Technology. Wow, ain’t it great? More like fleeting. In cleaning out a desk drawer in my office, I came across the gizmo to end all gizmos for the upwardly mobile manager. The Palm Pilot. This thing was the ultimate in organizing your calendar, your contacts, and documents. It was really handy for about 10 minutes. Then cell phones and the smart phones washed it away like a techno tsunami.
Still, I like my Palm Pilot. It once again sits upon my desk it its little cradle. Unlike any cell phone its age, this thing still works. I just put fresh batteries in it and “bling” it woke up and said “I missed you”. Well, maybe it didn’t say that but I felt it. Sort of like the Force.
I’m willing to wager that when it comes to hanging on to old devices, I’m not unique in my geek. I’m guessing you have at least one old cell phone lurking about the house. Or, maybe a VCR that you’re sure you’ll want to use again someday. As quickly as technology advances, it doesn’t take long for a device to move from the store shelf to a museum shelf in just a matter of hours.
I have 8 old cell phones alone including my first one: an Olympic flip phone from the ’96 Games in Atlanta. It has the Olympic flame and everything. Of course the battery doesn’t work any longer and I’m pretty sure that even if it did, the rest of the phone is so far behind it would be nothing more than an electric brick.
One item I don’t have is my old pager. That’s a shame actually. It seems that you can still purchase and use pagers. That includes texting pagers which it seems would be a more affordable alternative for kids these days since all they do is text anyway. I’m not sure many of them realize you can actually have a voice conversation with their phones. They remain popular for first responders, hospitals, and nuclear power plant personnel. In fact, according to The Guardian in Britain, the UK’s National Health Services uses 10 percent of the world’s pagers. Pagers still linger for several reasons. The biggest is they are more reliable than cell phones and often work in areas where a cellphone won’t. Hmmm, sometimes the old ways are still the best.
Sometimes old tech becomes new tech as is the case with the turntable or “record player”, if you will. I haven’t put vinyl on a turntable professionally or at home in more than 30 years. The compact disc player put my turntable in the closet and sent my albums to a friend’s house for storage. My son just recently purchased one. He lives in Atlanta and now frequents the secondhand shops that sell vinyl, new and used. Yes, they still put out some music on vinyl. According to Forbes, record sales were at a 28-year high in 2016 and showing no signs of slowing down. More and more current artists are releasing material on vinyl.
I saw another article about a guy in Brazil who has over six million vintage albums. That’s just another way of saying he is sitting on a gold mine. While new albums sell fairly well, it’s the old stuff in good condition that can bring the bucks.
I still believe that it is always best to ride the wave techno change instead of being swept away by it. That’s why I have the ole Palm Pilot on my desk. It’s there to remind me only change is forever…and that I have a dentist appointment next month.
