These contraptions existed as long as you don't have the
foggiest idea or have failed to remember them
What is the difference
between a Game Boy and a Tiger machine? It's obvious: the Nintendo console is
part of popular history and even young people who have never touched one know
what it is. But who remembers the Tiger slots apart from retro gaming lovers?
Examples like these are plenty. Next, we will talk about some of those gadgets
that you may not know or have forgotten, but that at some point were part of
people's lives.
Technology is advancing by
leaps and bounds and new devices arriving in stores are multiplying daily. In
the 80s and 90s, the same thing happened. As you can imagine, many of the
gadgets that were released ended in failure or perhaps succeeded and ended up
being forgotten over time as they failed to transcend the borders of eternity.
Get comfortable and get ready for an exercise in nostalgia.
Seeks
Also known, according to the
RAE, as a pager, although we always refer to it as "search". It is a
small device that was used to receive short messages. On some models, only
numbers could be received, which was a signal to the receiver of the person to
whom they had to "call" back. Other models did allow texting, which
made it a curious communication system before mobile phones and SMS entered the
scene.
They used radio frequency,
which made them more reliable than cell phones. For example, the security of
receiving the messages sent was maximum no matter where you were. In addition
to being used to send messages, alert tones could also be used, which used to
be crucial for certain professions. In Spain, pagers were used mainly in
hospitals and by specialized health or emergency personnel, but in the United
States, they were more widespread in a general way. Today they are still used in restaurants in some
countries, where customers receive a pager that sounds the alarm signal when
their food is ready. This happens, above all, in shopping centers in Japan.
clapper
Before the Internet of
Things connected everything, there were already projects that allowed us to
enjoy a glimpse of the future. When there was no Alexa, we had the Clapper. It
began to be sold in the United States in the 80s and it was not long before it
was present in a multitude of television series and movies. You might remember
your parents or grandparents going crazy over the idea of using their palms
to turn off the light in the room.
That's something they were
able to do with this kind of gadget. It was an accessory that was connected to
the plug and then to the Clapper you had to connect whatever you wanted to be
controlled with the sound. For example, you could plug in the night lamp and
feel like you were in the future. It had some issues, like not only detecting
claps, but it didn't work badly either. The same thing has happened today as
with the Pager, technology has advanced so much that we no longer need it.
Tiger's arcade
recording units
What rascals we Spaniards
were. We recorded everything. In the days of the cassette, we used double-deck units with the intention of duplicating tapes or making those very special
mixes that we later distributed among our classmates. The same was true for
VHS, whether it was connecting two VCRs with a cable or having a drive that had
two tape ports. What we did to be able to see a movie we liked as many times as
we wanted!
Today all we have to do is
go to Netflix and play the movie 300 times if we want because nobody is going
to tell us anything. Or we copy a song to a USB memory and that's it. What
complicated us at that time was priceless.
Casio Agendas
One of the whims of the
young people of the 90s provided a lot of possibilities, such as sending
messages, storing notes, connecting it to the television to use it as if it
were the remote control, or saving your contact list, among other things.
This type of device fell out
of use long ago, for obvious reasons, but Casio continues to market similar
agendas for other uses. For example, they are one of the most common tools
among Japanese students, who use them as a reference system to study given that
the use of mobile phones is prohibited in class.
connexin
The first movie projector for many of the children of the past. It must be recognized that this was one of
the devices that we have hesitated the most to put in this selection because
it is quite rooted in popular memory. But, at the same time, it has disappeared
without leaving a trace as notorious as that of other gadgets of its time.
Today the concept has
influenced many other devices that are sold in toy stores and that, in fact,
maintain a similar philosophy. It consisted of placing the film and projecting
the images on the wall to be able to see them while you controlled the movement
yourself. In the absence of a VHS at that time and television, many children
made up the night. We would venture to say that the original Cinexin had some
traits that today's competitors have not even been able to overcome.
What do you remember and miss?
We've tried not to go for
the obvious examples that go without saying, but maybe there's a gadget you
remember that you'd like to mention to share the nostalgic hit with other
readers. Surely thinking a little, many more cases come to mind, because the
80s and 90s are loaded with crazy ideas that, for the most part, came to
nothing. For example, do you remember the Barcode Battler device? A machine
that made barcodes part of the game. All the kids wanted her!