35 Obsolete Technology Things To Prove How Much The World Has Moved On And Changed
All it takes is one good vintage image to make you stop and reminisce about your youth. That’s the power of a good photo—it opens the door to a deep yearning for the ‘good old days’ and reminds you of how things used to be. A simpler time and, arguably, a better one, too.
The ‘Retro Tech Dreams’ Twitter page hits hard with a heavy dose of nostalgia. The account documents and shares pics of vintage technology, computing, and the web that might strike a chord with those of you Pandas who were kids back in the ‘80s, ‘90s, and 2000s. As you continue scrolling, upvote the photos that got you daydreaming about your childhood.
Meanwhile, here we are, dusting off our GameBoy Color (we had to change the batteries, but the Pokémon Yellow cartridge still works perfectly fine), missing playing Snake on chunky Nokia phones, and yearning for Windows XP (look, nothing will convince us that Vista or Windows 10 were better). It’s awesome to take a trip down memory lane. Even if just for a little while.
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Wow, this takes me back... There was a time when I'd add one of these to nearly every Word document I created! XD
The ‘Retro Tech Dreams’ Twitter page posts nostalgic and vintage photos of old tech every single day. The account is fairly fresh, created just over half a year ago, in June 2022. However, in just a few months, it’s already managed to garner a following of over 82.6k social media users.
That just goes to show how powerful nostalgia is: pics of things that used to surround you every single day grab your attention and force you to compare your current life with how you lived back then. Odds are that many of you reading this miss the past quite a bit, and would love to travel back in time to experience it all over again.
I found my old Nokia 5110 not long ago...still charged up and I played a good old game of snake on it.
You didn't even needed a case for it. The phone was protecting the case.
Yes, the one my husband lovingly referred to as the "clock radio" he carried around on his belt
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This phone is probably still working after someone used it to pound in nails.
Borderline indestructible. Once dropped one down a four storey stairwell and it was fine
Quite frankly with all the spying companies do I almost wish I had one again. No saying a word and then seeing relentless ads for that product with this phone
I had this phone circa 2002. Whenever it fell I feared for the earth.
Still have mine, with the hard-on antenna and walkie talkie feature, circ 1999
Still have mine in grey, still works like new, still holds a charge...wtf?
the legendary phone. It stopped a bullet and the phone was practially fine
I treid how durable this thing was by trowing it at an brick wall as hard as i could wen i was younger (im 24 but saying it makes me feel older) it took so many trows before the exterior shell came of so many more before the phone finally diceded to not turn on anymore and died
About 2 years ago in England, the local council resurfaced a residential street & the workers found a 3310 under the tarmac. It still had a charge & powered up easily.
My mom's first non-brick phone. Snake was the best. We were decluttering once and I found it hers was gray, I wish I'd had a charger for it to see if it would turn on.
I still have mine. And it still works as well. Good old brick. You could always trust it.
I once accidentally dropped one of these into a deep fat fryer - v hot - managed to fish it out after a few seconds, rinsed it in soapy water then chucked it into a bowl with lots of dried rice. Worked perfectly for a few years after that !!
They still make this phone and its still for sale. Great phone if you want your kids to have something simple instead of an iPhone at the age of 10. No 10-year-old deserves an iPhone at least not until they had 21. Even that smart phones are questionable. I would do anything to have my blackberry curve back again.
No one remembers the default ringtone that sounded like a polka? I miss it.
Lol yes Nokia's biggest mistake was making these things indestructible. I also have one, that was my fathers when he died 2006. It still works battery is ok, and then i have a Samsung S6 from 2016. It still works but extremely slow 🦥 but the battery is shot, holds only a 2hr charge.
Left my 3310 on top of my car, it flew off, I drove over it, and it still worked! Ah, the good old days!
My husband iterate reversed his car over a 3310 and it still worked fine. iPhone wishes...
Look, I'm not saying we should build an apocalypse shelter outta Nokias... I'm just saying let the rich do their thing... and once we're the only ones left surviving we can build a better world... and name it Nokia.
'How Ridiculous ' YouTubers dropped a Nokia from a tower, a water slide, and helicopter and it still charged and played snake.
I loved Nokia! It was the only brand I ever got. When smartphones became a thing, I wanted the Nokia one… until I found out that it was apparently rubbish. I was then gifted an iPhone. I‘m currently on my second ever smartphone. It‘s still an iPhone (I give lessons in how to use a smartphone for elders and had exposure on quite a few different smartphones and still think the user interphase of the iPhone is the best. And the prizes of iPhone and Samsung for instance are not very different. I just don‘t like android or Microsoft on phones)
I had this model. Was going through a break up at the time,2002. I would get frustrated when speaking to my ex on the phone,I would end up throwing my phone in temper. Then I would get up. Pick up the battery and back,clip it back together and it was good to go. If I accidentally drop my phone now,chances are the screen will shatter
I loved my Nokia phone. You could bounce it off the wall and it wouldn't even flinch. I miss it.
This was the first phone I got my kids. I wrapped them up and put them under the tree for Christmas then I called all three numbers on my phone. They lost their minds! What an amazing memory.
I loved this phone. I miss only needing to charge once or twice a week
I remember getting a few different color faceplates just to make me feel like I had a new phone when I changed it, lol.
I remember looking ar GSMArena when a new Iphone got launched and at the top of the most looked at was the Nokia 3310.
Sure, there’s an argument to be made that tech products and entertainment ‘aren’t made as well as they used to be’ now, in 2023. However, what we miss the most might not actually be the aesthetics of the tech or the actual video games and programs we used, but the sense of happiness and freedom that we had when we were younger.
The tech that we used might have been cool, but it wasn’t ‘the point.’ It just happened to be what surrounded us while we had fun with our family and friends. All of the music, video games, TV shows, and other forms of entertainment were ways to connect to each other and have communal experiences. What also helped was that your friends were often physically present, instead of interacting over the internet. LAN parties, anyone?
Now compare that to what we have now. The technology we have is far more advanced, powerful, and convenient, but it’s arguably also made us feel a bit more isolated. This will vary from person to person and from Panda to Panda.
Try to compare the amount of time that you spend messaging your friends on social media versus how much time you spend with them in person. It’s far easier to meet up with your friends while you’re still at school or university because you’re all spending tons of time together, in more or less the same physical space.
The casing was just to keep it attached to the belt. Nokia didn’t need shock protection. Concrete needed shock protection from Nokia.
Build a pool, make the Sim go into the pool, remove the ladder, watch creepily what happens
Fast-forward to when you have a full-time job and tons of responsibilities. Not only are many of your friends most likely living far away, you might feel utterly exhausted after a long day at work. Sending someone a meme while watching Netflix on the couch might be all the energy that you can muster.
It seems hard to fathom that somebody will ever feel nostalgic for much of the tech we have now, which feels quite impersonal: though it allows for instantaneous long-distance communication, the emotional impact is less than what the tech of the ‘80s, ‘90s, and 2000s likely provided. However, most likely, we'll still have people in the future who look back at this point in time and see it through rose-colored glasses.
This was the greatest! Wonder if there's an emulator or something out there ....
Previously, Bored Panda had reached out to child and adolescent therapist Kemi Omijeh, a member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy from London, with a few questions about nostalgia.
"Many psychologists, myself included, believe our childhood is the foundation to who we are as adults. It explains why we frequently revisit our childhood as it influences our present," she told us during an interview earlier.
The therapist explained that people feel nostalgic for their childhoods if they were loved and nurtured when they were young. However, if that wasn’t the case, they likely won’t have a smidgen of nostalgia for that time period.
"If we’ve had a difficult childhood, it can be hard to feel nostalgic, instead it will feel like something we need to get over in order to move on," the expert told Bored Panda.
The therapist noted that nostalgia is essentially our brains reliving the happy and fun times that we had in the past. That’s healthy and can be a good coping strategy when your mood is low or your life is full of challenges. However, there’s a limit to the benefits that nostalgia provides. In some cases, it can actually be detrimental to our mental health.
"If we end up comparing it to our experiences today and feeling like nothing is as good as it was, then this will inevitably affect our mood and our ability to do what we need to do. We can become stuck in our nostalgia; in which case it might be best to seek help from a counseling professional to help you process your past in order to enjoy your present,” she suggested.
I seem to dimly remember days when there were no ads on YouTube... Those were good days. (Thank God for YouTube AdBlock extensions!)
At the same time, we have to keep in mind that our memories of the past might not be entirely accurate. We’re reliving our memories by viewing them through a filter. Details might differ from how others remember trends and events.
Some people might end up daydreaming a lot about the past or the future, at the expense of opportunities in the present. Therapist Omijeh, from the BACP, previously told Bored Panda that if you want to change how much time you spend daydreaming, you have to start off by identifying your patterns.
“Think about the times you usually daydream, is there something about that situation or those times that mean you’re daydreaming? Do something about it if that is the case. Set a time limit, use a timer if it ensures you stop. Write down the biggest thought or feeling as a result of the daydream. That way you’re not just stopping daydreaming. You are doing something positive as a nice transition from stopping daydreaming to doing something,” she said.
"Finally, turn your daydream into a visualization or goal exercise. Your daydreams could be a communication about your innermost desires. Could you begin to plan how to achieve those desires?"
I am so glad for flatscreen LCDs and broadband internet. Someday these guys are going to tell their grandchildren how they gamed.
Which of these pics made you feel the most nostalgic for the past, dear Pandas? What do you miss most, technology-wise? Are you satisfied with how tech has progressed in recent years? Share your thoughts in the comments!
When you're done enjoying this list, check out Bored Panda's previous features about nostalgic pics here, here, and here.
Note: this post originally had 129 images. It’s been shortened to the top 35 images based on user votes.
Same. The 80's were only a couple years ago in my world.
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I was looking for Johnny Castaway- I watched that screensaver for hours.
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I don't miss any of these old technologies. What I miss is the stable world and that Everything seemed to get better.
Stable on the outside but filled with hidden systemic discrimination and violence. Where people were abused and hurt and it was tucked away. Luckily as painful as it is the truth is coming out.
Load More Replies... Windows XP was the best Windows OS by far. If Microsoft could make it secure I would so ditch my current Windows OS for XP. I still use "Classic Start Menu" to make my desktop act like XP because I don't need "tiles" cluttering up everything. I have work to do and my OS isn't a toy.
I’m missing point and click PC adventure games - or going back even further, text-based adventure games or things like King’s Quest. There’s nothing that beats Monkey Island, though, imho.
Wonder what people in another fifty years will say when they look at todays stuff?
Missing from this article: 1. "Clippy," the annoying popup mascot helper thing from very early Microsoft Word 2. The "you've got mail!" mailbox popup thing in AOL (yeah, one photo showed an overall view of AOL, but no one cared about it being a browser; we all were waiting for that guy's voice to announce our exciting email!) And today we get whole slews of email and couldn't care less.
Was hoping to see the old screensaver with the flying toasters. They also made one called, "Bad Dog", with a pup that would rip "holes" in the desktop and knock over the trash can.
This post made my head hurt. Probably because I hardly understand how electronics work, I just know how to use them 🤷🏼♀️ 38.9F here
I'm surprised they didn't mention WebTV. It took a while to load, but the chat rooms were quite the adventure. I had 3 longtime plutonic digital pen pals from the chat rooms.
I feel old and sad now. :( Now I have a list of old games that I have to go find.. ha ha
Also, I look forward to the day there's an episode of Antiques Roadshow with a digital expert intoning "What you have is an important early 5.25" floppy disc, in its original box. It's worth at least $500. It's a pity that it has been formatted, however. An unformatted floppy of this type would be worth in the thousands."
The great unacknowledged gift of technological progress is being to buying expensive equipment that goes obsolete and needs replacement before it shows even the slightest signs of wear. I miss the old days when I could walk around my heavily commercial neighborhood and pick up a free keyboard or monitor dumped at the curb.
I still want the screensaver that was colored bars of light that made up fans on a black background. I loved it. I think it was on windows 3.0 or something. lol.
Anyone else remember the old days when "astronomy picture of the day" ie apod, had a companion website "babe of the day" with free, and top quality, pics of scantily clad young women?
Wow BP really doesn't know the difference between technology and a version, type or a program.
While cleaning up my mother-in-law's place for a big move we found my husband's old "laptop". Let's just say no one will want that on their lap for more than 1 minute. Either the weight will break your legs or the heat will burn them off.
You forgot the 1982 Osborne executive computer with 5 bundled SW a computer with 5 1/2 in floppies a wordperfect program with a spell checker for those of us who can not spell and printed on a dot matrix printer saving legal paper doing evals the time the first IBM's came out.still have or even the TI 59 of 1978 with magnetic strips to program, the football program won more pools. still have also with printer. The first computer I worked with used punch tape to program and had a nitrogen filled metal sphere with metal hard drive.
Someone posted the Windows XP... Guys, I'm a scientist, i currently count the cells in a tissue in a program running on XPs. Welcome to the Academy of Science. Also, minesweeper runs on VERY basic math.
Nobody mentioned my favorite. The T-Mobile Siemens flip phone. Had a little handle on top, disguising the antenna. Maybe it's not old enough. T-Mobile-S...5f-png.jpg 
Tandy 1000 and printer from Radio Shack featured on Young Sheldon. Made many posters on the dot matrix printer.
I wrote a Basic program on a Timex Sinclair to animate a teddybear waving before I shipped the "computer" to my little sisters back in 1980... I wonder if my parents still have that antique.
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"Insert disk for drive B: and press any key when ready". The any key was removed from keyboards when dual floppy drives went mainstream. Software, however, still prompted for that key for decades.
I think mini discs and associated players should've been on here. Boy oh boy would you be pissed off if you spent all that money on one back in the day. What a flop@
How is the Sims and Windows 95/XP on here 10 times but no Oregon Trail?!
Same. The 80's were only a couple years ago in my world.
Load More Replies... I was looking for Johnny Castaway- I watched that screensaver for hours.
Load More Replies... I don't miss any of these old technologies. What I miss is the stable world and that Everything seemed to get better.
Stable on the outside but filled with hidden systemic discrimination and violence. Where people were abused and hurt and it was tucked away. Luckily as painful as it is the truth is coming out.
Load More Replies... Windows XP was the best Windows OS by far. If Microsoft could make it secure I would so ditch my current Windows OS for XP. I still use "Classic Start Menu" to make my desktop act like XP because I don't need "tiles" cluttering up everything. I have work to do and my OS isn't a toy.
I’m missing point and click PC adventure games - or going back even further, text-based adventure games or things like King’s Quest. There’s nothing that beats Monkey Island, though, imho.
Wonder what people in another fifty years will say when they look at todays stuff?
Missing from this article: 1. "Clippy," the annoying popup mascot helper thing from very early Microsoft Word 2. The "you've got mail!" mailbox popup thing in AOL (yeah, one photo showed an overall view of AOL, but no one cared about it being a browser; we all were waiting for that guy's voice to announce our exciting email!) And today we get whole slews of email and couldn't care less.
Was hoping to see the old screensaver with the flying toasters. They also made one called, "Bad Dog", with a pup that would rip "holes" in the desktop and knock over the trash can.
This post made my head hurt. Probably because I hardly understand how electronics work, I just know how to use them 🤷🏼♀️ 38.9F here
I'm surprised they didn't mention WebTV. It took a while to load, but the chat rooms were quite the adventure. I had 3 longtime plutonic digital pen pals from the chat rooms.
I feel old and sad now. :( Now I have a list of old games that I have to go find.. ha ha
Also, I look forward to the day there's an episode of Antiques Roadshow with a digital expert intoning "What you have is an important early 5.25" floppy disc, in its original box. It's worth at least $500. It's a pity that it has been formatted, however. An unformatted floppy of this type would be worth in the thousands."
The great unacknowledged gift of technological progress is being to buying expensive equipment that goes obsolete and needs replacement before it shows even the slightest signs of wear. I miss the old days when I could walk around my heavily commercial neighborhood and pick up a free keyboard or monitor dumped at the curb.
I still want the screensaver that was colored bars of light that made up fans on a black background. I loved it. I think it was on windows 3.0 or something. lol.
Anyone else remember the old days when "astronomy picture of the day" ie apod, had a companion website "babe of the day" with free, and top quality, pics of scantily clad young women?
Wow BP really doesn't know the difference between technology and a version, type or a program.
While cleaning up my mother-in-law's place for a big move we found my husband's old "laptop". Let's just say no one will want that on their lap for more than 1 minute. Either the weight will break your legs or the heat will burn them off.
You forgot the 1982 Osborne executive computer with 5 bundled SW a computer with 5 1/2 in floppies a wordperfect program with a spell checker for those of us who can not spell and printed on a dot matrix printer saving legal paper doing evals the time the first IBM's came out.still have or even the TI 59 of 1978 with magnetic strips to program, the football program won more pools. still have also with printer. The first computer I worked with used punch tape to program and had a nitrogen filled metal sphere with metal hard drive.
Someone posted the Windows XP... Guys, I'm a scientist, i currently count the cells in a tissue in a program running on XPs. Welcome to the Academy of Science. Also, minesweeper runs on VERY basic math.
Nobody mentioned my favorite. The T-Mobile Siemens flip phone. Had a little handle on top, disguising the antenna. Maybe it's not old enough. T-Mobile-S...5f-png.jpg
Tandy 1000 and printer from Radio Shack featured on Young Sheldon. Made many posters on the dot matrix printer.
I wrote a Basic program on a Timex Sinclair to animate a teddybear waving before I shipped the "computer" to my little sisters back in 1980... I wonder if my parents still have that antique.
Load More Replies... "Insert disk for drive B: and press any key when ready". The any key was removed from keyboards when dual floppy drives went mainstream. Software, however, still prompted for that key for decades.
I think mini discs and associated players should've been on here. Boy oh boy would you be pissed off if you spent all that money on one back in the day. What a flop@
How is the Sims and Windows 95/XP on here 10 times but no Oregon Trail?!
