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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Received on Mon Feb 09 2004 - 11:27:52 GMT