The types of problems we deal with depend on the times we live in. 15 years ago, something as small as it taking forever to download a file on the internet or watching the Red Ring of Death appear on your Xbox 360 could ruin your day. But these problems simply disappeared with time because trends and technology have changed so much.
Read on for a list of problems most of us faced way back in school that almost nobody cares about now—from scratched CDs to your iPod running out of juice (which is still a problem for me personally). Scroll down, upvote your faves, and let us know in the comments which of these problems were the most annoying for you.
Tech has changed loads in the last decade and a half. Think about just how important smartphones are in our lives right now: you no longer need a separate cell phone and MP3 player. What’s more, the internet for your phone is incredibly cheap nowadays. I think that nobody's nostalgic about the prices of mobile internet in the mid-2000s.
(h/t BuzzFeed)
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Even though it wasn't that long ago, it's amazing how rapidly our expectations have changed. Now I get frustrated if a page doesn't load in the first second.
Napster. Some mp3s took 4 minutes to download, some took 4 hours....if they came at all. And that was on "high speed" DSL. The first time I saw a movie trailer stream on some T1 line, it nearly blew my mind. I talked about it for days. "Dude, I was watching it FULL SPEED AS IT WAS COMING IN!!!!!"
I had downloaded 3000 songs from Napster. I don’t even want to think about how long that took me. I know it was years.
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I get frustrated if my computer doesn't "wake up" in 39 seconds. "Really computer?!? I could do better on an abacus!"
And have to start all over again from scratch if someone picked up the phone to make a call.
I still to this day leave my computer/phone alone when downloading for fear progress is lost
I once tried to download Photoshop off of Piratebay via dial up. It took 3 days. My parents weren’t happy.
Was even worse if you had a poor dial up connection and the line dropped out.
Or your mom picked up the phone to make a phone call with 30 seconds left.......
39 years is a steal, it kept me off the computer for most of the morning, the longest it said I had to wait was 13 years. So well done on the 39 years.
My lap top now is having the same issues. Well, not quite as bad as it was last week.
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I remember being so proud of myself that I had a “portable” computer—it was the size of a sewing machine and about 30 pounds!
I used to call it "Windows time". The dilation effect that caused all Windows "time remaining" estimates to become increasing slower.
I'd drag the mouse around the progress bar, and I felt it worked 100%' 😂
Yes, and if you were lucky you wouldn’t break a toe or trip over the sofa cushions some dope had put on the floor for their seats.
Meanwhile, most of us can no longer wrap our heads around activities like renting a movie at your local store (instead of turning on Netflix) or waiting for 9 PM to call somebody because it’s cheaper that way (instead of calling them whenever we want because calls are cheap).
Bored Panda spoke about the fast pace of technological change with Ramona Pringle, Director at the Creative Innovation Studio and Associate Professor at the RTA School of Media at Ryerson University.
“Technology advances exponentially, not linearly,” Pringle said. “We tend to think of the world linearly: that what happened the year or decade before is an indication of what to expect in the next year or decade. But in fact, change happens at an ever-increasing pace because one advancement builds upon the last.”
Removing the faceplate of your car stereo so it wouldn’t get stolen
Having to wait for your disposable camera pictures to develop only to find out you ruined them with your thumb
My sister does this or if not, she chops your head off when taking your photo. Sometimes, she does both
According to the expert, tech advances might not always be easy to see. “They’re not necessarily devices, but systems and software, and that might make it look like there isn’t as much change because there aren’t the new devices we’ve come to expect (everyone’s waiting for what comes after the smartphone)—but instead, advances in the power of what those devices can do.”
But what can we expect to change in the next decade or so? Pringle said that in her opinion VR headsets might go the way of the dodo. “Maybe it’s an unpopular opinion, but VR has had its chance, multiple times over. There are incredible experiences you can have in VR, but the barrier of entry remains too high,” she said.
Kids these days will never know the struggle.
Yeah and phones would only hold tiny amounts of messages so you’d agonise over which ones to delete.
“The headsets are too clunky, and the bulk of experiences feel too isolating. Even if you can log in and play with others virtually, there’s something about physically distancing yourself from the world that I think is off-putting to too many people for it to take off more meaningfully than it already has.”
Pringle believes that the work that’s already gone into VR development will be put to good use, but most likely in a different form. “Something easier to access, more accessible, and more user friendly. But clunky headsets? I think it’s fair to assume that they will feel as dated as clunky old car phones.”
Having to push buttons up to 3 times to get the letter you wanted.
I still have and use a flip phone from 2005. It doesn't do internet, and its pay as you go, but I only need it for texts and calls. Can also go 5 DAYS without charging.
Yes and it took about a year to load and when it did load it was expensive so you’d try and press ‘end’ but you’d get that ‘connecting’ sign for like 10 minutes so you’d have to pull the battery out. Frustrating.
Whether we like it or not, the world and tech are changing faster and faster around us. Entrepreneur Peter Diamandis told The Guardian that the pace of tech innovation is about to accelerate. A lot.
“I can palpably feel how fast things are changing and that the rate of change is accelerating. In the next 10 years, we’re going to reinvent every industry on this planet, but the change is one that is for the benefit of masses, whether it’s in longevity or food or banking,” Diamandis said.
The first cd i burned took all day, in a 2x burner, on a 486 pc. Windows 98 smh
“Communication networks, sensors, robotics, augmented and virtual reality, blockchain, and AI are all exponentially improving. But they are also being interweaved and converging: for example, AI with robotics,” he explained.
The entrepreneur gave some examples of what we can expect to see in the next decade, such as car ownership being a thing of the past and AI taking care of your shopping. Meanwhile, we might even be trying on new clothes in the mall with the help of Virtual Reality! It all sounds scary and exhilarating at the same time, don’t you think?
Nah, rolled up piece of paper or a cigarette filter did the job just as well.
Today's kids will never understand the struggle of trying to maintain coolness after the song you were singing to on your cd started skipping
This can still happen. Blu-Ray disks have such stupid disk holders in their cases that you have no option but to handle the disk. Grrrr.
I had the same one and broke the same way. Broken like Armstrong's career.
WAIT! it says scratches OF the CD not off! It will make a copy of the scratches! Don't do it!
Note: this post originally had 39 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
How about cassette tape with pencil, floppy disc, printer dot matrix, phone booth with coin, phone with rotate dial number and etc? Damn I to old on this day 😄
Yeah some of these were a decade of two before 15 years ago.
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How can a tin of processed meat be sentient, let alone have limbs and a computer?
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Also, I remember the struggle asking my parents to buy a memory card for ps2 before the cloud technology
I stood on my memory card and broke it, 85% roughly through spyro 2. So so infuriating!
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I'm 35 years old and I should consider myself a boomer then :D Sweet Memories
Well... I felt pretty young til i read this. Now, who can take me to the Walmart for my RC cola and Moonpie?
8-track tapes. When they went bad, no hope for a fix. I must have biked past thousands of them in the 70's & 80's!
I did half of these, and also the other half the kids in that generation didn’t do. Anyone’s tape player ever eat their favorite mix tape? Memorize the time of the track you listened to the most? Upgrade to AOL so you could message all of your friends at 11pm. Say up until 1am to to watch Smashing Pumpkins Tonight Tonight on MTV for the 8th time that day. Run out of minutes trying to talk to a friend you met from another state. Those were fun too!
When I first installed Corel Draw in my PC, I used it to make banners for our youth group and some schoolwork. I had to finish at night, and then send to print. The dot matrix printer would start actually printing about 4 or 5 hours later.
I thought this was going to be about getting AIDS, or marching against nuclear weapons..........
I bought a rebuilt HP printer in the mid 90's that printed only in black and took 20 minutes to do it. Yeah, I know, loooong ago.
We bought a rebuilt HP printer in mid nineties. It cost $600, only printed in black, and took 20 minutes to print one recipe.
Trying to call friends late night using a rotary phone. Those things were noisy. I had to hide under the blankets.
Some of these bring back childhood memories. How did we survive? :D
Most of this stuff is from my adult years. For my childhood you have to go back to vinyl records and 8-tracks, rotary dial phones, pong, b&w tv, and air raid sirens.
When I was in kindergarten, we still did air raid drills. That noise still creeps me out. In southern states, we now use those sirens for tornadoes, and they test them once a week. I hate it!
Load More Replies... How about cassette tape with pencil, floppy disc, printer dot matrix, phone booth with coin, phone with rotate dial number and etc? Damn I to old on this day 😄
Yeah some of these were a decade of two before 15 years ago.
Load More Replies... How can a tin of processed meat be sentient, let alone have limbs and a computer?
Load More Replies... Also, I remember the struggle asking my parents to buy a memory card for ps2 before the cloud technology
I stood on my memory card and broke it, 85% roughly through spyro 2. So so infuriating!
Load More Replies... I'm 35 years old and I should consider myself a boomer then :D Sweet Memories
Well... I felt pretty young til i read this. Now, who can take me to the Walmart for my RC cola and Moonpie?
8-track tapes. When they went bad, no hope for a fix. I must have biked past thousands of them in the 70's & 80's!
I did half of these, and also the other half the kids in that generation didn’t do. Anyone’s tape player ever eat their favorite mix tape? Memorize the time of the track you listened to the most? Upgrade to AOL so you could message all of your friends at 11pm. Say up until 1am to to watch Smashing Pumpkins Tonight Tonight on MTV for the 8th time that day. Run out of minutes trying to talk to a friend you met from another state. Those were fun too!
When I first installed Corel Draw in my PC, I used it to make banners for our youth group and some schoolwork. I had to finish at night, and then send to print. The dot matrix printer would start actually printing about 4 or 5 hours later.
I thought this was going to be about getting AIDS, or marching against nuclear weapons..........
I bought a rebuilt HP printer in the mid 90's that printed only in black and took 20 minutes to do it. Yeah, I know, loooong ago.
We bought a rebuilt HP printer in mid nineties. It cost $600, only printed in black, and took 20 minutes to print one recipe.
Trying to call friends late night using a rotary phone. Those things were noisy. I had to hide under the blankets.
Some of these bring back childhood memories. How did we survive? :D
Most of this stuff is from my adult years. For my childhood you have to go back to vinyl records and 8-tracks, rotary dial phones, pong, b&w tv, and air raid sirens.
When I was in kindergarten, we still did air raid drills. That noise still creeps me out. In southern states, we now use those sirens for tornadoes, and they test them once a week. I hate it!
Load More Replies... 