Old tech found in drawers...

[Otispunkmeyer]

Rooting around for a DVI cable and some kind of adapter I stumbled across this:

Old tech found in drawer by Alex Mason, on Flickr

Its a Palm Zire Z72. I remember having it in my first year at uni and sharing the internet from my PC, via Bluetooth, to this so I could browse the web in bed. It wasn't a particularly good experience, but I did it anyway. Living the dream.

Of course, all completely taken for granted now with the latest smart phones. But this wasn't even all that long ago really, 2004! The iPhone was 2 years away.

Speaking of phones:

Old tech found in drawers! by Alex Mason, on Flickr

My OH's old Sony brick from, I guess, the late 90's/early 00's? Remember there was this one and a flip phone one but the USP was that clicky wheel come jog dial on the side for navigating the menus. Who here can still rattle of a quick SMS with T9?!

In the words of the giant head from Cromulon (Rick and Morty)...."Show me what you got (hiding in your drawers)"

[Otispunkmeyer]

Butter Face said:

That Sony phone was a beauty, I had the later J5 version I think and I remember you could record on it and use the recording as your ringtone!

2000 that phone was introduced!

I had a Siemens M35 (waterproof, shock proof, aerial hidden in the body! No stub!). Bloody excellent. Later on I had a Sony K800i and that easily had to be the best non smart phone I've had. Great screen and a 3.2 mp camera with Zeiss optics and a proper xenon flash (none of the weak ass flashing an led stuff).

[Otispunkmeyer]

thatsprettyshady said:

13 year old me had one of these for about a week until the opening mechanism broke.
13 year old me didn't now anything about warranties or SOGA
13 year old me regretted wasting his savings on that piece of crap

It still boggles my mind how these things just sit in drawers unused now, so much cash spent on bugger all.

I remember saving up and buying the mac daddy MD player from Sony at the time after previously having some chunkier version in a gay purple colour which had a really chunky remote because it contained gubbins for an FM radio.:



That thing was a beauty though.

[Otispunkmeyer]

blueg33 said:

I have one of these on my desk in its docking cradle. Battery is so dead it only works in the cradle. But I still use it occasionally as it allows me to create labels for Christmas card lists very easily on my old XP laptop. It also has a good MP3 player.

When I bought it, it was the very latest gadget. I had previously had the original PalmPilot and then a PalmIII

Now thats a good one. A friend of mine had one in college, proper geek tool.

[Otispunkmeyer]

GCH said:

Disastrous said:

Agreed. I used to love my MD and one of the later ones with Sony's awful software that worked over usb.

I got it just before the rise of the iPod IIRC, and I remember being utterly baffled as to why Sony insisted keeping the software proprietary, so that you had to use it to manage content on the disc. If they had just allowed you to use the disc as effectively a removable drive, and bosh a load of MP3s on to it, I think it would have lasted a lot longer as it was a brilliant format in so many other ways.

MD was a great format, particularly for mobile/location recording.
Sadly, Sonys paranoia about piracy meant you couldn't copy FROM the MD to a computer, even using their own bloody software, meaning recording onto the MD was pointless if you then had to go D->A->D to re-record it just to end up with a file on your computer. On some of the models that had an optical out, it was still a realtime transfer so just as time consuming. Even the really high end professional units had some issues. Their LP2 and LP4 modes were really useful as well for extended time.

Superb little format that could have had a much longer life than it did.

Absolutely. Didn't the later NET-MD models speed the transfer up ? At least computer to MD transfer. I remember using their (awful) Sonic Stage software and with the NET-MD enabled players I am sure it could transfer music much more like you would transfer a data file.

I remember recording Seb Fontaine on Radio 1 and recording Essential Mixes on MD via optical link and using the LP4 feature so I could get a couple of 2 hour mixes on there.

[Otispunkmeyer]

speedchick said:

Not found in a drawer, but yesterday I had some old fella wanting help with his mobile phone, he had a Nokia 3310, and as he hadn't used it for so long it had been cut off, the people in the phone shop had sorted it for him but he couldn't unlock it, so I showed him how to do it and use it. It even said BT Cellnet on the main screen, how far back is that going?

The 3310 was, I think, the new fangled posh thing that started to appear toward the end of my time at secondary (or at least began appearing in peoples hands at school!). Until then the phone I remember everyone having was the the 5110? I think it had removable fascia so you could have different colours. We all remember the 3210/3310 as they appeared without sporting stubby aerials!

[Otispunkmeyer]

SwissJonese said:

Not as old but this still works - old Dell Axim X51, running Microsoft Mobile V5 + BlueTooth & WiFi

Ahh yeah I forgot about these, I got one as an upgrade to the Zire72. Not sure why I still have the Zire but not the Dell Axim. Not sure which model I had but I am sure it was the top one for the time. It was pretty damn sweet! I don't recall ebaying it but I guess I must have!

[Otispunkmeyer]

parabolica said:

If you really want to geek out about old tech I'd recommend checking out LGR's (lazy game review's) Oddware Series playlist on his Youtube channel. The guy collects all sorts of old tech and obsolete equipment and does videos about them. Very entertaining, not least because he has the best made-for-radio voice on all of youtube

Techmoan is also good for old tech particularly old video and music formats. The way he talks though I bet he's a PH'er !