BBC website obsolete technology that's not.
 

Interesting read on the BBC News website re: Obsolete technology that actually is still in use despite on the face of it dead and gone.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-49906336

Re: BBC website obsolete technology that's not.
 

I think I object to being classified as 'elderly and vulnerable' just because I pay my credit card bill with a cheque, given to a real bank cashier.

Re: BBC website obsolete technology that's not.
 

Although I make very little use of cheques for personal payments, they are the easiest way for the club/charity accounts which I administer.

One of these has a passbook account rather than a current account, so cheques require me to take a payment request into the branch for them to issue a cheque (free), but bank transfers are charged £25 a time. No prizes for guessing which option I choose.

Re: BBC website obsolete technology that's not.
 

Club and Church accounts normally require two signatures - although some banks offer online accounts to do this they are still not the norm. This effectively rules out cards and online payments. Our church still uses loads of cheques.

Re: BBC website obsolete technology that's not.
 

I still pay my utility bills by cheque, on the basis that i am helping to keep my local branch open. I would hate the UK to go the way of France, where you can now only find manned banks in the larger towns and cities.

Re: BBC website obsolete technology that's not.
 

I still have a cheque-book - it was issued in 2013 and there are around 20 cheques unused in it.

While I am happy to accept cheques, it often takes me a month or so to get round to paying them in (I've got a few here in need of a paying-in envelope) but for everything else I use cards or electronic transfer, it's so much more convenient.

Re: BBC website obsolete technology that's not.
 

I still have a(rarely used) chequebook, but yesterday I wrote two cheques to send to different people by post as it was the easiest way in the circumstances concerned.

Re: BBC website obsolete technology that's not.
 

The mention of cassette tapes on the BBC website news item was interesting.
Apart from electronics, I also play organ & keyboards. When someone asks me to record just a short piece, I still find it simpler to use either reel-reel or cassette tape, especially if I need to insert a pause.

I have several good quality digital recorders, but they all start new files if 'pause' is pressed, a problem one doesn't have with tape.

I recently did an 'Oral history' recording of a local man from our village, well into his late 90's. I did the first session using a digital machine, & the second using a high-quality cassette recorder.
The second was much easier to deal with in post-production, even though I transferred the completed item onto CD.

So there are still good uses for the older technology, thank goodness! Anyway cassette recorders are modern to me, they were't around when I started work!

I remember seeing my first one at a local Radio wholesalers, I wasn't impressed by the quality at the time, but they improved dramatically over the years. Some of the top-end Teac's were really impressive, & I installed rack-fulls over the years.

David.

Re: BBC website obsolete technology that's not.
 

I'm irritated by the suggestion that anyone who hasn't got the latest equipment has somehow failed at something. 'Resisted' or 'chosen not to' might have been better. When a client's email repeatedly 'failed' to send me an urgent barcode for an impending parcel collection a few weeks ago, it faxed perfectly, and the job was done. Had the fax machine ended up in the skip, we'd have missed a deadline.

Re: BBC website obsolete technology that's not.
 

I had a bad NHS experience with faxes a decade or so back, when 2 fax-pages from someone-else's diagnostics somehow got interleaved with mine.

Thankfully *I* was the one medically-aware-enough to spot the nonsense my GP was talking, and so dodged being subjected to entirely-unnecessary and potentially life-path-altering treatment.

Re: BBC website obsolete technology that's not.
 

We paid our Chimney Sweep with a cheque last month. Still waiting for him to bank it. :beer:

Re: BBC website obsolete technology that's not.
 

As a point of information, cheques seem to be the commonest way of paying for anything here and we have several manned banks although I wouldn't classify Trie sur Baïse as a major town or city by any means. My main objection to paying for things by modern means is that it generally involves the internet. One hack and all your personal information is gone. Even if your favourite website doesn't get hacked the government can get all your information just by asking. Maybe I'm just paranoid. They can probably find out everything about you anyway. Even so, I try to avoid Paypal, Twitface etc, if I can.

Re: BBC website obsolete technology that's not.
 

My local council department takes cheques. I can pay by card but I have to get a reference number from the department first, then go to/phone a completely separate office for them to process the payment.

And I certainly can't use contactless for the office tea swindle.

Re: BBC website obsolete technology that's not.
 

On that basis I've failed at most things.

However, my attitude has allowed me to largely escape the rat race and I regard that as a success! :thumbsup:

Re: BBC website obsolete technology that's not.
 

The premise of the article is things that might SEEM obsolete. Perhaps the correct definition is obsolescent, up to the point where they actually do become obsolete. Even that can be a matter of individual choice as we well know!

Re: BBC website obsolete technology that's not.
 

I recently started using cassettes again to play in the car. Though, like many people, I have a library of music in my phone, it's impossible to use it while driving. I can safely grab a cassette, unbox it and operate the player without taking my eyes and mind off the road, simply because it's such a tactile, physical operation, which no touch screen will ever match!

Chris

Re: BBC website obsolete technology that's not.
 

You're lucky to find a car that still has a cassette-player. They've not been fitted in many cars made this century (my Defender came with one - but that was somewhat rare even back in 2001).

Must admit, I liked the old 1990s-style boot-mounted CD-stackers you could load-up with 6 or 10 discs then drive nonstop from Wiltshire to Edinburgh while enjoying nonstop music.

USB connection and integration with Android/Apple is the default today.

As to cassettes themselves - I used to have a huge collection (nearly 1000) - both pre-recorded and ones I'd recorded myself. When I moved house something like 15 years ago I looked at all these cassettes, realised that I had only listened to half a dozen of the things in the last year (my tastes in music had changed over the last 40 years) so I dumped the lot!

Re: BBC website obsolete technology that's not.
 

I've still got several very large boxes of what's become known as 'An iron mountain'! Nearly all own recordings, in the hope that I will get round to digitising them one day. Mostly of my children, when they were in bands. It's amazing how good they still sound, played back on a professional cassette machine.

David.

Re: BBC website obsolete technology that's not.
 

I notice that postal orders are still extant as a (reasonably) secure fund transfer.

Also notice that the article fails to mention the elephant in the room, possibly for fear of being too intelligent and inaccessible to the multitude- Steam.
Turbines, Turbo-Alternators, Catapults, i think that even the tower-type solar power stations in Spain use steam as a medium to transfer energy down the tower.

Dave

Re: BBC website obsolete technology that's not.
 

Though the "International Reply Coupon" once beloved of ham-radio operators who exchanged QSL-cards internationally seems to have become all-but extinct: UK post-offices stopped selling them at the turn of the decade, citing lack of demand.