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General Vintage Technology Discussions For general discussions about vintage radio and other vintage electronics etc.

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Old 14th Mar 2018, 3:11 pm   #1
Boater Sam
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Default Bygone Technology and Useless Items.

Thinking of what we all love to repair, preserve, restore, I thought what items of old technology would we not want or be able to restore.
The scrapping of Concorde was possibly the first retrograde development in the history of flight and aeronautic engineering, but given massive resources it could still be flown.
The analogue mobile phone? Is it a completely dead, useless item?
The filament light bulb is going the same way. We seem to have saved the valve for now.
The iron lung, developed for polio victims? Any use now?
Golf ball printers? Mercury barometers? Dolly blue and cream?

What have we left behind in our rush to Armageddon? Anything we should save now?
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Old 14th Mar 2018, 3:24 pm   #2
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Default Re: Bygone Technology and Useless Items.

I'm truly happy to see the back of carbon-paper!

Likewise the nasty 'spirit duplicator' things with type-on-wax stencils that produced copies in purple which got less and less distinct with each copy.

Fax-machines, too. [Though as a just-out-of-university student during an early-1980s postal-strike I made a vast sum of money selling/installing fax-machines to small/medium-sized businesses.]

And finally - the "Rabbit" pseudo-mobile-phone. An idea which was rendered instantly obsolete by proper mobile-phones becoming spectacularly cheap to buy and use.

Last edited by G6Tanuki; 14th Mar 2018 at 3:33 pm.
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Old 14th Mar 2018, 3:30 pm   #3
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Default Re: Bygone Technology and Useless Items.

Wet photo copiers.
The office managers used to complain bitterly if you did not take a book apart to stop the edges wasting toner.
I used to have to wait till the office manager went to lunch before doing a manual.
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Old 14th Mar 2018, 3:58 pm   #4
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Default Re: Bygone Technology and Useless Items.

Although polio is largely a disease of the past, iron lungs are still used for other conditions that paralyse the breathing muscles.
Modern machines are more sophisticated, but the old sort if in working order could still be used.

Filament lamps still work as well as they ever did, but are less used due to the availability of alternatives.
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Old 14th Mar 2018, 4:04 pm   #5
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Default Re: Bygone Technology and Useless Items.

Maplins gift cards! On a more serious note pagers.
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Old 14th Mar 2018, 4:10 pm   #6
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Modern tech. (of any age) is transitory, all we need is a roof, warmth and food.
 
Old 14th Mar 2018, 11:59 pm   #7
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Default Re: Bygone Technology and Useless Items.

Quote:
Originally Posted by G6Tanuki View Post
Likewise the nasty 'spirit duplicator' things with type-on-wax stencils that produced copies in purple which got less and less distinct with each copy.
No, no, no! First period after lunch at secondary school in the early '80's and the teacher had duplicated handouts for the class during the break. The room smelt like a dry cleaners as the still warm, purple, solvent smelling copies were handed out! We all had a good sniff. They were referred to as 'bandas' by the teachers. I still have several school books from the time complete with still readable purple copies! Fantastic invention as was the fax machine!
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Old 15th Mar 2018, 12:20 am   #8
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Polaroid cameras. I have a bolt-on 'scope camera, Polaroid back, I last used in 1996, works very well... except film is not available!
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Old 15th Mar 2018, 12:57 am   #9
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Default Re: Bygone Technology and Useless Items.

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Originally Posted by 1100 man View Post
They were referred to as 'bandas' by the teachers.
Hi Nick
They were referred to as bandas as the trade mark of the manufacturer Block and Anderson was BandA.

Everybody remembers the purple transfer sheets, but the big advantage of the spirit duplicator was that you could also get red and other colour sheets, and at the time it was the only machine that would let you duplicate financial documents which included 'red' figures. The copy quality was rubbish though, after the first few copies.
The fluid came in gallon cans, and was either Methanol or Ethanol, - I cant remember which.
I dont think H & S would stand for that today!

Kind regards
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Old 15th Mar 2018, 1:21 am   #10
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They were referred to as bandas as the trade mark of the manufacturer Block and Anderson was BandA.
Well, well, another mystery solved!! I guess these machines enabled many copies to be made quickly and cheaply. The quality was adequate for class handouts, but sometimes were very feint. I only ever remember seeing purple ones though.
Thanks for the information
All the best
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Old 15th Mar 2018, 2:17 am   #11
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Default Re: Bygone Technology and Useless Items.

The default Banda colour was purple and other colours were "posh" and more expensive.
I worked at a place that had an A1 blueprint copier that used to smell of gun powder in the R&D department. Circuit diagrams were very cumbersome on a single huge sheet.
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Old 15th Mar 2018, 9:04 am   #12
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Default Re: Bygone Technology and Useless Items.

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Filament lamps still work as well as they ever did, but are less used due to the availability of alternatives.
And that lack of availability is going to cause knock-on effects for products that use incandescant lamps as low-power heaters.
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Old 15th Mar 2018, 9:09 am   #13
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Default Re: Bygone Technology and Useless Items.

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Originally Posted by G6Tanuki View Post
the "Rabbit" pseudo-mobile-phone. An idea which was rendered instantly obsolete by proper mobile-phones becoming spectacularly cheap to buy and use.
Presumably, it is still usable as a landline 'phone. I have one as a display-only item, but really ought to power it up to check that is the case.
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Old 15th Mar 2018, 9:43 am   #14
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Default Re: Bygone Technology and Useless Items.

Ammonia "printers". We used them in seismic back in the day. I forget the exact mechanism but it involved the item being developed over an ammonia bath. Very smelly.

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Old 15th Mar 2018, 9:44 am   #15
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Default Re: Bygone Technology and Useless Items.

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Originally Posted by Dave Moll View Post
And that lack of availability is going to cause knock-on effects for products that use incandescent lamps as low-power heaters.
Indeed - I did exactly that while building my workshop; I deliberately bought a 400watt halogen working lamp rather than an LED one.

In twenty years' time, I'll advertise it in the 'For sale' section of the by-then-thriving vintage lighting forum ... Paul & mods, an opportunity here maybe?

Having said that, it may also be that by then, ownership/operation of incandescent lamp equipment will be considered a civil offence, enforceable by ASBO and resulting in a resistance movement ...

... aww, heck ... my coat's zip fastener's stuck again.

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Last edited by Nymrod121; 15th Mar 2018 at 9:50 am. Reason: cynical SoB mode
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Old 15th Mar 2018, 10:20 am   #16
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Default Re: Bygone Technology and Useless Items.

How about dot-matrix printers?

Very noisy things for which soundproof enclosures were available. These made useful cold frames for use in the garden once laser printers came along.
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Old 15th Mar 2018, 10:25 am   #17
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Default Re: Bygone Technology and Useless Items.

Quote:
Originally Posted by 1100 man View Post
Well, well, another mystery solved!! I guess these machines enabled many copies to be made quickly and cheaply. The quality was adequate for class handouts, but sometimes were very feint. I only ever remember seeing purple ones though.
Thanks for the information
Your school seemed to do a better job than mine. Perhaps they had better quality machines, serviced them more regularly or replenished supplies more often? Ours were often barely readable when new and quite unreadable by the end of the course when required for revision.
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Old 15th Mar 2018, 10:54 am   #18
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Default Re: Bygone Technology and Useless Items.

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Ammonia "printers". We used them in seismic back in the day. I forget the exact mechanism but it involved the item being developed over an ammonia bath. Very smelly.
Yes, a Diazo copier - my late father's company had several, used to copy the enormous engineering-drawings churned out by the drawing-office in the 1960s and 1970s.

It [and the department that ran it] was known as Ozalid, as in "take this third-angle projection over to Ozalid and get me two copies, will you?"

Only copies were ever allowed to go out to the pattern-maker or machine-shop: the originals had to stay in the drawing-office or the fireproof store-room.

The condensed ammonia from the machine was saved, and the cleaners would use it on the canteen floor!
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Old 15th Mar 2018, 11:16 am   #19
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Default Re: Bygone Technology and Useless Items.

Regarding Banda, my word-association leads me to NIG-Banda and then NIG-Mason. I think these must have been associated companies or later incarnations of the original. All dissolved now I think.

Dot matrix printers still used for multi-sheet printouts at tyre dealers and builders' merchants.

Squarials(?)

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Old 15th Mar 2018, 11:23 am   #20
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Default Re: Bygone Technology and Useless Items.

You probably need to differentiate between bygone technology and useless items.

Filament bulbs may be bygone technology, but can still be used as originally intended. Likewise AVOs, valve radios and much else. I have a Psion 3 (several!) pocket computer from 1995 which I use every day, and a HP 95lx from the same era which is a fantastic calculator, especially for finance calculations (e.g. TVM with all variables visible), but a laptop from a decade later is almost as useless as an analogue mobile phone.

Then I suppose there are things like a Model T Ford, which can be used, but are not really an everyday "go to" item. I won't mention 405 line tellies on this forum. Oh b****r.
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