These Things Were Top of the Line Back Then
Kids today think they know everything about tech, but they don’t know the history of it! Back in the 80s and 90s, we all thought we’d reached the height of technology and there were no mountains left to climb. Boy, were we wrong. Here’s 20 pieces of tech that dazzled us all when we were kids, but Gen Z have barely even heard of.
Dial-Up Internet
Dial-up internet still lingers in the minds of people who used it. That screeching, buzzing handshake sound meant you were about to surf the web… very very slowly. We waited minutes for a page to load and yelled, “Don’t pick up the phone!” because one call could kick you offline.
Floppy Disks
Floppy disks were clunky and flimsy, and yet often you had to carry all your school projects on one. And yep, often they were for schoolwork only, no songs – not that you could even fit an entire song on them in some cases. Thankfully, memory sticks have long since replaced the floppy disk.
VHS Tapes
Back in the day, you couldn’t just hop on Disney+ or Netflix and find the film you wanted to watch… you had to buy the VHS tapes. They were another piece of big, clunky 80s-90s tech and yep, they hurt when your sibling threw one at you. But at least you got to watch movies in the comfort of your own home!
Walkmans
Walkmans are having a bit of a comeback now – people dig retro tech – but to be honest they weren’t really all that great. You couldn’t listen to an album all in one go, you had to flip the tape around. Plus, those things were expensive back in the day.
CD Discmans
Portable CD players took over after Walkmans went away, but to be honest they weren’t much good either. If you bumped into anything as you were going along, the CD would skip… or sometimes it would just skip anyway. Anti-skip protection was a game changer.
Landline Phones With Cords
Kids these days don’t appreciate how amazing smartphones are. In the olden days, most households had only one landline, it could only be answered when someone was in the house, and you couldn’t use it at the same time as the Internet. Epic fail, as the kids say.
Phone Books
Need a number? Flip through hundreds of pages in the Yellow Pages. Google didn’t exist, so we manually searched for whatever we needed and it took ages. Unsurprisingly, phone books are all but extinct now… though most agree Google is easier anyway.
AOL CDs
These shiny discs came in the mail constantly. Free trial hours for America Online? Yes, please! We (or, in a lot of cases, our parents) collected them like trading cards - most of us never used them all. They’re another thing that’s gone the way of the dodo now.
Nintendo Game Cartridges
If you wanted to play a Nintendo game, it wasn’t a case of logging in and selecting it from the screen: you needed a game cartridge. When a game wouldn’t load, the fix was always the same: blow on the cartridge. Magically, it worked. Who knows how?
Cassette Tapes Recorders
These days, if you want to make a mixtape, there are countless programs and apps showing you how to do so. But not in the 80s and 90s. Back then, making mixtapes took real effort. You waited for your favorite song on the radio, then hit “record” fast enough to catch it - hopefully without the DJ talking over it. Which happened a lot.
Overhead Projectors
Now there’s all sorts of funky tech to help students learn in the classroom, but back in the day it was the overhead projector’s time to shine. Teachers used transparent sheets on big, boxy machines that held pride of place in the classroom. The hum of the fan and that weird light glare are forever burned into our brains.
TV Antennas and Snow
No cable? Adjust the “rabbit ears” on your TV set and hope for the best. If a channel wasn’t working, you got static - aka “snow.” Bonus nostalgia: channels actually signed off at night. These days, there’s always something on TV to keep you company.
Portable TV With Crank Antennas
Beg your parents for long enough and maybe they’ll get you a portable TV! These were the height of technology back then. You could watch cartoons outside, a tremendous notion, assuming you could get a signal and the batteries didn’t run out.
WordArt in Microsoft Word
This was, for some people, the only fun part of school projects – getting to mess around with WordArt! Every 90s school project had a title in warped, rainbow-colored WordArt. It was peak design. Today’s kids just can’t understand the thrill of it.
Pagers
Long before texting was a thing, there were pagers. You’d get a number or a code, then find a payphone or call back from a landline. Cool kids wore theirs on their hip like doctors – oh and, of course, they were invaluable for actual doctors as well.
TV Guide Channel
Back in the day you could buy a paper TV guide, or you could go to the TV guide channel. Then, wait for the listings to scroll slowly across the bottom of the screen. Miss your channel? Too bad - you’re waiting again.
Rewritable CDs
We used these to make playlists before Spotify was a thing. Burning a CD was an event, especially if you were making it for your boyfriend or girlfriend. You hoped it finished without error - and that your stereo could actually read it.
Printers
Forget 3D printers, regular paper printers barely ever did what they were supposed to. Many a person got held up before school trying desperately to get the printer to print their homework. Today’s kids don’t have to worry so much about that, all their work is done in the digital space.
Film Cameras
Kids today don’t know how lucky they have it with digital cameras. You get to delete the pics you don’t like! There was nothing like that when we were growing up. You used a film camera to take a picture and that was it, you had no idea how it turned out until you got the film developed. Digital cameras are definitely the winners in that respect.
Tamagotchis
Before Pokemon, these were the virtual pets from Japan, and they were amazing. But if you didn’t feed your digital pet, it died. That was a bit rough on younger children. Every 90s kid remembers sneaking these into school and frantically cleaning up pixel poop between classes.
