I don’t mean BETTER. That’s a different conversation. I mean cooler.
An old CRT display was literally a small scale particle accelerator, firing angry electron beams at light speed towards the viewers, bent by an electromagnet that alternates at an ultra high frequency, stopped by a rounded rectangle of glowing phosphors.
If a CRT goes bad it can actually make people sick.
That’s just. Conceptually a lot COOLER than a modern LED panel, which really is just a bajillion very tiny lightbulbs.
LED panel, which really is just a bajillion very tiny lightbulbs.
It is not, but for the sake of the argument it’s ok.
The phones with the internal hidden camera, I was sure it would be the future
https://www.91mobiles.com/list-of-phones/pop-up-camera-phones
Toasters. Specifically the Sunbeam Radiant Control toaster, with the tag line “Automatic Beyond Belief!”. There is a fan site (https://automaticbeyondbelief.org/, excellent url). Like, what other appliance line has a fan site? Surely no modern day toaster!
But of course I first heard about it from Technology Connections video.
The original tv remote didn’t use batteries. It used sound. Giant clunky devices with large tactile buttons. Never runs out of batteries and still works if your kid tries to block the screen to keep you from turning it off
Ice. As time has gone by, it has become less cool.
Before transistors there were vacuum tubes which did the same thing but using very different principles (and were also way bigger, even than traditional transistors and billions of times more than the transistors in the most modern ICs)
Before electric milling or even steam milling, flour used to be milled using watermills and windmills which, IMHO, are way cooler.
The internet
This may not apply, (as I know I’m simply saying a commercial product got worse as it had revisions) but Jawbone’s first earbud/headset used a small rubber conductor to evaluate skull vibration for noise canceling ( and likely there was some ANC using incoming mic audio from external sources). They continued to include a rubber bumper but I think the device leaned more on incoming audio from mics rather than from the rubber bumper. The oldest device presented the best noise canceling even after 3 product changes. I used every version until they stopped making headsets. I miss my Jawbone. I still have my OG.
Oh man…I have an entire ten page paper on the go about this topic and it just keeps growing. One day I’ll publish it in a blog or something, but for now it’s just me vomiting up my thoughts about mass market manufacturing and the loss of zeitgeist.
The examples that I always use are a) Camera Lenses, b) Typewriters, and c) watches.
Mechanical things age individually, developing a sort of Kami, or personality of their own. Camera lenses wear out differently, develop lens bokehs that are unique. Their apertures breath differently as they age No two old mechanical camera lenses are quite the same. Similarly to typewriters; usage creates individual characteristics, so much so that law enforcement can pinpoint a particular typewriter used in a ransom note.
It’s something that we’ve lost in a mass produced world. And to me, that’s a loss of unimaginable proportions.
Consider a pocket watch from the civil war, passed down from generation to generation because it was special both in craftsmanship and in connotation. Who the hell is passing their Apple Watch down from generation to generation? No one…because it’s just plastic and metal junk in two years. Or buying a table from Ikea versus buying one made bespoke by your neighbour down the street who wood works in his garage. Which of those is worthy of being an heirloom?
If our things are in part what informs the future of our role in the zeitgeist, what do we have except for mounds of plastic scrap.
Cars used to be cool. Every car company had some kind of sporty car, a couple cheap cars, a big luxury sedan and, a while ago, a station wagon.
Now every car is an SUV or CUV. Sedans are getting phased out. Cool sports cars don’t make money so they don’t make them. People don’t buy station wagons so they don’t make them. And they’re pushing big, angry trucks on everyone.
The engine compartment of a really old car, say pre-1970s, is almost comically empty. Anything newer has so many ducts and hoses you can’t see the ground.
I’d take it even further: Cars used to be cool - in the 50s to late 60s. Modern cars look so bloody bland in comparison. I’m sure there were duds as well, but the models that show up in period pieces look way cooler than anything we have today.
I’m tired of fuckin hatchbacks, I just want a regular car, not an SUV, not a truck, just, a fucking car car.
Sedan or coupe?
I mean really I’d prefer a four door but more for carrying… A little more stuff? I don’t know, I really want a Rivian but they’re like 80k and all.
I mostly want a four door so I can throw shit in the back.
I’d like it if hatchbacks could be hot again and not SUVs. Ford Focus, VW Golf, those sorts of things.
That’s all well and good if you want one.
I want a plug-in hybrid, and almost every option is either unflattering or expensive https://www.caranddriver.com/features/g15377500/plug-in-hybrid-car-suv-vehicles/
I think that some of that is fuel efficiency requirements forcing convergence.
The sedan thing weirded me out too – I mean, when I think of a “car”, I think of a sedan – but as I understand from reading, that related to people wanting larger maximum cargo space in the car, like if they had to shove a piece of furniture or something in it. I’m in the sedan camp – in the very rare case that I need to move something really large, I’m just gonna U-Haul it. But I can at least understand the concern people have.
The truck and generally-large vehicle thing, I think, related to a combination of:
-
The chicken tax. American auto manufacturers have a 25% protective tariff covering the “light truck” class, making it much more profitable for domestic sales.
-
Fuel efficiency exemptions granted that class (which I suspect may have something to do with regulations resulting from lobbying from said manufacturers and them having incentives surrounding the above chicken tax).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy
CAFE standards signaled the end of the traditional long station wagon, but Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca developed the idea of marketing the minivan as a station wagon alternative, while certifying it in the separate truck category to allow compliance with less-strict CAFE standards. Eventually, this same idea led to the promotion of the SUV.[106][107]
The definitions for cars and trucks are not the same for fuel economy and emission standards. For example, a Chrysler PT Cruiser was defined as a car for emissions purposes and a truck for fuel economy purposes.[2] Under then light truck fuel economy rules, the PT Cruiser had have a lower fuel economy target (28.05 mpg beginning in 2011) than it would if it were classified as a passenger car.
-
High American towing requirements. That is, American vehicles have far more restrictive towing requirements than in most other countries – you need a larger vehicle to legally tow a given load than in many other countries. I suspect that the regulations may also have something to do with American automakers lobbying for protective regulation; it pushes American consumers to buy from that protected class of vehicles.
Long story short – I think that you can probably chalk a lot of that up to rent-seeking out of Detroit.
Fuel economy is ruining the sedans and wagons that still exist. Volvos are getting really long and really wide, because CAFE standards take to the area underneath the wheelbase into account, and the bigger that is the less economical they have to be.
I’ve got a 2015 v60 and while I like the new ones they’re just too damn wide and long.
The length I figure mostly isn’t an issue aside from maybe street parking. But the width thing seems like a hassle.
I drive a (by American standards) narrow sedan, but I have to say that I keep seeing people have trouble getting out of their cars in older parking lots because there isn’t enough clearance between two wide vehicles. Lot of people just lapping over two slots or avoiding parking next to another car.
I suppose that some of that is self-solving – I mean, if there’s enough inertia, parking lot operators will reallocate space in their lots. Or maybe vehicle manufacturers will step in and minivan-style sliding doors will just become the norm (like a two “sliding door coupe”, maybe?)
I’d rather just have either (a) the protectionism go away, or (b) if that’s not possible for political reasons, at least slash the misincentives associated with it. Just outright say “if it’s an American-made vehicle, it gets a subsidy” if that’s what industrial policy actually is. All of the associated regulatory stuff is creating inefficiencies of its own.
I’ve got a house built in the 70s and a new Volvo wagon won’t fit lengthwise in it without gutting the garage.
Meanwhile my GTI can fit in front of my workbench with almost six feet to spare.
Oh, good point, hadn’t thought about the changes to garages over time. Hmm.
-
This, so much this. As a car enjoyer, seeing cars slowly mutate into giant bloated expensive iPads on wheels is painful. I don’t want to buy any car made past 2010 and I know that won’t be a viable option soon.
In the last episode of The Grand Tour Clarkson said that he’s done with cars because they’ve become appliances, and it’s no fun reviewing microwaves.
And we can’t get small trucks due to a loophole in EPA regulations. I just want something like an old-school Ranger, light, easy on gas, two jump seats in the back for the kids.
The old Ford Rangers were definitely not easy on gas, and those back seats were extremely unsafe. But we could absolutely have trucks that size now that are fuel efficient and safer, and I would buy one in a heart beat. Hell, I tried to buy a Maverick but it’s been impossible every year and now they don’t even come with the hybrid drivetrain standard so I’ve lost interest.
Compared to any of the bigger trucks of the dame vintage? They were cheaper on gas
Alternately, I’d take an El Camino.
Fuck yeah, I’d love an El Camino
People don’t buy station wagons so they don’t make them.
Hatchbacks are just renamed station wagons. Change my mind.
I’d say a hatchback is a sedan with the trunk/boot removed, while a station wagon has the trunk/boot extended to the roofline. Hatchbacks would end up shorter than the sedan or wagon version of cars.
I do think that branding is also a factor. I remember once reading something saying that that people who get married and have kids and need a family vehicle don’t like driving what their parents drive, that it’d be boring and stodgy. So avoiding the station wagon that their parents drove, the next generation drove minivans. The next generation avoided their parents’ minivan, and drove SUVs. The next generation avoided SUVs and drove hatchback CUVs.
They all kinda fill the same role, as a large enclosed vehicle with a fair bit of cargo space accessible via a rear door.
Here’s a generation-old article from when SUVs were the hot item on the way in:
For a period starting in the early 1980s, when Chrysler couldn’t make enough Caravans and Voyagers, the minivan was a suburban status symbol. Baby Boomers claimed it as their preferred mode of family transportation, replacing the stalwart station wagon that had dominated for decades. Nearly every auto maker added a minivan to its line, and the category topped the auto sales charts throughout most of the ’90s.
Times have changed. Boomer offspring have grown up and out of their car seats and started driving their own cars. More and more moms, notably those from the older end of Generation X, are working. Sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) are all the rage in suburbia, with many a maturing mom abandoning her minivan, opting for liberating style over utilitarian substance. Along the way, the minivan has developed a stigma, and now brands its owner as pragmatic and sensible – not to mention a little bit square.
“Minivans are out of favor,” says Gordon Wangers, managing partner of Automotive Marketing Consultants Inc., Vista, CA. “Many former minivan moms wouldn’t be caught dead in a minivan [now]. They want an SUV. It’s a major trend that will not go away.”
I think it also has to do with the population getting older and fatter. People aren’t able to get into and out of traditional sedans anymore, so they need something with more ride height.
That would explain why station wagons didn’t come back into fashion.
Pop up headlights! Way cooler that way. I’ve heard a couple reasons given for why they stopped being a thing, but one of them is that they were considered too unsafe for pedestrians-
Which is a fucking crazy though when you consider what we now blindly accept in automotive design with respect to pedestrian safety 😅
The internet?
Web 1.0 and even before was way cooler than this corpo bullshit web we have now.
The technology behind telecommunication.
Today everything happens inside your router, fast and silent. My father was a telecommunications engineer. When I was a amall boy (late 1980s) he once took me to his workplace (it was in the evening and he was supposed to troubleshoot). What today fits onto a few silicone chips inside a router took much more space back them.
I was in a room that was filled with several wardsobe-sized cabinets. Inside there were hundreds of electro-mechanical relays that were in motion, spinning and clicking, each time someone in the city dialed a number (back then rotary phones were quite common). It was quite loud. There also was a phone receptor inside one of the cabinets where one could tap into an established connection, listening into the conversation two strage people had (it was for checking if a connectiion works).
I still remeber the distinct “electrical” smell of that room (probably hazardous vapors from long forbidden cable insulation and other electrical components).
So when you dialed a number at one place with your rotary phone, you were able to move some electro-mechanical parts at another place that could be located somewhere else around the globe (hence long distance calls).
I’ve got another one: Airplanes.
There used to be crazy designs and a lot of variation between planes. Tandem seats, swing wings, dual tailplanes, gull wings, all sorts of crazy design choices side by side. Even commercial airplanes had lots of variation. Trijets with tail stairs, engines embedded in the wing roots.
Planes now all sort of look the same. Every fifth generation fighter looks the same. Granted, this is because they’re hitting physical constraints of aerodynamics and stealth, but that limits the creativity of the designers.
I MISS CLEAR COMPUTERS >:(
I mean LOOK AT IT it’s so much cooler than just a box!
The SteamDeck community has been cooking with some clear cases which I would buy if I didn’t have to risk breaking my beloved $500 indie machine.
I miss plastic electronics. Oddly enough glass and metal feel more fragile.
HTC knew what was up with the HTC One series. Their polycarbonate bodies felt Nintendo 64 controller levels of durable.
I’ve got a drawer that has a stack of my old phones and devices in it. Among them is the CD MP3 player I’ve had since high school. It’s 24 years old, made entirely of plastic, it followed me all the way through high school and part of the way through college, and it’s in perfect working condition and bears only light scuffs. It might be my midlife crisis coming on but I’m tempted to start using the thing again instead of my smart phone. My PC tower has a 5 1/4" bay, I’m tempted to install an optical drive in it.
I still move a 5.25" Blu Ray writer drive between machines. Just in case I want to rip or watch an old bluray.
Without it, we have to sit.and wait for the dusty Xbox One to update just so it let’s us play a bluray.
The Xbox One is so fantastically bad, the only reason it’s not in the garbage is because it’s not mine and the SO wants to save it
YEYEYEYEYEYEYE
One of my dream projects would be to get a dead iMac G3 and make a modern-day sleeper build inside it. It was honestly the COOLEST a computer has EVER looked.
I bought the translucent nitro purple back plate. Very easy to install.
YOOOOO that purple one! I wonder how hard it would be to do this to mine… time to add this to the Christmas list lol
best of luck! the one in the photo is from the company JSAUX but I don’t know much about it, just thought it looked pretty
