Can Old Technology Make a Comeback?.....

I like watching old movies and tv shows. Maybe they remind me of my youth. Actually the new shows are just recycled old shows. Old stories, formats, and situations are just made over with new actors. Here's a show about people working at a hospital. Here's a cop show. Here's a movie where the two main characters hate each other at first, then fall in love, then have a misunderstanding, but things are good at the end.

Farrah was the Official Woman of the 70's.

I love to look at the old cars and old clothes styles in old movies. I also check for accuracy in modern movies depicting an earlier time period. For example, all real men of the 70's had a moustache and long sideburns. They also wore wide ties with suits. The Official Woman of the 70's was Farrah Fawcett. I especially like to look for old technology in the old shows. Phone booths, full service gas stations, and home movies are from an era long ago. But some old things seem to be trying to make a comeback.

I'm not sure if it's people missing the old technology, or if the old technology still has it's place in the 21st century. Visit one of those hip vintage shops and it's like a trip to a history museum. I imagine most of that stuff is sold and used to decorate a room. But maybe some people actually use that stuff because it's cool. Here's a few things on the comeback trail.

• Vinyl Records - LP (Long Playing) records have been making a strong comeback for a number of years now. Records had been replaced many times now. First, there was the cassette tape. It sounded good, and was very small and portable. Great for your car stereo. Who would want to go out on date night without a copy of Meatloaf's "Paradise By the Dashboard Lights"? But the tapes would wear out and get tangled. Then came the digital CD. I thought they sounded great. But they can get scratched just like a record. Also, the digital recording, while supposedly very accurate, can be compressed and not sound as rich as the original recordings. So we now have the return of the vinyl record. Records are definitely not portable. They require good care in use. So you need a turntable, amplifier and speakers. Maybe that's what makes people think it sounds better. You're listening on a true "sound system" in your living room. You're not driving to a store paying half attention to traffic, and half to the music.

• Polaroid Cameras - These portable instant cameras were extremely popular back in the day. You could snap a picture. Pull the paper out of the camera, and in about 60 seconds it would

  

  Polaroid Instant Snap - now available!

  develop and you would have an instant print. With other cameras you would have to take a roll of film to be developed at a drugstore, and wait sometimes for a week. Not with the Polaroid. It was the "Snapchat" of it's day. Take a picture, and in an instant, you could share it with friends. Over time, I  guess it was killed, like all film cameras, by digital photography. But wait! Coming out of the mist is the return of the Polaroid Snap instant camera! Imagine today's 20 year olds discovering the joys of instant photo prints. Available in a variety of colors for about $99.99. Don't forget the film.

• Facsimile Machines - Fax machines were from the 70's and early 80's. They allowed you to transmit a document over a phone line, to a receiving fax machine. The sounds these things made were ungodly. Screeching and howling. The commonly used machines used a roll of thermal paper to print out what it received. Then  you would have to uncurl it and read it like the Dead Sea Scrolls. This was killed by email. Or was it? Actually, many times a fax machine capabilities are built into those home ink jet printers. They just weren't used much. Now, fax machines are also making a comeback. Why? Well. apparently it is easier to hack into your email than it is to hack into a fax transmission.

It's back!

• Nokia 3310 Cell Phone - Nokia announced that it would be re-releasing the iconic model 3310 in 2017. I don't know why. This was killed by the flip phone. Which was replaced by - well you get it. On the plus side the 3310 was indestructible. You could throw it off your roof and it would be fine. As I recall, you could make a call with it, if you could get a signal. You could amuse yourself with very slow and simple games. But I don't think you could text with it. But kids, your grandparents could show you how it works.

Some of these items might only be making a temporary return. Maybe some baby boomers just miss them. There's nothing wrong with them. Sometimes older is better. But sometimes older is just older.