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caculators
These were like tiny computers whose only job—only job—was to do math. That was literally all it did. You couldn't do any other thing with it besides add, subtract, multiply, and divide. Oh sure, it could make some amusing swear words. 8008 kinda looked like BOOB. And type in 7734 and then turn the calculator upside down and it looked like HELL. But you definitely couldn't get the weather, your email, or play Minecraft on it. -
fax machine
When was the last time you made a new friend and he or she said to you, "Let's keep in touch. Wanna exchange fax numbers?" Okay, maybe that didn't even happen in the 20th century. The point is, nobody has a fax machine anymore! And if you have one, nobody wants the number, because nobody is going to send you a fax on one of those obsolete products. Ever. -
landlines
Phones were once connected to walls with fiber optic cables. No, I'm totally not kidding. They worked just like any other phone, except there was no screen, or Internet connection, and it didn't tell you the time, and it had zero apps. -
polaroid instant pictures
Kids today have it so easy. For them, an "instant" picture is any image they capture on their smartphone, and it's accessible nanoseconds after taking it. But with Polaroids—which ceased making instant film in 2008—"instant" meant "in a few minutes, after you shake the photo violently for some reason and then wait and wait and wait for what seems like an eternity for the image to sloooooowly appear." It's hard to believe that we were ever so patient with these obsolete things. -
beepers
If even drug dealers don't want to use these obsolete products anymore, they've officially outlasted their cultural usefulness. -
slide projecter
Is it possible that future generations will never know the horrors of sitting through an aunt's vacation photos in a living room slide projector show that feels like waterboarding torture in which you have to pretend to smile? How is that remotely fair? -
dot matrix printers
he only places where perforated printouts still reign supreme are at thrift-store "electronics" sections and car rental offices. Even though they were a pain during their prime, especially when they jammed (which was, you know, always), we can't help but get a little misty-eyed when we hear the purring of a dot matrix in action. -
cd case binders
There's a whole lot that feels conspicuously absent now that music has become digitized and is no longer a physical thing. Nobody owns a Walkman or Discman anymore. But one of the weirdest obsolete products is the CD binder, which you'd fill up with music before a car trip or any outdoor excursion, and then invariably realize too late that you forgot the one CD you wanted to hear. Darn you, limited number of plastic storage sleeves! -
VCRS
DVDs arrived in the U.S. in 1997, and it didn't take long for the new format to make VCRs feel like cave drawings. -
getting lost
Before every car and cellular phone came with their own global positioning systems, it was entirely possible that you could venture out into the world and not have any idea where you were. It was called "being lost," and you either had to find somebody to give you directions or find a map (see above.) Or maybe you'd just stay lost, and keep wandering until you stumbled onto something familiar, or just figured out where you were going out of dumb luck.
