it, and tech enthusiasts were amazed by the handwriting recognition.
You’d sync it with your PC, carry it in your inside blazer pocket and feel like a full-on CEO. Of course, once smartphones combined all those functions into one sleek device, with Blackberry being the original disruptor (again, watch the movie “Blackberry”), the PalmPilot quietly faded away into history. Still, the PalmPilot walked so the iPhone could run, and there’s no denying that.
Pager
Ah, the pager (or “bleeper”, as your parents/grandparents may remember it) – the original notification tool of the ’90s. It didn’t play games or browse the web, but it buzzed or beeped with short numeric messages or call-back numbers. The pager was a full-on admin and/or business tool, and it was super handy when it first became a thing.
Doctors (yes, I know you’re thinking of “Grey’s Anatomy” and Meredith Grey being paged to the on-call room), delivery drivers and teenagers who wanted to seem important all clipped them to their belts.
At its peak, a pager was a symbol of urgency – if someone paged you, it was probably serious. But, text messaging eventually rendered pagers obsolete, especially as mobile phones became more affordable and just so much better.
Today, they’re mostly seen in retro films or clipped to lab coats in hospital dramas, but once, they were the cutting edge of staying connected.
Floppy Disk
The floppy disk, a relic that seems to be a complete relic, unknown to anyone born after the millennium, was a stiff square that held a grand total of 1.44MB (if you were lucky). Sure, that’s nothing now, but back then, that was pretty decent.
In the ’80s and ’90s, it was the standard way to save documents, install software and transfer files. They came in multiple sizes over the years – 8-inch, 5¼-inch and the classic 3½-inch.
Floppy disks were fragile, easily corrupted and painfully slow, but they were all we had. So, it’s not particularly surprising that once USB sticks and cloud storage took off, floppies were left in the dust. Today, they’re more useful as coasters than data storage, but they laid the groundwork for everything that came after.
And, as a sweet ode to its past prominence, the floppy has somehow become the save icon in most software today.
Dial-Up Modem
That screechy, robotic noise of a dial-up modem connecting to the internet is permanently etched in the brains of anyone who lived through the early 2000s. Never mind the “get off the internet, I want to use the phone” call that most of know all too well.
Using your phone line to connect, these modems were notoriously slow – if someone picked up the landline, your connection would drop. Still, they were our first gateway to the web, opening up worlds of chat rooms, basic websites and painfully slow downloads.
Speeds capped at 56 kbps, but at the time, that was enough to feel revolutionary. Broadband eventually took over, offering always-on, much faster internet, and dial-up modems went the way of the dodo.
Slide Projector
It may be hard to believe now, but back in the day, the slide projector was the star of the show at family gatherings, school presentations and office meetings throughout the second half of the 20th century and even the first decade or so of the 21st.
You’d load up a circular tray of 35mm slides, dim the lights and watch your holiday snaps (or charts or whatever you needed) appear on a white screen with a satisfying click. They weren’t sleek and the bulbs always seemed to blow at the worst time, but there was something kind of magical about the warm, flickering images. It really takes me back to primary school days in the classroom when kids would fight over who got to change the slides during lessons.
But, as digital projectors and laptops took over, the humble slide projector quietly retired and became obsolete, condemned to spending the rest of its days tucked away in store rooms from where they’d never return. But still, if you find one in the attic, it’s worth a nostalgic spin.
VHS Camcorder
Before smartphones and GoPros, there was the VHS camcorder – big, heavy, and often balanced awkwardly on your shoulder. These clunky machines recorded directly onto VHS tapes, which made home videos easy to play back on your TV. They were essential for family holidays, school plays and birthday parties.
Released in the 1980s and booming through the ‘90s, they made everyday people into amateur filmmakers (or so they thought). But they were bulky, batteries didn’t last long and tape quality degraded over time. Once digital camcorders and smartphones came along, the VHS camcorder faded into obscurity at a rate of knots, although your parents probably still have a dusty one in the cupboard along with some cringey videos to go along with it.
Casette
Cassette tapes were a soundtrack to the ’70s through to the early 2000s. Small, portable and recordable, they gave people the power to make their own mixtapes – rom-com-worthy romantic gestures, road trip soundtracks or just taping songs off the radio (complete with DJ chatter).
You had to rewind or fast forward to find the right track, and tapes sometimes got chewed up in your Walkman, but they had a charm you don’t get from digital files. As CDs and digital music took over, cassettes mostly disappeared – but recently, they’ve made a minor comeback among collectors and indie bands for that lo-fi, retro vibe.
Slide Rule
Before calculators (and long before apps), mathematicians, engineers and students used the slide rule. It looks a bit like a ruler with a moving middle section, but it could perform complex calculations like multiplication, division, logarithms and more.
It was actually surprisingly powerful for something completely analogue, and it was an essential tool in most offices and classrooms. Slide rules were a staple in classrooms and labs right up through the 1960s, even used by NASA during the space race.
But, naturally, once pocket calculators became cheap and accurate in the ’70s, slide rules were quickly retired. Still, they remain a fascinating relic of an age when maths meant sliding plastic, not tapping buttons.
