I was pulling out some old family photos from a box in my closet and my 10 year old nephew saw a 3.5 inch floppy disk I had saved. He thought it was a 3D printed save icon from a video game. I popped it into an old USB drive reader I still keep around and showed him it actually held a couple of old school reports from 1998. He just stared at it and asked how 1.44MB could fit anything. It made me wonder how many of you still have a working floppy drive or some other dead format kicking around?
Had to choose between a 2012 ThinkPad X220 and a brand new $250 Chromebook for my writing setup. Went with the X220. Got it for $60 on eBay. Thing has a great keyboard and runs Linux Mint perfectly. Tracks my novel word count without lag. Anybody else stick with older laptops for focused work?
I had to choose between using my old ThinkPad T420 from 2011 or a brand new Dell XPS for my freelance writing work. I stuck with the ThinkPad because the keyboard is just that much better for long typing sessions. The new Dell sits in my closet collecting dust while I crank out articles on this clunker running Linux. Has anyone else gone back to an older machine and found it actually works better for them?
I picked up a free 19 inch Sony Trinitron off Facebook Marketplace last month to play some old DOS games. After a few days, I noticed I was spending way less time squinting and adjusting brightness compared to my LCD. My wife walked in and said my face looked less washed out in the screen glow. Turns out CRTs handle motion blur way better, even at low refresh rates. I tweaked my desk setup to keep it on a rolling cart so I can swap back and forth. Now I use the CRT for reading long articles and the LCD for anything with a lot of white backgrounds. Has anyone else found a practical use for old monitors beyond gaming?
I always thought cassettes were terrible quality with that hiss and warbly sound. Last month my uncle gave me his old Nakamichi deck from 1982 and a handful of his mix tapes. After I cleaned the pinch roller and demagnetized the heads, the sound was way cleaner than I expected. The bass actually had punch and the high end wasn't just noise. I still prefer vinyl for most things but I get why people hung onto these for so long. Has anyone else had a tape deck surprise them like this?
Pulled it out of a box last night while cleaning out the garage, and the thing beeped at me like it was just waiting for a text... I remembered texting with my thumb under the desk in high school, no screen scratches either. Does anyone else keep a dumb phone around for emergencies or am I just sentimental about old bricks?
I spent 3 hours trying to get a 2GB file onto my T42 using floppy disks and a parallel cable before I remembered the old 4GB SD card from my first digital camera was already in the media reader slot, has anyone else found a forgotten piece of tech that saved your whole afternoon?
Bought a "fully working" iPod Mini from a Facebook seller for $80, spent a month trying to revive the battery before realizing the logic board was fried. Anyone else waste cash on a dead gadget that looked fine on the outside?
It was a tough call at the time. The Pocket PC had color and could play music, but the Palm was simpler and the battery lasted a week. I carried that Palm Vx through college and never regretted it. The grayscale screen was fine for notes and contacts, and the handwriting recognition actually worked. I still have it in a drawer. Anyone else pick one way or the other back then?
The old thing actually had more torque and finished the job in one go, has anyone else noticed how much power you lose going cordless?
I was buying milk and eggs at the Stop & Shop on Elm Street when the cashier saw my Samsung Galaxy S5. She was probably around 60 and she just started laughing out loud. She said "Is that thing from 2014?" and then showed me her iPhone 15. Her friendliness didn't bother me but it stuck with me how odd it felt being judged for a phone that still works. Has anyone else gotten weird looks for using old tech in public?
Last weekend my 16 year old nephew picked up my old Nokia 3310 and asked why anyone would use a phone that doesn't even have TikTok. I tried to explain how it survived drops, had snake, and a flashlight that actually worked. He said yeah but it can't do anything useful like order food or check your bank balance. And honestly, it made me realize that for kids today old tech isn't nostalgic, it's just useless junk. I still use mine as a backup when I go hiking but maybe I'm the weird one for keeping it around. Has anyone else had a young person make you feel silly for holding onto old gadgets?
I was messing with my old Compaq Presario from 1999 and tried to run QuickTime, RealPlayer, and Windows Media Player at the same time. The screen went black and I had to hold the power button to shut it down. Has anyone else hit this limit or found a workaround without upgrading?
He pulled out his original Game Boy from 1989, still works perfectly, and asked me how many phones I've been through since then. Made me realize I've tossed ten devices in the time he's kept one, has anyone else had a family member make you feel like the wasteful one?
I still have my old Panasonic answering machine from 1998 sitting on my nightstand. Last week I found the manual at a thrift store for 50 cents and realized I had the volume knob set to 'low' the entire time. All those missed messages, people telling me they called and I never got the voicemail. I always thought the machine was just bad at picking up quiet voices. Has anyone else discovered they were using an old gadget completely wrong after all these years?
Writing down 3 words in a row on T9 still feels like magic to me. I can finally reply to texts in under 30 seconds instead of sounding like a Morse code operator. I almost want to switch back to the Razr full time now that I know this trick.
I had this 5th gen iPod sitting in a drawer for like 2 years. Last month I pulled it out and the battery died in like 20 minutes. Someone on another forum told me to do a full drain then a 12 hour charge cycle. Did that 3 times over a week and now I get almost 6 hours of playback again. Has anyone else had luck reviving old lithium ion batteries this way?
After 20 years of struggling with cold joints on vintage circuit boards, I dug out my dad's 1987 RadioShack 15-watt iron and it flows into those big solder pads like butter, has anyone else found an old cheap tool that just works better for certain jobs?
I got my Game Boy Color from a pawn shop in Austin back in 2016. Every time a game wouldn't load, I'd douse a Q-tip in 91% isopropyl and scrub the pins until they looked clean. Last month a retro repair buddy watched me do it and goes "you're just pushing the gunk deeper into the slot." He showed me to lightly wet the cartridge pins themselves, insert and remove it like 10 times, then let it dry. Fixed two games that I thought were dead. Has anyone else had a basic cleaning habit that was actually making things worse?
Found it in the trash last October, let it sit on a shelf collecting dust, then plugged it in last week and it fired right up - has anyone else had luck with old Macs that sat around forever?
I had it sitting in my glovebox as a backup phone, and when my daily phone died tuesday, I went to charge the Nokia and the battery port just cracked apart. The whole plastic casing is brittle and the charger barely makes contact anymore. Anyone know a decent repair shop in the Portland area that still works on these bricks?
I was bragging to my friend Dave about my 2012 ThinkPad still running. He works IT. He asked when I last checked the battery. I said 'never'. He showed me a photo of a swollen battery that cracked a trackpad. I went home and popped mine open. It was bulging. That conversation three weeks ago made me replace it same day. Anyone else ignore their old gear batteries until it's almost too late?
I was digging through the electronics bin at a Goodwill out on 82nd Ave and spotted this heavy beige keyboard buried under some old phone chargers. Plugged it into my laptop with a PS2 adapter and every single key still clicks like new. Got it for $8. Anyone else still hang onto mechanical keyboards from the 80s or 90s?
The thing weighs like 10 pounds and clacks like a typewriter, but my typing speed jumped from 60 wpm to 75 wpm after a week. Why do new boards feel so mushy and plastic-y compared to something built 30 years ago? Anyone else rocking an old keeb and finding it way more solid?
I sorted through a box from a garage sale and ended up with 500 old floppy disks from the 90s. Some have old DOS games, others have family photos I haven't seen in years. I'm torn between keeping them as is for nostalgia or copying everything to a hard drive before they degrade. What do you guys do with your physical media that's still readable?