She was referring, of course, to the window crank. I thought about it, and she had spent the first four years of her life having never ridden in a car that didn't have power windows. I wonder how many other things we don't use much anymore?
Payphones are one thing of course. Gone are the days when you couldn't get in touch with anyone if they weren't at home or work. Gone are the days when we had to pull over and use the payphone.
Phone books get no use in my household. If I want a phone number, I just go to whitepages.com. I don't buy maps anymore either, I mapquest and print before I leave if I'm going to a new place. Have you seen an encylopedia salesman at your door lately? Wikipedia and other electronic sources pretty much put those guys out of business too.
Speaking of phones, we don't even have a home phone in our house. My wife and I both have cell phones, and so does our 12 year old son. Frankly, we haven't missed not having a home phone one bit. Between email and cell, we are well connected enough.
When is the last time you saw a typewriter? I learned how to type on one back in middle school. I remember it clearly. I was a manual typewriter that would stick if you push two keys at the same time or didn't apply a nice succinct keystroke. The keys themselves didn't even have the characters printed on them, so you HAD to memorize them. The teacher reminded me of the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz. She was mean as hell, but I became a very good typist. It wouldn't surprise me if I never have occasion to use a typewriter again in my life.
Wrote a letter lately and sent it to a friend? I doubt it. I remember writing letters to my grandmother when I was a kid. Long distance telephone service was still pretty expensive at that point, so it was a big deal to make a telephone call. Email and extremely cheap long distance has all but killed the personal letter. Many companies give you the option to receive bills in the mail, or an e-bill. I think the only thing keeping the post office in business is junk mail.
Dot matrix printers. I know some businesses still use them, only because they are impact printers, and are useful when you need to make a carbon copy of a printout. I remember my first printer was an Okidata dot-matrix, and it was loud as hell. Dot matrix printers were so loud, enclosures were made to put them inside of. Daisy wheel printers are even more obsolete. I wonder how many people even know what a daisy wheel printer is anymore?
Floppy disks are an obvious choice. The first two computers I owned ran on floppy disks alone, forget about a hard drive. When I would use the Amiga 500, one drive was used for the operating system, and I would put whatever software I wanted to use in the other drive. Floppies were very unreliable, so I don't miss them.
I'm sure I'll think of more later...
