Old Technology That is Still Better Than It's Modern Day Tech Replacement

[Gravedigger Dav]

I still have a CLUB to protect my car from theft. But I see many new cars with insane new remotes that start the AC before you get in the car, etc...but those are getting hacked and cars stolen easily, meanwhile, nobody has ever stolen one of my cars when the CLUB was installed. Club > New Tech.

What else is still better than it's "improved" replacement?

Not the best example

 

[PWRL]

I can think of a lot of things I like better, but naturally, that makes most of it subjective.

Old Ford 300 inline 6. They have a reputation for chugging along forever. I'd like to find a low mileage 80's F-150 for this reason.
I think a lot of older Jeeps fall into the same category. The new ones are neat, but there's too much stuff to go wrong.

Cartridge-refillable fountain pens. Whether they're the refillable cartridges or disposable ones, it beats throwing an entire pen away. I have a Rotring Art Pen (and the fabled Art Pencil) which is styled like an old-fashioned dipping-type fountain pen. It's a very comfortable feel and writes very smoothly, depending on the paper, of course. I even prefer it to my Pilot Precise V-5s, but the latter I generally carry more often, because the Rotring is kind of long. It's more of a desk or briefcase pen. I would accompany this listing with the classic spiral notebook. Computers are neat, but you don't need one to write what you're thinking.

Can openers. None of the new can openers I've used in the last decade have been worth snot. For whatever reason, the old, bulky ones with the heavy rubber handle were the best. The new ones are like a cruel prank. I've had to resort to my Swiss Army knife because the new ones wouldn't work or were just plain newfangled.

Someone said TVs, and I agree with that. A friend of mine has an ancient Sony Trinitron from the dark ages, complete with the wire metal stand, and it's still ticking. It will probably work forever.

Rotary phones. No internet, no text, not portable, not even very sexy. But for phone calls, they worked. Even if they're fifty years old, they still work. Much like a classic Precision bass, but I can't list those, because I'm not taking the neck off of a bass just to adjust the truss rod ever again. The new ones are better, sorry.

 

[Thegrandwazoo]

For smaller purchases, I say cash is still king. I'm sick of ending up in line behind people who have trouble paying with their credit/debit cards.

I don't know when waving your card or phone like a magic wand to buy whatever you want anywhere you want will become universal and virtually glitch-free, but it sure ain't here yet!

When buying a few items, I wish more people would just use cash and be done with it.

I use my debit card to get cash and for emergency and online purchases only, and my credit card is only used to buy fuel. I hate using a card for currency, for numerous reasons.

 

[line6man]

For smaller purchases, I say cash is still king. I'm sick of ending up in line behind people who have trouble paying with their credit/debit cards.

I don't know when waving your card or phone like a magic wand to buy whatever you want anywhere you want will become universal and virtually glitch-free, but it sure ain't here yet!

When buying a few items, I wish more people would just use cash and be done with it.

I hate cash. Using my credit card is way simpler, for me, and I never have issues paying. I suppose that chip readers take a long time to work, but I don't have to get out cash and count it, so it takes about the same time.

I will never use any of those "smart pay" options, though. I distrust any technology that can take my money by just being close to my phone or credit card.

 

[FilterFunk]

 

[Funky Ghost]

My hands.

 

[dreamadream99]

Butter and sugar.

 

[Gaolee]

Hand planes for wood working. Sharp chisels. Tape measures and steel rules. Reading books printed on real paper. Manual transmission cars when you want to have some fun and aren't stuck in traffic. Canoes. Enormous Acoustic Control bass amplifiers (yeah, yeah, tubes valves whatever. I'll take old solid state for bass). Pencil and paper. Drawing with charcoal or pencil instead of software. Real fire in a real fireplace instead of a gas log or electric thing that's supposed to look like a log.

Other things are worth maintaining even though they are obsolete. I live in a 1906 house with updates, but the guy who built it would recognize it without any problems. Old machinery that can be repaired and still works, like older cars and older trucks. Why junk it if it's still useful? Is it more environmentally damaging to keep using the inefficient old stuff or to junk it and manufacture new stuff? I don't know. It's an endless loop to think about.

 

[D M C]

Hand planes for wood working.

I have a Stanley #45 combination plane that I inherited from my FIL. I haven't the patience to use it - I have a router that's much faster and easier to set up and use - but it'll probably stay in my possession until my heirs find it while cleaning out the house and toss it in the garbage because no one can figure out what it is and how to use it.

 

[Gaolee]

I have a Stanley #45 combination plane that I inherited from my FIL. I haven't the patience to use it - I have a router that's much faster and easier to set up and use - but it'll probably stay in my possession until my heirs find it while cleaning out the house and toss it in the garbage because no one can figure out what it is and how to use it.

That's a pretty great tool for some things. Routers have their place, but there are also times when a plane like that would be a better option. I don't have one or anything like it, but would probably use one if I did. You can sell it if you don't have any attatchment to it. Otherwise, keep it and make sure whoever inherits it from you knows what it is and what it can do.

Some other wood shaping tools I really like are a hand scorp and a patternmaker's rasp. Grinders and belt sanders do similar things, but those are easier to control when you want to get a really specific shape.

 

[farace]

That's a pretty great tool for some things. Routers have their place, but there are also times when a plane like that would be a better option. I don't have one or anything like it, but would probably use one if I did. You can sell it if you don't have any attatchment to it. Otherwise, keep it and make sure whoever inherits it from you knows what it is and what it can do.

Some other wood shaping tools I really like are a hand scorp and a patternmaker's rasp. Grinders and belt sanders do similar things, but those are easier to control when you want to get a really specific shape.

I have a number of wooden molding planes that had been my great-grandfather's, who very well may have brought them over here to the US from Scotland when he emigrated. I haven't used them yet, but I've been tempted. Also some of his larger wood-bodied block planes.

 

[mapleglo]

I'll take a Fender Rhodes over any one of those new fangled electronic pianos.

 

[Jeff Scott]

I'll take a Fender Rhodes over any one of those new fangled electronic pianos.

As long as they don't have to be moved a lot, they're great. Especially so, the 88. I've had lots of practice doing so back in the late '70s.

 

[TOOL460002]

I can think of a lot of things I like better, but naturally, that makes most of it subjective.

Cartridge-refillable fountain pens. Whether they're the refillable cartridges or disposable ones, it beats throwing an entire pen away. I have a Rotring Art Pen (and the fabled Art Pencil) which is styled like an old-fashioned dipping-type fountain pen. It's a very comfortable feel and writes very smoothly, depending on the paper, of course. I even prefer it to my Pilot Precise V-5s, but the latter I generally carry more often, because the Rotring is kind of long. It's more of a desk or briefcase pen. I would accompany this listing with the classic spiral notebook. Computers are neat, but you don't need one to write what you're thinking.

I'm with you on pens. There's something about the weight and fluidity that is so satisfying. I especially like the refillable cartridges. Once you get used to sucking up the ink you have something that will last forever. I've noticed that I actually write more now that I have a good fountain pen (a middle of the road Parker [was like $60]). The pen has led to me writing more lyrics or ideas and music as well (playing with theory and interesting key changes or structural concepts). Once you feel the flow of a wide nib fountain pen a ball point just feels like scrawling gibberish with a stick. It's almost a nails on chalkboard sort of thing. And thanks for mentioning art pencils. I wasn't sure what to call those before. Write on!

 

[Schlyder]

Trace Elliot GP12 smx series amps.

 

[mapleglo]

As long as they don't have to be moved a lot, they're great. Especially so, the 88. I've had lots of practice doing so back in the late '70s.

I've had my share of moving 73's and 88's back in the day.

Keyboards

• mapleglo
• Sep 2, 2017
• keyboard

Rhodes, Yamaha, and Roland keyboards

My '73 stays nestled in the stack these days. If I ever play a keyboard out, I'll take the Yamaha or Roland. I do hear that Vintage Vibe makes a Rhodes style keyboard that's about half the weight of the Rhodes.

 

[pie_man_25]

Glass soda bottles. Saving them to be refilled and re-bottled was easy, efficient, and better for the environment than sending the empties to a recycling plant. Do they still use that system anywhere? I haven't seen it anywhere outside of Africa, and that was a long time ago.



I would be more worried if you found something other than TP and crap in your plumbing!

In Ontario they reuse beer bottles in just such a way, eventually recycling the glass into new bottles. It's a good system in that regard, but in many other ways it's archaic and senseless.

I have to say, I'm predominantly impressed with modern technology, but there have been a few balls dropped when 'moving forward'. I'm a huge fan of the automotive footswitch dimmer. I've always had older cars, my '01 van is the newest I've owned by 10 years, the majority of them being 60s/70s rigs. Why it had to become part of the column jumble is beyond me.

.22 rifles. I don't know why, but it seems like after about '80, firearm manufacturers REALLY started cutting corners on rimfires. Probably Reaganomics, but regardless, my old Marlins and Remingtons will shoot rings around new ones, and the only trigger work I've ever done on any of them is polishing mating surfaces to slick them up. I guess rimfires are thought of as a 'kid's rifle', worthy of cheesiness, because other guns have improved dramatically since .22s started to suck.

TVs. My first good tv was a Sony Bravia CRT, flat screen, 1080p (36", I'm pretty sure, the SOB probably weighed 100 pounds). It's a drag that it quit on me, because its picture was every bit as sharp as my new 4K LG, with way better contrast.

Specialty shops (music shops, gun shops, record stores, bike shops, etc.). They've all gone downhill in the face of the information age where you can buy stuff without putting your pants on, because of fat, lazy Americans.

Cigarettes. I don't really smoke anymore, only when I drink beer, but the second 'fire-safe' cigarettes became a thing, I quit liking them. Some friends of mine and I bought like 10 cartons of the old, non-FS Camel studs when we learned that this garbage was what we had to look forward to.

Beer. This is a cultural trend, and it may or may not die out, but nowadays every beardy hipster in North America is making 'craft ales', and there's a good reason there didn't used to be a market for coffee/beef stock/kangaroo smegma imperial IPA. It sucks, and no amount of hipster douchery will make it as good as Sierra Nevada Pale Ale or, if you're broke, good ol' Pabst.

In short, virtually everything. New stuff is pretty universally 'better', but a lot of the time the inadequacies of (and remedies for) old tech makes it more desirable and often 'better' for the task at hand.

That sucks about .22s, I was planning on getting licensed and getting a .22 to practice with, guns are pretty popular where I am now, and I'll admit to having had curiosity in the past.

I disagree with you on beer though. I kinda like having a market with plenty of legitimate choice wherein products are markedly different from each other apart from the label on the bottle. You don't want an espresso peanut stout aged in bourbon barrels? Don't buy it. I'll agree that the whole industry is getting a bit oversaturated and many breweries are just trying too hard to differentiate themselves by making products sound as quirky and unique as possible, which I've been seeing in other markets as well. I'm sick and tired of IPAs too. But for what it's worth, I'll take this stuff over Coors light or Budweiser any day. Nine times out of ten though, I'll grab a Moosehead or an export, or Alpine, and be happy as a clam.

 

[Giffro]

Older Rickenbackers are far superior to newer Rickenfeckers, Feckinrickers or any other fecking imitation type. Newer Rickenbackers are better than all those other Feckers as well!!!

 

[osv]

New gas cans suck!

 

[PWRL]

I'm with you on pens. There's something about the weight and fluidity that is so satisfying. I especially like the refillable cartridges. Once you get used to sucking up the ink you have something that will last forever. I've noticed that I actually write more now that I have a good fountain pen (a middle of the road Parker [was like $60]). The pen has led to me writing more lyrics or ideas and music as well (playing with theory and interesting key changes or structural concepts). Once you feel the flow of a wide nib fountain pen a ball point just feels like scrawling gibberish with a stick. It's almost a nails on chalkboard sort of thing. And thanks for mentioning art pencils. I wasn't sure what to call those before. Write on!

Yeah, the Rotring Art Pencil was the companion to the Art Pen. I love mine, but live in fear of losing it.