Ten Technologies That Shouldn't Have Died? 639
Ant wrote to us with an article that's sure to provoke some discussion. The feature highlights some of the technologies that have more or less died off and perhaps shouldn't have.
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Ten Technologies That Shouldn't Have Died?
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Talent does what it can. Genius does what it must. You do what you get paid to do.
Re:Philadelphia and Electric Trolleys (Score:2)
Fair enough, but you ironically seem to be overlooking that said people's living and travel preferences forces itself on others who have differing preferences, such as to not have people dumping their air pollution all over your property (and everyone elses).
IMHO, the argument that things should not be forced on people cannot easily be used in defense of the automobile, because the choice to use it so extensively by a lot of people has forced considerable and unwanted changes onto a lot of other people.
If anything, I'd argue that the right to choose (extensive car usage) is a lesser right than the right to not to have other people's choices (said extensive car usage) forced upon you.
(And of course, as is usually the case with these things, there are people who quite clearly want to have their cake and eat it too
RFC-20010: A Tube Based Network Protocol (TBNP) (Score:2)
You would pack 150 cdroms into a tubeshaped cannister, and then send the round, screaming down the Tube. Sure, latency would be a bitch, but what bandwith!
Pneumatic devices would not only drive the cannisters, but help them deaccelerate, while regaining some of the energy.
Of course, such a tubenetwork could not be based on a optimistisc protocol, like TCP/IP, since 'packet' collisions would be rather messy. So some kind of Token Ring (Broken Ring
Such a Token Tube system, should be implemented with reliable old style, electrical relays (and preferable valves/tubes too). One could of course place an automatic watch on each cannister, as a primitive form of network time protocol replacement; their self-winding nature, would fit
perfectly with a rugged tube ride.
Packet, or rather, cannister sniffing would be hard to do, but experienced network admins, could
press their ears to the tube, listen to the 'clickety-clicks', and muffled 'whoooumphhh's, and say "Thar she blows. I know that sound; thats the spring edition of Dead Rat 2010, being rolled out."
New breathtaking TLA's like T2T(Tube-to-Tube) technologi, would emerge. Users would send wax-cylinders to each other, on private tubes.
Wax-tubes would be easy to reuse (RWT= Rewriteable Wax Tubes): smother the wax, and cut a new track on it, by using their Amigas (Which, would probably rule as a sound wax-cutter too). Buissness men could use the the RWT as dictation systems (preferably using a ribbon mic), and send it by tube to the secretary, who could type the memo, using Wordstar 2000.
Zeppelins? Well, there would probably be problems sending cannisters across the atlantic. So Zeppelins would be an obvious long distance carrier choice; just haul some tons of DLT tapes in it, and send it away.
Trans atlantic network propagandation would be like some extremely slow, extremely high bandwith version of UUCP. (The Zeppelin navigators, would of course use slide-rulers)
Re:GM Actually Did Kill off Streetcars (Score:2)
It still does, to me. I grew up in apartments, not during any wars or depressions. I hated it - playing in streets, or on rooftops, surrounded by dirty grey concrete and black asphalt, like some kind of Dickensian or Doctorowian urchins. We later moved into the suburbs, and by comparison that little 1/8th acre seemed like heaven on earth.
AM Stereo!! (Score:3)
A technology that shouldn't have died? AM STEREO!!
I surprised no one has mentioned this yet. I hope I get some responses. (Hey, Taco, how about setting the default view to "newest first"?)
(What follows is a brief synopsis. You can find all sorts of information and everything you ever wanted to know about AM stereo by going here [amstereoradio.com].)
Back in the early '80s, there were a lot of AM music stations. AM radio sounded tinny and mono, while FM was crisp, clear, and stereophonic. There was legislation in many countries requiring FM stations to water down their content to help the AM stations compete, but the AM stations couldn't count on that legislation to be around forever. And with so much music on AM, there was a desire from both listeners and broadcasters to have better sound quality.
In 1982, four competing methods for broadcasting higher-quality stereophonic sound on AM while maintaining backward compatibility with existing AM radios were proposed. But the FCC, instead of quickly deciding on one as the standard, decided to try a "free market" approach. They would allow broadcasters to use which ever stereo-encoding method they wanted, and allow electronics manufacturers to support which every method they wanted. It was felt that after a few years one method would dominate and could be approved as the standard.
However, with no encoding method approved as the official standard, very few AM stereo radios were built. What if a company spent loads of time and money building a radio for one stereo-encoding method, only to have another emerge as the standard?
So, throughout the 1980s and into the '90s, many AM stations pumped out clearer, FM-like sound, but the listeners could only hear the familiar, tinny, monaural squawking they were used to, and probably wondered what the DJs were talking about when they ID'd their station as "The new WQZX, 1530 AM stereo!"
In 1993, the FCC finally approved a standard, but by then it was too late.
I can remember listening, as a kid and a teenager, to my town's top 40 station, which was AM. I always wished I could hear them in stereo. I knew that a handful of car radios supported AM stereo, but I never knew why no home receiver did. Eventually, the FM content restrictions were relaxed, and a top 40 FM station went on the air and quickly replaced my local AM top 40 station as my station of choice.
Eventually, the top 40 AM station switched to an all-sports format, but not before having one last try at keeping their music format: During their last year, they switched to an all dance-music format. They also played a lot of very new music. I always heard the newest stuff first on the AM station. But I always wished they would move to FM so I could hear them in stereo. Why they didn't, I'll probably never know.
Recently, I started working at a radio station, so a lot of my questions about AM stereo, this "phantom technology", were answered. I recently bought an AM stereo radio from eBay. You must realize that AM stereo isn't just tinny, squawking sound in stereo -- normal AM stations have a frequency cutoff at 2.5 kHz. AM stereo stations cut off at 7.5 kHz. It's still not quite as good as FM, but it's a lot better than regular AM. I'm not sure why regular AM radios don't pick up the extended frequency range. Perhaps they filter out anything above 2.5 kHz as if it were noise.
Anyway, there's only four AM stations left in my town, and only one plays music -- oldies. Only one of the four stations (not the oldies one) still transmits in stereo, the others having given up on it due to the lack of support.
The one remaining AM stereo has a news/talk format. It's kind of cool to hear their station IDs in stereo. Every Sunday, though, they send a few DJs to a local record store to play samples of new CDs on the radio for half an hour. This is the one time I ever get to hear AM stereo music, and let me tell you, it's heavenly. If only I had known about all this when I had a top 40 AM station!
It's not quite like listening to a CD, but it's a nice taste of a wonderful technology from the past that just wasn't given a chance...
Once again, go here to learn more about AM stereo radio [amstereoradio.com].
-- Rahoule
God DAMN there's a lot of misinformation here! (Score:2)
Look, you want to know why streetcars died off? Want to know why the US is dominated by suburban growth? Do you want facts?
Re:A better automatic clock (Score:2)
Unfortunately, the watches that are both solar and radio controlled are not available in the US yet. (Europe and the US and Japan all have different frequences/standards for time broadcast and each watch has an antenna that is tuned for one or the other.)
burris
Crappy list... (Score:2)
Two words. Microsoft Bob. (Score:2)
Wordstar deserved it. (Score:2)
The rest, I miss.
John
They Might Be Giants (Score:2)
Does anyone else find this as cool as I do?
Re:Airships didn't deserve it. (Score:2)
We drive about in cars filled with nasty exploding or burnable gasoline. You take a risk with any form of energy, or transport, and you try to pick the best you can. Go back to 1960 detroit and say "plastics are the future, or and so are carbon" and you'd get laughed out by the engineers. Or, how about the concept that the lowest voltage you can effectivly switch a transistor for computers was 5 volts. We today may think hydrogen is a dumb idea, but it MAY be the way we'll move about in the future.
points out [airmail.net] how hydrogen is not what was the inital problem, but how it was the 'skin'.
Re:Swordmaking (Score:2)
what?!
clay in a sword? no.
damascus type blades are made by either alternating layers of high and low carbon steel, or layers of steel and some other metal, which are then hammered and folded repeatedly. (this isn't taking into account wire damascus, which is made by hammering wire rope).
japanese blades are typiclly folded more than damascus, to create more layers.
the clay used when making a japanese blade coats it during heat treating as insulation to create a differential temper. the edge is hard and will stay sharp. the back of the blade is softer and will flex to keep the blade from breaking.
Looks a tad America centric (Score:2)
As a matter of fact cities not giving in to the rise of the subway system are real happy campers today, since it's sorta nice not being damned to a filthy, smelly underground when using public transport and it's also good for tourism. Problems such as clogged streets where solved with dedicated tracks and clever traffic flow control systems. Zurich, despite the fact that it relies mostly on street cars, is considered the most punctual and reliable public transport system in Europe (yes they really do run according to time tables).
The automatic watch has'nt and quite certainly will not go away. Especially in the medium to high price sector buyers scoff on quartz watches. This makes sense when you consider coughing up 2'000$ to finally get the same $1.75 watch mechansism as you have in a Swatch.
A few of the most reputed Swiss watch manufaturers (i.e. Vecheron Constantin) never did and (according to their marketing spiel) never will manufacture a quartz watch.
Re:Airships didn't deserve it. (Score:2)
Nope. At the time, the only source for helium was the United States and the US government wouldn't sell it to Germany. Thus, the Germans had no other choice but hydrogen.
Hmm (Score:2)
Pneumatic systems are pretty neat, but e-mail and alphanumeric pagers are wonderful things..
I understand that the Amiga was pretty good, though I don't really understand the idea of hooking a computer up to a TV as the primary display..
The ribbon mic sounds pretty cool..
Wax cylinder? Hah! You couldn't even stamp them out, could you?
Slide rules should probably be a little more common. Heck, with all of the calculators these days where you can store notes within them, slide rules are a good way to make sure that nobody is cheating..
The reel mower sure looks cool, but I have my doubts about it.. My family just got an electric mulching mower, which is quite a bit quieter than a gas-powered one (though not exactly whisper-quiet..), and it seems to do the job. (I haven't tried yet, but I think it's actually quiet enough to listen to a walkman while mowing..)
The automatic watch is not a bad idea, and there are new designs that use the same technique to charge a battery which runs a quartz movement. Still, most watches will last a few years on just one battery..
Lastly, the airship is coming back, last I heard.. However, they're using modern materials like carbon fiber. Maybe hydrogen should come back too, but perhaps not in the US (where gun nuts are happy to shoot at anything.. NASA has to cover their parts, including stuff for the shuttle, with bullet-proof cowlings whenever they are transported by train..)
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Re:Bah, none of those are dead. ;) (Score:2)
Re:Manufacturing and tolerances... (Score:2)
BUZZ, try again. Tools are of higher quality today then they were 50 years ago. Do not compare the junk of today (Which won't last long before being thrown out) with the quality stuff of yesterday. Rest assured they made junk before WWII just as much as they do today. The junk didn't last and so you don't see it. The quality stuff did last and you can see it today.
Compare a modern Snap-On or Chraftsman wrench with one from 75 years ago and you will be ahrd pressed to find any difference. This is one however: the old tool has sustained some wear which could be measured. (The new tool will do the same them over 75 years)
Likewise for the rest. Modern manufactureing has brought down the price of junk significantly, but the cost of quality hasn't been impacted much. Thus the old Crafdtsmen table saws were expensive but affordable quality compared to junk, but todays chraftsmen table saws are affordable junk while todays much higher quality table saws are expensive but affordable.
There is a saying in third world countries that product most of this junk: Only amercians can afford to buyn junk. Thus the person in those countries who needs a tool is more likely to buy the quality tool (Often made in the US, but not always) or do without.
Re:Apple Newton!!!!! (Score:2)
With the Newton, you could just start writing and the thing would do handwriting recognition for whole words or sentences at a time. The original model (MessagePad 100) didn't do this version well, but the model I had, MessagePad 120, did a quite amazing job of it. And you wrote normal letters, not Graffitti-speak.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Re:Several Thoughts (Score:2)
Re:Manufacturing and tolerances... (Score:2)
* Horse carriages - well I'm not a big expert here, but I would bet that you can't get as nice ones today as you could 100 years ago.
I'm not an expert either, but I'd be willing to bet that you are wrong. There are currently many people who have taken up horsemanship as a hobby. These are rich folks, who instead of spending weekends in their yacht spend weekends on the horse, many own the horse, and take care of it themselves. (100 years ago a rich person wouldn't think about touching manure if there was a way around it, most of these folks take care of it themselves). They have money, they have an expensive hobby, and they are willing to spend whatever it takes to get the best.
When the carriage was the dominate means of transport I'm willing to bet that most folks had a long lasting carraige. Today carriages are still long lasting, but the people who buy them are rich. 100 years ago cheep was the norm beccause poor people were buying carriages. Today rich people buy them and expensive quality carriages are the norm.
Money is what it comes down to. Mechanical watches are expensive today because the only people who buy them are rich (since the quartz watch is cheaper to make in quanity. Thus the cheap watches of yesterday are not made, and so the only ones made (not many) are the works of art. IF the person buying a mechanical watch cares about accuracy, an accurate watch could be made today, since they mostly care looks, the looks are what is made. (Very few people need to know time to withing more then a minute, and 5 mintues off is okay in most cases, those who need better pay for modern clocks with better accuracty then a watch)
Modern lens can be high quality, just ask any astronomer, who pays for it. When I buy a cammera I care about cost, and in most cases the lens on a disposable cammera is plenty good. A quality camera was more expensive in the '70s then it is today. Of course in the '70s you got SLR, and now you get who knows what autofocus with large zooms. Turns out that the cheaper lens takes better pictures for all but experts since few people knew how to focus a cammera properly. In this case need for quality is key.
So if you want qualtiy you can get it, you just pay for it. We can do everything the Romans could, but we have colors they didn't as well so it goes both ways.
Re:MiniDisc is not crap. (Score:2)
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Re:Slide rules live on! (Score:2)
Slide rules are better & faster than calculators for many things, but they take training to use. They're laid out in such a fashion that the common sequence of actions just rattles off--calculators do not have this advantage. Calculators are exact to significantly more places, though.
What about steam engines? (Score:2)
Re:My point was that other alternatives are better (Score:2)
One of the promises of hydrogen is that it can be produced in large quantities in regions that are otherwise unproductive. All you need is sun or another source of energy and water (even salt water will do). Methanol, on the other hand, needs to be produced from coal (resulting in a net release of greenhouse gasses), or various forms of agriculture (taking up arable land).
Re:Wax cylinder records... (Score:2)
I was thinking "taller"/"longer" cylinders, of the same diameter, or (as regular LPs do), a slower RPM (at the expense of music quality).
When you mention up/down motion - my history teacher never mentioned that, but I am sure I read it somewhere - it is nice to be reminded. Maybe this was also a problem - maybe the needle could "pop" out of the track, causing scratches and such?
Very interesting devices, at that - if only for their simplicity...
Worldcom [worldcom.com] - Generation Duh!
Re:GM Actually Did Kill off Streetcars (Score:2)
In any case, really, I prefer riding in a comfortable train for an hour to driving a car for an hour. Most Americans would probably feel the same way if they ever had the experience. Instead, they get a rundown, dirty, and messy public transit system, and it is no surprise that they don't want more of it.
gas mower just doesn't make sense! (Score:2)
First off, I don't have acres of grass. And I'll be losing grass eventually to gardens, so I'll have even less to mow.
Secondly, I'm in a middle unit, which means the "side" of my house is the side of my next-door-neighbour's house as well. I can't just wheel a mower around the side, I have to go through the gravel laneway and through my garage. That would really SUCK with a Briggs and Straton.
And of course, I really, REALLY like the fact that when I mow the lawn, I'm not spewing out pollutants, spilling gas, or leaking oil. (Well, I may be emitting gas, but that has nothing to do with mowing.) And as a HUGE bonus, I don't wake up the entire neighbourhoor, or let them even know I'm out there. I wish the dude down the street with the horrendously gnashy-sounding electric mower would take a page from the book of Reel Mowers. Eeek.
Technologies that should have died but haven't (Score:2)
What about the flip side?
QWERTY keyboard: 90% of my bugs are typoes due to the existence of this horrible unergonmic, wrist -smashing, finger - biting monster.
Intel CPU architecture : Well, do you really think 8 registers is enough, and how long is
it before the 4GB address limit begins to suck
as bad as the 640Kb limit did? The Motorola 68k
chips were so much nicer..
Pascal, Basic, C# : Please somebody, put these out of our misery.
Pylons & overhead cables for power delivery : Blots on the landscape, and Telsa's wireless power transmission would have worked.
Space Shuttle : Still a disaster waiting to happen, an ablative shield around a bomb with 1,000s of tiles to stick on..only one tile has to fall off.
Gopher : Didn't we have this one disinterred recently ?
Re:Turbine Indy Cars (Score:2)
//rdj
Re:Hovercraft (Score:2)
//rdj
Hey... Unix isn't dead! (Score:2)
What about Unix and Linux?
As far as I know neither is dead, there are even plenty of companies and people around trying to achieve "Total World Domination" for Linux
Besides, an operating system achieving something 20 years after another is sort of like the comment the author of the article had about "preemptive multitasking".
Re:Magic Cap: Bob to the next level (Score:2)
I owned a Sony Magic Link (still have it) as well as many of the few accessories and software packages for it. It was a pretty cool device for it's time, but there was a good reason that it failed. Magic Cap was unbearably slow and, for all it's icons-up-the-ass cutesiness and so-called simplicity, it was a pain in the ass to use. It also made the assumption that all users are complete morons who shouldn't have any control over how their files are stored.
Often times, you'd be sitting waiting for minutes while Magic Crap performs garbage collection, eating up valuable battery time, not to mention the fact that getting to some particular tool or app often required jumping to different scenes, then maneuvering left/right to find a particular building or door.
I was looking forward to an update that would fix many of the significant problems with the OS, but it never came. They originally had planned to include an app building tool, but that never came either. Instead, they tried to market Magic Crap for Windows (Why???).
Now Hertzfeld and Co. want to do the same thing for Linux [ http://www.eazel.com/ ]. From what I've seen of it, it looks like they may actually have some good ideas about how to make Linux accessible to general users. Personally, I think KDE 2.0 is just fine.
STratoHAKster
Re:Manufacturing and tolerances... (Score:2)
_____________
Re:Reel mowers are great! (Score:2)
Sliderules are still used by a surprising group (Score:2)
I recall in my early college days taking a class in which the photo wheel was used. All students had to buy one (available in the arts section of the student store, and normally made of cardboard or plastic). The professor spent the better part of a three hour class repeatedly explaining how to use it, prefacing each time with "It's a little complicated, but you get the hang of it." This scene was remarkably disturbing for me (as was the computer-aided design & layout class), because it took me less time to do the necessary math in my head in less time than it took these media lackeys to do it with a tool specifically designed for the problem. (Which of course is why I soon changed majors.)
But I guess it just wouldn't do to have a scientific calculator in the newsroom. Though it would certainly help demonstrably in the accuracy department.
Re:A nerdly walk through history (Score:2)
Ah. That brings back memories of my first stereo. I wonder how it would have altered our current expectations of technology, if instead of transistors we had developed a way to make ever smaller vacuum tubes, but they still took time to warm up.
Ribbon Mikes (Score:2)
Re:hydrogen, airships, & "non-flammable helium" (Score:2)
Your information is accurate but incomplete.
Note that the iron oxide is merely a catalyst and controls the rate of the burn. A catalyst is a substance which is unchanged at the end of a chemical reaction.
You leave off the amounts involved, a most important factor. Note that the iron oxide is present in a relatively tiny amount.
hydrogen, airships, & "non-flammable helium" (Score:5)
contrary to popular belief, it wasn't hydrogen that caused the Hindenburg disaster. Rather it was the paint used on the shell of the airship, made from components very similar to what is used in today's rocket fuel. A static charge caused this paint to ignite, thus sending the airship to its end.
The impressive photos of the Hindenburg burning show massive amounts of flames. Hydrogen burns clear so what was burning (visibly) wasn't the gas.
As a result of that accident hydrogen has gotten a really bad rap when it's not all that dangerous and has a lot of benefits. Clean cars being one example.
So add the "commonplace, everyday use of hydrogen" to technologies that have been given up on.
Re:GM Actually Did Kill off Streetcars (Score:2)
There used to be trains on the SF Bay Bridge, moving more people than cars and buses do now! Ooops, got rid of those...
Re:Two words. Microsoft Bob. (Score:2)
Bob never left. Where do you think that annoying little paperclip came from?
Re:Wordstar deserved it. (Score:2)
I just wish Wordstar had died BEFORE I thought to try that.
John
P.S. Col. Klink (ret.) DIED [cnn.com] the 7th of December...
Re:Bah, none of those are dead. ;) ( Reel Mowers ) (Score:2)
Benifits:
There are good reasons ribbon mics are seldom used (Score:5)
Ribbon mics are very delicate, and the ribbon is succeptable to damage. One idiot blowing into the mic ("Hey! Is this on??") can tear the ribbon.
Sure, they sound warm, and sound much better "than carbon and early condenser microphones." But we don't use carbon microphones (professionally) either. Condenser mics have come a long long way since then also.
The biggest benefit in the ribbon mics was the internal tube pre-amp. There are better mics today using tube pre-amps that aren't nearly as fragile.
"They have this figure-eight pattern--they accept sound from the front and back, while rejecting sound from the sides." This is silly. Most modern-day large element recording mics have this capability. It was one of the first to have the capability, but certainly not the last.
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Several Thoughts (Score:2)
As the article admits, the infrastructure expense here is prohibitive, and why do this when self-contained electric vehicles are becoming more and more feasible?
Pneumatic Post:
Amiga:
Personally, I think Amiga failed for one basic reason: speed. The early Amigas had some amazing potential, but for day-to-day office use, for example, they could be very cumbersome. Unfortunately, by the time the hardware speed caught up with what they were trying to do, other manufacturers had competitive formats for graphics, sound, etc.
Ribbon Microphone:
I just don't get this one. I work in acoustics, and while I will grant that the ribbon microphone was impressive in its day, there are other many other alternatives that work just as well. This is probably a case of audiophiles glamorizing a certain sound timbre rather than a quantifiable advantage in performance. For example, it is possible to make a microphone with a flat response to the edge of human hearing on a silicon chip these days.
Wax Cylinder:
As with my comments for the ribbon mike, maybe there were some performance advantages to the Cylinder over vinyl, but in this day, there is no reason to prefer it over a digital system. Again, we may have a case of audiophiles prefering the qualitative aspects of a certain sound, even if a strict performance criteria would show it to be inferior.
Slide Rule:
I think I can agree with this one, if for no other reason than the article's point on its education value is true.
Reel Mowers:
Amen to this. I hate being woken up on a Saturday morning by area lawn mowers.
Automatic Watch:
A modern, electronic version of a self-charging watch does exist. Still, those things are amazing. Airship: This technology absolutely needs to be reinvestigated. It may, unfortunately, be caught in a Catch22: it needs more money to research new designs, but it needs better proven designs to get more money. Sort of like the problem the single-stage-to-orbit vehicle people seem to be stuck in right now.
Re:Two words. Microsoft Bob. (Score:2)
Then again, he always was a odd man.
Re:Turbine Indy Cars (Score:2)
After that one year with a single turbine car, they were banned from the race.
Turbines would easily win Indy because they are much smaller than a reciprocating engine and they deliver a LOT more power.
And, FYI, Indy cars are raced on an Oval. Perhaps you are thinking of Formula One?
Re:GM Actually Did Kill off Streetcars (Score:2)
San Francisco, CA still runs streetcars, including some nicely restored 1940s models, and some brand new Italian ones. Beats taking the bus.
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hindenburg (Score:3)
Maybe someone has some more details, but the gist of the show was that hydrogen can be made safe for airships.
Re:GM Actually Did Kill off Streetcars (Score:2)
Re:Amiga A-Top the list (Score:2)
Re:GM Actually Did Kill off Streetcars (Score:4)
Scott Bottles wrote a book called Los Angeles and the Automobile: The Making of the Modern City which offers a good debunking of this sadly perpetuated urban legend. Coincidentally, it was published by the same university system to which you belong, judging from your email address.
This link [lava.net] also has a good article about this topic.
The upshot: we could genuinely discuss a conspiracy only if GM pursued its course of action and dismantled the nation's systems in spite of the fact that streetcars offered more benefits than buses. Ridership peaked in the late 1920s, and had been falling off consistently for over a decade by the time the systems were dismantled in the 1940s and 1950s. Streetcars are fixed route. Bus routes can be altered. Streetcars require dedicated rights-of-way. Buses share the road with other vehicles. Streetcars do have the ability to move more people in the same amount of time with a high enough level of service, but the plain fact is that they were in decline.
The hearings to which you refer were about GM's monopolistic practices in creating the replacement bus systems. Who could blame them? They were taking advantage of the streetcars' demise--brought about by the economics of the time, I must stress--and getting in on the ground floor by supplying buses. And if I had time, I'd dig up those hearings and provide testimony from people who, DURING those hearings, debunked this conspiracy from the get-go, but were drowned out by the media's coverage of it all.
I'm not terribly surprised that your post got modded up to (Score: 4), but it does disappoint me that so many people believe this when just 10 minutes of the most casual research can unearth mountains of material that debunk this myth.
MOD Music (Score:3)
Realistically, the MOD scene is still around, though it has been eclipsed by the plethora of MP3s, etc and the advent of more bandwidth. Now, it is mainly hobbyists and the like, whereas before, you'd get people who wanted to download their favorite song to listen to it, or check out some random DJ's remix.
In case you're curious, check out: Arts: Music: Sound Files: MOD [dmoz.org] for mod files and Computers: Multimedia: Music and Audio: Software: MOD [dmoz.org] for players and trackers on Open Directory [dmoz.org]. Oh, and if you have Winamp [winamp.com], you already have the ability to play MODs.
I have another one... (Score:2)
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Dead??? just resting... (Score:2)
Also I live near the reel mower activist capital of the world (maybe?) -- Takoma Park DC (where old hippies go to die).
As for the rest of the technologies, let 'em collect dust in museums.
Re:GM Actually Did Kill off Streetcars (Score:5)
Well, no shit. Cars became available to the middle class. Has nothing to do with Streetcars versus GM manufactured buses.
Ridership peaked in the late 1920s,
True, but most major cities' bus routes run exactly on the old streetcar lines. So consider this advantage theoretical.
Streetcars require dedicated rights-of-way.
False. They are called *Street*cars, you know.
First of all, after the depression and the rise of autos, most of the nations private streetcar systems were in serious decline when GM moved in, with cars and tracks dating back to the 1890s. However, that forstalled the inevitable, since even after the bus conversion, almost every US mass transit system was in public recievership by the early 1970s anyway.
Second, buses were only more economical in the era of cheap 50s gas and friendly loans from General Motors. If anyone had the choice in keeping an electric system or switch to gas today, they'd stick with electric. Also, unlike those 50-year old streetcars, none of those GM busses lasted longer than 20 years before having to be replaced, by the taxpayers.
Third, GM's tactics in this business were horrible. In Minneapolis, for example, they conspired with mobsters to essentially loot the system, and left the company as a bankrupted shell after they had to rip up the lines and sell the fleet for scrap. Where once the only sigificant operational cost was labor (the system was powered by a hydroplant), they then had big loans from GM and ongoing gasoline and tire costs. These sorts of tactics from a company that a 70% marketshare at the time were disgusting. This is hardly a secret conspriciy theory either -- GM ran newspaper ads bragging about what they were doing, and knew that in an environment where 'Whats good for GM is good for America', and the faux moderinity of gasoline busses, they were politically safe.
Well, anyway, stand out on Market Street in San Francisco some time with your dollar. See if you get on the 40s streetcar or the 80s bus, and see which provides better service.
--
Re:GM Actually Did Kill off Streetcars (Score:3)
Well, that's a different conspiricy! Suffice it to say that GM was a big real estate developer and also so home appliances in those days...
(Although the federal loan subsidy policies of the day were the real motivating factor behind the suburbs. Not that I can blame people. After being cooped up in an apartment through the depression and the war, with no money and rationing, and nothing getting maintained and nothing new getting built for 30 years, a nice shiny Chevrolet and your own federally subsidized 1/2 acre probably sounded pretty good!)
--
Reel Mowers are Great (Score:3)
Re:hydrogen, airships, & "non-flammable helium" (Score:2)
Magic Cap: Bob to the next level (Score:2)
Re:Slide Rule (Score:2)
I'm not convinced that it's for the better--Slide rules are blindingly fast, bombproof, and require the person to understand what results they're getting. It's the reason that pilots still almost universally use circular slide rules instead of calculators.
Re:Two words. Microsoft Bob. (Score:2)
Actually, I always thought that Bob would make a pretty cool UI for kids -- like a kind of virtual tree house. That Microsoft kept trying to sell it to adults (and still does judging by the MS Office Paperclip) made no sense to me.
Re:Just let go (Score:3)
The point of the article is sometimes that good technologies disappear and are replaced with new ones of questionable value. Reel mowers are a good example. For a small lawn, reel mowers:
1. are quieter
2. are less expensive
3. require less maintenance
4. provide less opportunity for serious injury
5. don't need gasoline, oil or electricity
6. don't emit fumes
When I see a guy mowing his 1/8 acre with a riding mower, I can't help but laugh. Sure, he has the "technologically superior" solution, but he's also ridiculous
Re:Betamax? (Score:2)
Not quite dead... (Score:2)
http://www.tri-met.org/max.htm [tri-met.org]
Ribbon Microphones are still used by several bands... because of their "warm sound."
I'm sure that some of the others on this list are still in wide use today. I've seen Pneumatic Posts in all sorts of banks, and some large stores. (Nike Town in Downtown portland uses them to move around shoes...)
The Amiga is not quite dead too. I'm not sure about WordStar, but I know people who still swear by WordPerfect 6.0 (the blue an white version in DOS).
My grandpa still uses a slide rule to figure out all sorts of math. I think he's just showing off, but when he's faster at it then I am with a TI-89, I tend to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Reel mowers are still in use. Not just by old farts who refuse to change either. They're waaaay cheaper, and for small lawns not all that inconvenient.
Automatic Watches... uhhh Seiko Kinetic? Anyone?
Everytime I see football I see airships. Granted they're not used for transportation, except for the crew, but they're still there, and useful.
It's interesting to see a list of things that are refered to as passed technologies, all of which are still in use somewhere today. Perhaps people need to open their eyes and see that these things are out there with their loser elegance beating out the "winners" that lack simplicity.
Re:Betamax? (Score:2)
________________________________________
Slide rules and airships (Score:2)
It's called an E6-B. It's a circular slide rule used to solve navigation problems and wind triangles for aviation use. It's actually faster to use than the electronic versions (that's why I've stuck with a mechanical E6-B rather than buying an electronic one). The other good thing about it as there are no batteries to fail, and you can still read it wearing polarized sunglasses.
As far as the Hindenburg, even if it were helium-filled it could have caught fire, but not quite as spectacularly. The doped fabric covering of the airship was itself highly flammable.
10 years ahead list (Score:3)
Ten Passed Technologies
Not every disappearing technology deserves that fate. Sometimes the "losers" have an elegance and simplicity the "winners" lack. Here are ten examples.
MS Word
The sparse and tightfisted Word processor from the extinguished Microsoft company shaped the future of modern Speech Processors (SP) and user hyperinterface: thousand of icons and buttons in the screen, random behaviour, ill-behaviour with large document, the talking clipper. It lacks of features is considered, nowdays, more a virtue rather than a defect.
ISDN and ADSL
Copperlines, the 20th-century analog of today's quantic-optic fibers, had their own "last mile" problem. One 20th-century solution: small electron quantums pushed along expensive copper cables via porting in unhealthy high-frequencies that acted as carriers.
CDs and DVDs
Audiophiles lament the passing of digital sounds and MPEG audio, which they perceive as having a richer sound than the holographic pild. But the recorded disc was in its own day an upstart technology, elbowing out a superior medium for recording sound: the dic-shaped vinyl first manufactured by RCA in the middle of last century.
Personal Computers
In 1979, Commodore brought the Personal Computers to consumers. Two years later, the final shaped of old and bloated hardware born with the name of IBM Personal Computers, which lasted for 30 years until the quantic processor won its own position in the market.
Internet
The appeareance of this technology in the general-public market, 25 years later from its invention, was believed as the greater revolution since the Gutember invention. Nowadays, it is hard to believe that such a unreliable networks technology, still based in moving electrons along copper cables and optic fiber, and therefore anti-ecologic until its own bones, could last for 30 years with no opposition from the mithyc Greenpeace. Additionally, the primitive protocol used for reliable transmission, because networks weren't reliable at all, didn't allow for bandwidth aggregation and reservation, according to the amount of "electron packets" needed for the, already dissapeared, 2D plus sound streamed movies.
--ricardo
Re:Electric Trolly. (Score:3)
What the author didn't mention is that SF is expanding its light rail system with as much money as it can muster. In the last decade we've added new (or restored) track on Market Street and the Embarcadero, and we're planning a major new line down Third Street and possibly up the Geary corridor. It's one of the fastest-growing parts of the SF transportation system.
There are still plenty of idiots who think we should bulldoze $500M worth of housing and put in freeways,etc., but most of them live down in San Jose or LA, where people do those kinds of things
Re:Betamax is not Betacam. (Score:3)
They aren't that different. Betacam is just Betamax with the tape running 6 times faster, and wider head gaps (you get 20 minutes on a tape).
Betacam SP is more akin to S-VHS, based on Betacam but with seperate luminance and chrominance signals.
It used to be possible to modify a certain UK Betamax VCR to play back (but not record) Betacam.
Re:GM Actually Did Kill off Streetcars (Score:2)
Yes, SF has some of these older cars running along Market Street and the Embarcadero. I see them every few minutes from my window here. But that's not quite the same as going all over the city.
And the poster who pointed out that all this is US-centric...well of course it is. To most Americans, the idea that there's a world outside of our own country is one that is easily forgotten, if ever learned.
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
technologies failing to sell? (Score:2)
sounds like a job for ....
MARKETING!
guess you geeks still need us Marketroids after all :)
- j
McDLT (Score:2)
Betamax? (Score:2)
"shouldn't have died"? (Score:5)
Gameboy!! (Score:3)
But not too many ten year old console game systems can still make dump truck loads of money!!!
Is it proof that game play is more important than graphics?
Automatic watch shouldn't be on the list (Score:4)
GM Actually Did Kill off Streetcars (Score:3)
And yes, BETA should have definitely been on the list.
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
Reel mowers are great! (Score:5)
They are making a well-deserved comeback, with high appeal for environment and neighbor conscious people with yards smaller than a polo field.
Re:Bubble Memory (Score:3)
Actually a quick search on google shows that at least in Japan there is still some development going on in this field
http://www.sta.go.jp/sonota/sonota/e9908_10.html [sta.go.jp]
Engine powered reel mowers are fun! (Score:3)
They are essentially a reel mower with an engine, and a wheel at the back, connected by a drop chain/lever combo. You have to push the mower, then drop the wheel to prevent a "scuff" mark on the grass (boy, was I bawled out by my boss on my first job in high-school about that!), but man - you could litterally guide them easily once going.
Now, these suckers were anything _but_ safe - the reel keeps spinning as the engine runs (of course, the model I used was old, they may be safer today, with a clutch or something) - I am sure some fingers could be chopped off by that thing (and I know more than one snail in the yard lost its life due to the mower I was using!)...
Worldcom [worldcom.com] - Generation Duh!
Re:Bah, none of those are dead. ;) (Score:5)
Bah, none of those are dead. ;) (Score:5)
You know all those subways in New York? They're powered by electricity. Sure, the metaphor is a little different, but the idea is still there: Electric powered mass transit.
Pneumatic tubes? Bah, Home Depot and Costco use these systems to this day. I worked for a company a couple years ago that maintained these systems; cashiers use them to deliver money to the vault in the back.
Amiga? HAH. I still have a functioning Amiga 2000.
Don't many studios still use some varient of the 'ribbon microphone'? Admittedly my expertise is starting to peter out, but I do know it's common for either recording artists or movie people to use older technologies because they sound (or look) a certain way.
Reel mowers, bah. I had a friend during childhood who's parents still used one.. they made him mow the lawn with it as punishment.
Only commenting on the stuff I know.
Just because you don't see a representation of it on every street corner doesn't mean something has dissappeared.
Re:hydrogen, airships, & "non-flammable helium" (Score:5)
EVERYTHING burns clear. Flames are superheated gasses; the air becomes so hot that it glows. Sort of like iron. When you suggest that hydrogen burns clear, you are either saying that it burns so coolly that the air 'glows' in the infrared, or it burns so hot that it 'glows' mostly in the X-Ray spectrum. Both are ridiculous propositions.
And to top it all off, I've burned hydrogen, and it DEFINITELY produces a flame...
Clean cars being one example.
Yes, hydrogen-burning cars can be safe...because the hydrogen is dissolved in metal and it can't explode, and it is bled off continuously and dispersed.
You have been reading TOO much hydrogen car propoganda. Yes, hydrogen-powered cars can be good, but it is also true that hydrogen burns.Just like gasoline. Or diesel.
Huh? (Score:5)
Seriously, what about some of the great ones? Betamax, or Sony's 8mm wallet-sized videotapes?
What about remote GUI login? Unix had it, and Windows never caught up (no, pc anywhere doesn't count). People still don't know that they should be able to log into their home computers wherever they are.
What about guns? Colts are collectors items not because they're old but because they're the best revolvers ever made. Today's guns suck by comparison - the tolerances are way down, machined rather than hand matched.
IBM's butterfly notebook?
actually playing music on MTV?
we should do a slashdot article and pick the 10 best abandoned technologies. these don't even come close.
Swordmaking (Score:5)
And yes, modern metallurgical techniques are used.
Who do you think reads all those graduate theses which have been written on Japanese swords? Swordmakers, for the most part. Because once you take a good, hard look at what makes a Masamune so perfect, that gives you a big hint as to how to make your own swords better.
Your comment is about as informed as someone saying "violinmakers haven't changed their techniques in hundreds of years". Considering that some scientists come tantalizingly close to producing Stradivarius-quality instruments by careful study and analysis, violinmaking is undergoing rapid change due to modern technology.
This is the way the world works. The world wants it fast, cheap and good. The merchant says "fine, pick two", but the prosperous merchant says "fine, I'll give you all three". The second kind of merchant puts the first kind out of business.
Science is a wonderful tool with which to drive down costs of quality goods. It doesn't replace the human touch, nor can it ever replace human expertise; but people who say that science has no adjunct role to play are smoking crack.
Even when it comes to swordmaking.
amazing coincidence... (Score:3)
This article saved my life! I am now moving back to my original idea of a canvas-winged plane controlled by punch cards, and the power is generated by hamsters running in little wheels.
I'd hate to accidentally use outdated technology for such an endeavor.
Manufacturing and tolerances... (Score:5)
Colts are collectors items not because they're old but because they're the best revolvers ever made.
Which Colt revolver would this be? The Single Action Army? The Patterson? The Python? The King Cobra? All of them are remarkable weapons (I've used all of them save the Patterson). All of them were machined.
Samuel Colt didn't "hand match" his weapons. He was smarter than that. The virtue of Sam Colt's weaponry was that the parts were all interchangeable, and that's only possible with machining and mass production, not handcrafted individual objects d'art.
Today's guns suck by comparison--the tolerances are way down
My SIG-Sauer is manufactured to tolerances which are usually reserved for jet aircraft. My Kimber M1911A1, likewise.
You also seem confused about tolerances in general. Saying that "tolerances are way down" is a good thing. That's like saying "tolerances fifty years ago were 0.1mm, tolerances this year are 0.01mm." If tolerances are down, that means manufacturing techniques have improved.
Now, manufacturing tolerance isn't the same as operational tolerance. Operational tolerance ought to be very high--weapons are expected to tolerate many different kinds of ammunition without a hiccup, in the most awful conditions. A modern 9mm Glock will chamber any 9mm ammunition you want to throw at it--AET, JHP, LRN, hardball, Glaser, whatever. A 9mm Browning, built in 1935, suffers feed failures on anything other than hardball unless you've had a gunsmith do a throat and ramp-polish on it.
Modern firearms: manufacturing tolerances down, operational tolerances up.
This, by the by, is reflected in every other manufacturing field. You remember the early '80s, when people had massive air conditioners running in their computer rooms? Now, in 2000, it can be 90 degrees in the house and I don't have any qualms about firing up my dual Pentium IIIs. Manufacturing tolerances down (from point-whatever micron down to
Compare an F-22 against an F-14. Your average F-14 spends more than half of its operational lifetime on the ground being serviced. The average F-22 doesn't. Manufacturing tolerances down, operational tolerances up.
A $10 toaster from 50 years ago is big, clunky, heavy and totally reliable. A $10 toaster today is lightweight and totally reliable (at least, mine has never failed me). Manufacturing tolerances down, operational tolerances up.
Good grief. Show me one, just one instance in which devices manufactured with modern techniques aren't as good as devices manufactured with traditional techniques. Even Japanese swordsmithing has gone modern. Four hundred years ago, smiths had to resort to crude and inexact methods to measure certain vital characteristics of metal. Today, smiths use modern metallurgical know-how and thermocouple thermometers to determine exactly what the optimal temperature for forging and tempering is.
Good grief.
Chicago's Ill-fated street cars (Score:3)
Recently there was an attempt to revive the system, at least in the more touristy downtown areas. The system was deemed impractical, as it would have been ruinously expensive to implement, would have accentuated an already bad traffic situation, would have generated minimal revenue compared to the already existing bus system, and was not projected to draw all that many more tourists to the area ("Gee maw, let's us drive to Chicago and see them thar new fangled street cars" - not gunna happen)
-josh
Re:hydrogen, airships, & "non-flammable helium" (Score:5)
As I recall, Hydrogen burns with a very pale blue flame. Against the sky it'd be almost invisible - but it'd also rise so fast that it would burn only briefly if at all. The consensus on the programme I saw was that it couldn't have burnt in any quantity.
Eyewitness reports clearly stated the flame was yellowy-red, pointing to the doping performed on the canvas envelope. Which, as the previous poster stated, was pretty much rocket fuel and wasn't properly mounted to the chassis - so, flies through an electrical storm, builds up a charge which arcs across the body as some parts dissipate their charge through the docking rope and others don't. Result? Fire.
Philadelphia and Electric Trolleys (Score:3)
With the demise of the electric trolley came the use of the automobile and migration to the suburbs. When an individual is able to drive through a neighborhood without thought of the outside environment, he or she becomes removed from the situation.
It is this apathy that caused our cities to decline. If one was forced to walk or ride at a slow rate through what is your neighborhood, you take more care to notice your surroundings. People would still be involved in their neighbor's lives, thus building communities.
What we have today, however, is people living in isolated pods in suburbia, with no regard for each other. When homes are spaced 100 feet apart, and the only way to the local store is by driving, when would you ever have time to interact with your fellow man?
Although this really is spilt milk, so to speak, many of these problems came from the rapid conversion from electric trolleys to individual automobiles.
Pneumatic Tubes & Fresnel Lenses (Score:5)
Additionally, money being spent on creating larger monitors should be redirected to productive tasks such as maintaining the nationwide Pneumatic Tube Network. Those seeking larger screens for their comp-uters should simply use Fresnel lenses.
- Central Services
Listen, kid, we're all in it together.
They didn't really die (Score:3)
A lot of these ideas didn't seem to have really died, so much as to have never taken off. Many remain stuck in the same niche market of their inception. One that is a strong counterexample to to this is the slide rule. It certainly achieved great popularity in its time, but is now almost unrecognizable to most people nowadays. However, in introductory physics lab, at Brandeis, constructing one and performing calculations with it was part of our final exam. It was a very valuable experience. I don't think students in school ever really learn about logarithms like they did back before HP started popping out calculators.
Re:Wordstar deserved it. (Score:3)
I had to create a few characters that weren't built-in (like a triangle for a delta, integrals, etc). You'd have to map out your character on a 8x8 piece of paper and then calculate the binary values for each row (or was it by column?), convert to decimal (hex?), and define the character with some obscure dot command in WordStar. You could then use Control-q and some other characters to print your own characters.
Not quite WYSIWYG, but a lot of fun.
Sometimes designs are shoddy. (Score:3)
One of the errors which people (particularly engineers) make when designing modern hardware is they think that the rest of the world is as controlled and as precise as the product itself is. If you can specify that "the turbofan in this jet engine is made of a single crystal of pure nickel and built to 0.001mm of accuracy", it's easy to think that it's only going to be used in situations that are equally controlled and controllable.
So the net effect is the engine works great, but the first time a goose gets sucked up the intake, the entire engine is going to shred. (Don't laugh; this happens with surprising frequency nowadays.)
The problem is that operational tolerance comes at a cost in performance. A Soviet-era tank is reliable as the day is long, but it's got crappy performance. When people discover "Wow! With these new manufacturing tolerances, we can make things even better than before," they rarely consider that pushing things to the limits of performance has repercussions on operational tolerances.
Look at UNIX as an example. Quake III under Linux will never have the performance of Quake III under Windows 98. The reason is that, while Linux is a technically superior platform, Linux has large operational tolerances. It's very resistant to crashes because of the way it's designed. However, this fault-tolerant design comes at a price: by separating the 3D libraries from X, by separating X from the kernel, etc., you introduce lots of hidden latencies.
Win98, in the interest of pure gaming performance, lets the machine get down close to the bare metal. But we all know what kind of operational tolerances Win98 has--the first time you get any kind of weirdness, the entire system crashes.
Does all this make sense?
What a Box of Chocolates! (Score:3)
Trollies
I more disagree than agree here... High voltage wires, even when suspended, become a hazard with falling branches etc., and have to reach far into the suburbs for most implimentations. (Nearby Dayton, Ohio still uses 'em!)
Amiga
Right On Target there... Even as a small niche, the Amiga was the prototyper's dream. A decade ahead of the competition, you could plug in a $100US-or-less add-on to digitize video, do Max Headroom-esque video effects, process live wacked out audio effects in real time...
If it weren't for the proprietary hardware, it would have Ruled The Earth. It's most saving grace was the openness of its programming.
Slide Rules? Sure, good for visualization of functional relationships. Reel Mowers? No thanks, I've use a few. AutoWatch? An engineer's moral imperative! Airships? Works for Bladerunner!
A better list (Score:3)
Re:Sometimes designs are shoddy. (Score:3)
Without page-flipping on both platforms, the performance of Quake III on Linux already exceeds Quake III on Windows 98 for several cards.
Page-flipping is being added soon. Given that without page-flipping the Mach64 is (just for an example) 10% faster on Linux than Windows, with page-flipping it will totally obliterate Windows.
The public benchmarks for the tdfx driver are showing Linux exceeding Windows in every single viewperf benchmark. On some benchmarks the ratio of Linux to Windows is better than 2:1.
I think you misunderestimate the potential of good design. The DRI allows data to be streamed faster than the hardware can cope. Windows 98 is surviving by myth (the myth that Direct3D is in some way faster than OpenGL) and myth alone.
Clarification (Score:3)
I thought I'd reply to myself to provide an analogy to this, as it might be counter-intuitive enough to attract flames. An uncompressed BMP (eg like CD sound) image might take, say 100kb. A compressed JPG of the same image can, (depending on the image) be simultaniously a fifth the file size (ie like MD) and at a higher resolution, such that details not clear in the uncompressed BMP image can be made out in the JPG image. Ie, the compressed data can have a better picture despite the imperfections of lossy compression. For some images (types of music), the compression artifacts will cause more damage to the image than what is gained in resolution. For some however, the artifacts can have minimal effect and the resolution gain can have great effect, and the result is unquestionably superior.
In short, my counter example to the "MP3 is like cassette" idea wasn't intended to say "MD has better sound quality than CD" (cause in all but extreme cases this just isn't the case), but rather to blur this over-simplified view that compressed=bad and uncompressed=good in an area where filesize limits are being applied (such as music reproduction).
Re:Philadelphia and Electric Trolleys (Score:3)
Good point, and I agree. Public roads should be funded with tolls or other user fees. People who use choose mass transit shouldn't be forced to subsidize drivers, and vice versa. What I was responding to was the attitude that the automobile is solely an implement of destruction, people's living and travel preferences are irrelevant, and we must all be forced to conform to a utopian vision of "community".