
Extinct tech you forgot existed - astdb
http://www.bbc.com/future/gallery/20180816-do-you-recognise-these-obsolete-technologies
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rwmj
An iPad or PowerPoint may be more "sophisticated" than an overhead projector
and dry wipe pen, but I'm not certain they are better.

(Actually now I wonder if there is a tablet application which faithfully
replicates the overhead projector and roll of acetate experience?)

~~~
magicalhippo
The best lectures I had at uni were some math lectures where the professor had
an overhead with a transparency roll. He'd write on the transparency as if it
was a blackboard, and could roll up and down as needed to review older
equations or make room for new.

Blackboard worked well too, but not as good, since the professor could sit in
front of the overhead so things lined up better, and the transparency pens had
much better visibility than chalk on a (green) blackboard.

Most other lectures used PowerPoint, due to the professors being forced by the
uni administration, but for me a PowerPoint lecture was barely worth the time.
The information just wouldn't stick, since the PowerPoint format doesn't lend
itself well to writing notes from, and without writing notes I hardly
remembered anything.

~~~
rleigh
The other factor is the pacing. If the lecturer is writing, on a transparency
or blackboard, you can take notes at the same pace. PowerPoint allows stupid
amounts of information to be delivered, which just washes over you--it's too
much to transcribe, and too much to digest on the fly. Writing constrains the
lecturer to delivering a reasonable amount of material, so that the
participants can actually focus on it and retain it.

PowerPoint might be good for business proposals, sales and marketing, etc. But
I personally think it's a travesty for educational use; there are few lectures
I've attended which I found better for the unnecessary use of technology.

~~~
extra88
I has a number of faculty who would print "slides" on acetate sheets to
display using an overhead projector, they had the same potential for being
overloaded.

~~~
rleigh
It's possible to be a bad lecturer and use acetates. But physical constraints
still act against it: they are bulky, you can't easily manage a lecture with
100 acetates, they have a tendency to slide onto the floor and make a jumbled
mess, and they also cost money to make and take up physical space to store and
move around.

While you can still abuse them, these factors limit how far you can take that
abuse. PowerPoint knows no bounds.

I only used to print diagrams and figures onto acetates, leaving writing for
the blackboard/whiteboard/blank acetates. You would use one or two for an
entire session. I try to do the same with PowerPoint (well, Beamer), but some
organisations increasingly mandate the whole thing be word for word on slides
and stored in Blackboard for students to get. I find this wholly detrimental
to the purpose of giving and attending a lecture, since it constrains the
lecturer to this terrible presentation style.

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rahimnathwani
This is the first site I've noticed using a 302 redirect to force people to
use unencrypted connections:

curl -v [https://www.bbc.com/future/gallery/20180816-do-you-
recognise...](https://www.bbc.com/future/gallery/20180816-do-you-recognise-
these-obsolete-technologies) .. * Connected to www.bbc.com (212.58.244.27)
port 443 (#0) .. * SSL certificate verify ok. .. > GET
/future/gallery/20180816-do-you-recognise-these-obsolete-technologies HTTP/1.1
> Host: www.bbc.com .. < HTTP/2 302 < content-type: text/html < date: Mon, 20
Aug 2018 10:44:09 GMT < location:
[http://www.bbc.com/future/gallery/20180816-do-you-
recognise-...](http://www.bbc.com/future/gallery/20180816-do-you-recognise-
these-obsolete-technologies) < content-length: 0

~~~
jgh
I wonder if they got the redirect configuration backwards...

~~~
rahimnathwani
It seems to be specific to certain pages. See here for one which redirects the
other (normal) way:
[https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45098190](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45098190)

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yitchelle
The cassette tapes are still relatively popular in Germany. In my last trip
into Saturn (a large retailer here in Germany), there had a good range of up-
to-date music and audio books still for sale. However, most of titles are
targeted towards to younger kids.

~~~
sdrothrock
Do you have any idea what drives their enduring popularity in Germany in
particular?

~~~
bhaak
I think the main driver is the selection for kids.

Cassette players are quite sturdy things. Even if cassettes themselves are not
as good as the players, they are still better than CDs.

Kids like to handle things, the haptic sensation is important, so you can't
give them something with a touch screen early on (although that changes
quickly with age).

I would be surprised if this is specific to Germany.

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bhaak
I was about to say "Teletext is not extinct!" which is true but then I
pondered when I last time used it?

I was an avid user of Teletext in my teenage years and later on, using it
daily to catch the news and look at the TV programme listing.

And that's why I use it much rarely nowadays. I don't watch regular TV anymore
and thus have much less opportunities to quickly start up Teletext.

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lbriner
I read about a singer who still uses a childs cassette player to do their
vocal warmups for the simple reason that it is bombproof: suitable for the
mechanical demands of being on the road.

[https://goo.gl/images/ZEoG6M](https://goo.gl/images/ZEoG6M)

