By: COMMANDER ENTERPRISE
Some things just don’t stand a chance with time/over time.
In Telecommunications, evolution and forward advancement is everything. And in a span of a few years, a seemingly awesome new format, item or standard will be completely replaced with a better, smaller, and even more efficient one that will have their predecessors bite the dust, sometimes literally.
Such is the tragedy of ditching our old friends for new and better ones (weepsk) when they no longer serve their purpose and can’t keep up with ‘the times’.
Technical evolution has relegated these oldies to the dinosaur age. For those who remember, we fondly look back at where we came from and how far into the future we have reached. For others who may or may not be in denial, they are either in for a good laugh or serve as a reminder telling us how old we really are.
For the clueless youngsters these are “old uncool stuff our uncles and dads actually used or went through LOL”. It might be the next old cool thing to use for hipsters. But, for those who forget the past, they are condemned to repeat it. Just take a good look at one’s grade school and high school photos to get the exact feels.
Without further ado: Here are the top five old “stuff” we may or may have not forgotten, depending on our age. No one needs to go through these ever again, but it pays to know where present day technological conveniences evolved from.
5. Giant Mobile Phones
Just like the huge extraterrestrial Annunaki of ancient times and the Celestial Beings who fathered human/celestial hybrid giants during the time of Enoch and Azazel, the first ones who defined history were huge towering beings that seemed larger than life (literally).
The use of these old mobile phone prototypes was akin to like speaking to a shoebox, snapped on another shoebox sized thing called a charger that people carried everywhere like an oversized lunchbox for two or three people. It also had a tall, pointy antenna that people could also use for self-defense and jostling with Sith Lords, just in case.
Today’s phones can either be super slim phablet sized ones with compact (and also wireless) chargers that can easily fit a back pocket, or the more common smartphones that are easily handheld and can be carried anywhere with almost no effort at all. Thankfully, advancements in nanotechnology and compact components have made them into advanced handy smaller devices much suited to otherwise normal sized humans.
4. Legendary Landline Rotary Phones
Also on our ancient telecommunications history class today is the Rotary dial phone. Today’s landline phones are compact, tone signal-driven lines of communication that may also run through the house’s ADSL connection. But their ancestors were bulkier, more mechanical and totally analog than digital.
If somehow the past involved dialing a circle of numbers to just to get a call done, it means one is just too old. It also means anger, disappointment, and frustration (not necessarily in that order) in getting a busy signal after meticulously round-dialing a long number several times. But that golden era that “bridged” the “Dinosaur Age” towards the new millennium is where the old stuff faded into obscurity and newer technology took over. People actually saw how technology changed and evolved for the better. And of course, speaking about old rotary phones…
3. The “Party” Line
This may sound like a great time, but it ain’t – no, hell no. Having an analog rotary dial phone then of course meant having to use old phone lines. And although analog was pure, it wasn’t perfect as well. This led to the weird phenomenon of party lines, when the same phone line was being shared with another rotary phone somewhere in the same area.
One lifts the phone, and it can’t be used because “the dude or the lady on the party line is still talking”. It has led to some pretty nasty exchanges, or some ancient form of symbiotic relationship that doesn’t exist today.
It can also be considered as an ancient form of phone tapping, although those sharp in the ears can tell if someone has lifted the handset to listen while covering the mouthpiece for complete silence. But other times, they don’t, and it has led to listening to pretty out-there anonymous conversations that rival intense, spaced-out movie dialogues.
2. Chaos in the Crossed Line world
The crossed line, however, is the chaos ensemble of all chaos ensembles on old phone lines. Literally three to sometimes even five shared, unrelated phone lines may have been overlapped at some point, and one can hear other conversations in varying volume levels going at it all at the same time. This is while trying to communicate with the person on the other (other, other) line.
It is kind of impossible to describe, but let’s say it’s like having three or five stereos playing at the same time while trying to listen to the actual album or radio station one intended to listen to. People back then developed incredible audio filtering and listening skills, and may have invented multi-anonymous, accidental indirect phone tapping, if that’s even remotely possible.
1. Beepers and Pagers
Believe it or not, people still use these things (alongside probably dial-up internet), not because they’re stubbornly stubborn (what?) but because they are actually reliable and receive clear cut messages in time, among other (weird and old) uses. But smartphones already got that covered and more, which is why they are in a somewhat extinct, but not really “extinct” dinosaur age.
Like, if Jurassic World existed and dinosaurs exist but only there and not in the real world, or something like this. People know they don’t anymore but they see one and it just totally boggles the mind. It’s complicated.
Beepers and pagers used to be the status symbol back ‘in the day’. It’s like announcing hey I’m somebody important. Only now, no one really gives a flying hootenanny. One can send a reminder or message, through the service provider call center hotline (which can be awkward) or more privately, through other less personal means (alpha numeric phone pad, email).
And depending on the type of pager or beeper, one can receive the message, act as if it was missed or not received, or claim one was just busy or doing something else really important (yeah, right).
The fact that most of them didn’t have a facility for replying or acknowledging the received message infuriated many people. It’s like being good old Arnie in Terminator, saying I’ll be back, and leaving the cop waiting there without being rammed to death by the car. Coincidentally, there is also a beeper there at the start of the scene, and the Doctor just missed the fun part.
Towards Harmonious Civilization Zine 
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