Inventions that seemed like a good idea at the time....
Canard's Back
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...The mobile phone.
In the 80's - a symbol for opulence amongst City Wan.. sorry Bankers, who felt they needed to look more important than the plebs.
Has it changed that much since then?
..... The "Sony Walkman".
In the 80's - freedom from Radio 1 play-lists... (before the walkman we used to take "portable radios" with us as a form of entertainment - big cumbersome buggers they were, with or without headphones)!!
We used to carry several 'cassettes' of our favourite band with us.. each tape had at least 16- 18 songs on me them.
Unless you "pirated" them on a 120 tape.... then you were an anarchist..
On this vein are there any recent inventions that seemed like a good idea, but failed, compared to a good idea that was improved on?
Can I just add... the two inventions I mention to me were a good idea at the time, but have turned us into ZOMBIES..
Like the Spectrum ZX was a great idea and a fantastic invention.. but look at us now... we only 'interact' within our virtual worlds... Mobi, MP3 player, Games console..
Whatever happened to reality?
In the 80's - a symbol for opulence amongst City Wan.. sorry Bankers, who felt they needed to look more important than the plebs.
Has it changed that much since then?
..... The "Sony Walkman".
In the 80's - freedom from Radio 1 play-lists... (before the walkman we used to take "portable radios" with us as a form of entertainment - big cumbersome buggers they were, with or without headphones)!!
We used to carry several 'cassettes' of our favourite band with us.. each tape had at least 16- 18 songs on me them.
Unless you "pirated" them on a 120 tape.... then you were an anarchist..
On this vein are there any recent inventions that seemed like a good idea, but failed, compared to a good idea that was improved on?
Can I just add... the two inventions I mention to me were a good idea at the time, but have turned us into ZOMBIES..
Like the Spectrum ZX was a great idea and a fantastic invention.. but look at us now... we only 'interact' within our virtual worlds... Mobi, MP3 player, Games console..
Whatever happened to reality?
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Or does it? To me id doesn't. I don't find it to be any faster than a signature as you know with instinct your signature and some people may struggle with their pin. Also it is not that safe. If for instance someone was stood behind me in a shopping line and saw me tap in my pin number they could mug me on the way out and empty my bank account but because of how it was done there is no proof.
Also self service tills, again, great idea in principle expect when it comes to them not accepting the money you put in, not knowing the bar code, shouting at you for removing an item when you haven't, telling you you have not put an item in the bagging area when you have, this is not something I consider to be a step forward!
But this pales in comparison to automated things such as tie racks, automatic curtains, automatic garage doors. All meant to make life easier when in fact when they break down you realise how much easier and faster it is to do something manually! To quote Bill Bryson, "always remember that the first syllable of convenience is 'con'"
I wish I could find a better picture, but not sure what it was called, a good idea, but the amount of times I had a whole pile of 7"'s slam down in one go! heh
looking at the picture, that's not the exact thing I was thinking of, I meant the spindle thing that was hard to even prop the records on without them dropping down.
Record changers or Auto changers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Record_changer
you can still get them
http://retroradiozone.com/stack_o_matic_turntables.html
You always had to sit there praying the yellow and blue stripes would eventually appear and not the dreaded blue and red flashing.
That reminds me the days of C64.
It's overrated.
Ahh yeah, cheers - wasn't the best way to look after your vinyl really was it, dropping them onto each other from a height.
Was cutting edge back in the day tho'! heh
Sounds a bit posh!
Was it one of these?
Sharp RP-114
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/XOBXjrS_Rls/0.jpg
Also most users are now more interested in Zimmer frames.
Anyway Atari 2600 was were it was at :cool:
No, although I think it may have been a Sharp one. I bought it in 1987 and it looked just like a normal 'hi-fi' from around that time, double tape deck etc, but it just had the arm with the needle on it that went across the top of the record then around and under, to play the other side.
Wish I could find a pic of it!
Here's another
That's probably a bit 'late 70's' retro tho', but can see how how the turntable plays both sides.
Getting closer!! I'm sure it was a Sharp one, like you say, they seemed to be the only ones doing that. It was black, with 2 cassette decks, probably about twice the height of that one but yes, the mechanism is the same. Can't even remember what happened to it!