When I was a kid my family owned a device whose sole purpose was to rewind vhs tapes.
We’ve got at least 7 or 8 old remotes for items we don’t even have anymore.
A tone dialer. Like this
https://images.app.goo.gl/fbdmckv44BY7fdWw9
Not for phone phreaking, just for speed-dialling.
I would make international calls frequently. I would buy calling cards. The process was: dial the 800 number on the card. Enter the id number on the card to use some of its credit. Dial the number to call. Their service would then connect me at a low rate to another country(probably making a voip call).
So I’d set up the 3 speed dial buttons with those. For each new card I’d only have to change the card’s unique number.
I was a phone phreak, and I still have my last old-school brown Radio Shack tone dialer which I’d been planning to make into a red box. Ultimately I was too lazy to swap the crystal in it, and it sat in my junk drawer for years while red boxing died. Now it’s a curiosity that sits on my shelf of hacker books. Maybe I’ll still do the crystal swap someday for the sheer hell of it.
There an app for that now.
At least, there is on the Flipper Zero.
Building one of those was always on my list when I got a copy of the Anarchist’s cookbook, never got around to it though.
My modular synthesizer.
I love it and I’ve poured far to much money into it for something that doesn’t come close to the power of making music in a DAW. But I do love it, and it can do some cool stuff that I’ve not been able to reproduce in a DAW - like random triggers and probability. It’s also nice to get away from my computer.
I wish I had the budget for modular. I’m stuck with Cardinal in the meantime.
I own plenty of Libreboot computers without Intel Management Engine (2006-2009 era). For the average user in today’s world, I don’t see many people using them unless definitive proof came out that the government uses the IME to spy on them. These 2006-2009 era desktops/laptops can have the entire IME firmware removed, along with a 100% free BIOS. I collect as many as I can.
I am going different on this one.
An awl on a utility knife.
Nowadays, 99% of camping, hiking, and “survival” equipment is light weight composites that can be better fixed with glue, tape, small needle and thread, or a patch with one of the above. There are very few alternative uses for it that aren’t better with a different standard tool.
paper maps
I’m actually trying to buy some for my area. I’m trying to learn how to use a compass.
My record player has the ability to record cassette audio onto USB.
Mine too!
If I dig down into the drawer with several layers of old iPhones I can find my palm pilot at the bottom right next to the Treo that replaced it.
Scientific calculator.
I got a graphing one from TI. It was really expensive and was marginally useful during college. Then I had a cheap one that just did numbers.
And those were way better than sliding rulers.
Rewritable CDs? Technically I can still use them, but I don’t really expect to use them and I wonder if they are still worth keeping.
I got rid of mine with my most recent move. Why bother bringing them with me.
I still have a couple hundred and a couple usb cd/DVD burners. Maybe someday I’ll use one again…
Depending on their age and how you stored them they might not even work anymore
I have an ISA soundcard around here somewhere.
my old ISA graphics card would like a word. :p
You will only take my Gravis Ultrasound Max from my stiff cold dead hands.
Not before.
I moved heaven and earth to find and buy one back in the day. We will never part ways. I don’t have had a system to put it in for the last 22 years. I dont care. It’s resting in its box untill… I dont know, the rapture or something. It’s mine.
I had one!
I can do one better than that, I have a battery powered handheld TV that only works with analog NTSC broadcasts and does not have a composite input on it. It’s therefore damn difficult to get it to display any kind of picture at all these days. The only way is to broadcast at it with one of those short range toy transmitters, or hack up your own.
I have a Blackberry Playbook on my desk that I am trying to figure out how to crack. I also keep my Sharp EL-50 scientific calculator around. We had to buy that specific model because it didn’t have a persistent memory. We could turn it off and on in front of the invigilator and they would know there was nothing stored in it.
Not mine personally, but my town still has some hitching posts.
Birmingham Alabama has a zeppelin mooring building.
Pretty cool! I’ve actually been to the site where the Hindenburg went up in flames. There’s a small museum there with pieces of the actual blimp in it, including a tiny piece of the Nazi flag that was painted on the tail portion. Felt pretty odd for me to see that in person.
Maybe they kept it around in hope of making it a flying saucer dock, as in old Popular Mechanics cover art.
Mooring to the top of tall buildings didn’t generally work well in practice
Chicago has one, but it’s never been used
My hometown did, too! Even Chicago still has a couple.
In Amish country, you’ll see horses hitched up at Costco.
Reminds me of another thing: you see these boot scrapers all across european cities (1) They’re usually victorian era, and were used to clean horse shit from your shoes before entering a house.
Owie the photo contains errors :-(
You’re right :(
There are those kind of things everywhere where I live, took me some time to find out what it was for:
When I was a kid my family owned a device whose sole purpose was to rewind vhs tapes.
Once I have seen an offer on eBay for a similar device, but for DVD’s.
Yes, really. It was that time, and it was almost serious ;)
My older brother still jokes about the time that when he and his wife first got a DVD player they watched a movie on it and once it was done he asked her to get up and rewind the movie and she ended up spending 2 minutes while he was doing everything in his power not to laugh at her trying to figure out how to rewind the DVD.
DVDs had been out for quite a while at this point they were just late to the game.
Like putting side 2 on for the CD…
