9 Feb
2004
9 Feb
'04
11:27 a.m.
On Sun, 8 Feb 2004, evan wrote:
His club (www.njarc.org) has about 200 members, and
watching them have fun with antique radios and other
ancient technology makes you wonder what people will
be doing a few decades hence with old cellphones.
(Notice how primitive the ones from the 90's already
look?) Lately, for instance, they've been having a
contest to see who can pick up the most distant radio
signal on a vintage receiver. When conditions are
right, noise from Chicago or Canada or Mexico might
squawk through the classic sets.
I don't know, will there be parallels like this in the future with modern
gadgets? Stuff today is so inaccessible from a retroist point of view.
The cellular networks 50-75 years from now probably won't support what we
use today, and unless cellular towers will be cheap, abundant, and easy to
store in our garage, we probably won't be setting up our own networks to
see how far we can call for fun. Even then, will this stuff be kept
around like surplus military gear was, or will it be recycled into future
products? Will it even work? Stuff from the past was meant to last,
while stuff we make now is made to break in a year or less so we will be
forced to "upgrade" (a euphemsism for spending more money needlessly).
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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