It’s amazing how technology has moved on in the last few years and we are in the middle of a trend where everything that used to be analog is now digital. This means, for the most part, things are becoming smaller, cheaper and of higher quality. So what classic technologies have been replaced by a digital version of themselves? Here are 5 classic technologies that now have a digital equivalent that has essentially replaced them.
Home Stereo
Back in the day, every household had a huge stereo complete with turntable, twin cassette decks, tuner, and CD player. This device was the center of the family’s musical listening and was the only place to listen to music in a high-quality way in the old days, as time went on though there has been a range of radios, record players and smaller stereos that found their way around the house. But in recent years there has been a whole series of ways to listen to music such as through services such as Spotify or Apple Music and these can be accessed through so many different devices from smart speakers such as the Amazon Echo or Google Home device, games consoles, smart TVs and so much more.
Typewriters
What’s that you’ll hear younger readers ask? Well, you know Microsoft Word on your PC? Before home computers were the norm the only way of creating a document that wasn’t handwritten was to use a typewriter which is basically a word processor that prints each letter as it’s typed, which makes it difficult to correct mistakes, you had the choice of starting again or erasing it with Tip-Ex.
Fax Machine
Before the days of email and the various online messenger services, we had the fax machine for sending hard copies of documents quickly. These machines would scan the document and transmit them down the old analog phone lines to be received, decoded and printed out at the other end. These days we usually use the various online methods but some people still use fax and if you don’t have a fax machine then it’s easy to find the best online fax service.
Walkman
The Sony Walkman was a revolution in the music industry. It was the first device that was a truly portable music system. Battery operated and using cassette tapes you could listen to whatever you wanted, wherever you wanted to. This has been replaced initially, and briefly, by the minidisc player and then the MP3 player such as the iPod. But these days almost everyone uses their phones to play downloaded or streamed music.
Cameras
What’s one of the essential things you need to pack when taking a trip? It’s the camera, isn’t it? Well once upon a time that may have been true, but not anymore. These days the humble camera has been replaced, initially, film cameras disappeared in place of smaller digital cameras and then the cameras on our smart-phones became so good that it’s only really photography enthusiasts that carry a real camera these days.
