Technology Is Crazy

[gah!ghost]

I think physical music as a primary market for sales is pretty much over. I do believe that in most countries digital sales have surpassed physical. The thing with movies is there's just not a real good avenue for that yet. Netflix is okay but that's about it and they're far from ideal due to the lack of content.

[wearer24/7]

I still have a Belkin 4mega byte USB stick.

[gah!ghost]

Yeah I believe my first was 4MB as well. Got it for x-mas. Even at the time I was like "what am I supposed to do with this?" because it wasn't really big enough to move around any files I'd want to move around. I don't think I bought another one until they where up to 1GB.

[willnotwill]

Hey, them things were slick when they first came out. I've got a box of em around here some ways.

Computers have come a long way. My first storage device was a DECtape which held about 256KBytes of storage. I upgraded to an RK05 disk back which was 2.4 MB.

[Ben123]

Laserdisc all the way man. It even has a compact player only slightly bigger than the disk, sort of, maybe

I can top you on that... RCA Selectavision CED video discs. They are ANALOG discs with cut grooves (like records) that contain audio AND video .. and you have to get up and turn them over half way through the movie due to the amount of content that can fit on one side. Longer movies comes on 2 discs so you have to get up 3 times to flip and change the disc during the movie.

[KittenAB]

Next step is SSD, SSD for everything. No more hard drives and RAM, everything will be stored in SSD.

But here's something that boggles the mind. Even bargain basement $25 computers in refurbishing shops are 10 times better than those 20 years ago. At least 100 times better than those 30 years ago .... if this keeps up .... ANDRIODS!

I want a NAO now.

[baby-elizabeth]

I still have a zip drive somewhere. They were great for a while but so touchy. And prone to failure.

[Guest Teenage_Legend]

The Droid X2 may be outdated but it is incredible to me its like the ray gun as nikolai says on Call of duty black ops zombies "This Gun Is F***ing amazing"

[diaperpt]

Old tech? remember paper tape? Then the big move 'forward' was a key punched card reader??

[Guest Teenage_Legend]

Oh yeah huh that was the old days

[diaperpt]

When I was in college, the big deal was that we had ONE terminal (old teletype style) connected to the Dartmouth computer. No cards at that point, but I remember doing programs on cards and I can guarantee you that guy would have been crying!!

[Bettypooh]

Even as advanced as software data storage is today, it has one drawback- it is electronically vulnerable to loss. That cannot easily happen with a CD, DVD, or vinyl music record. While they may be 'obsolete' to some, that characteristic has merit for things which are very important. A simple (and common) voltage spike or hardware failure, and even some software failures, can render your high-tech storage empty, corrupted, or otherwise useless. This stuff is far more reliable than ever but if it really matters to you back it up on a physical device, not a software device.

Simple low-tech advice from a simple low-tech PC user who has experienced way too much data loss already

Bettypooh

[mikejackson999]

Even as advanced as software data storage is today, it has one drawback- it is electronically vulnerable to loss. That cannot easily happen with a CD, DVD, or vinyl music record. While they may be 'obsolete' to some, that characteristic has merit for things which are very important. A simple (and common) voltage spike or hardware failure, and even some software failures, can render your high-tech storage empty, corrupted, or otherwise useless. This stuff is far more reliable than ever but if it really matters to you back it up on a physical device, not a software device.

Simple low-tech advice from a simple low-tech PC user who has experienced way too much data loss already

Bettypooh

True. Thats why I have backups of backups, just in case. I save everything to an external hard drive, after I burn everything to a DVD or bluray. I don't trust the cloud at all, plus if you lose internet access, how are you going to access the stuff you may need off the cloud? I know friends and public libraries could work(if those places allow you to hook up things to the PC), but you also have to hope the security set up is good, as I know many people who have it set to auto store usernames and passwords on their computers, and that would have to be disabled

[BabyJune]

My problem with technology is lack of compatibility. I have a flash drive (USB) that I use to transport files from work to my brother's computers at home. (I refuse to own a computer of my own because of the expense and upkeep--besides, using his computer and Internet service is part of the rent he doesn't pay me to live in my house for free--AHEM).

So the problem is, on older computers--even with their USB ports, the flash drive won't work with the Windows 95/98 software. I can only transfer files to computers with the latest version of Windows. We're reaching a point where all our older files and programs will no longer be compatible. It's basically capitalist crapola that's meant to keep us spending money on updating technology when the old way works fine. Grrrrr!!! So, anyway, the old computers have floppy drives and zip drives, but we can't move files from the oldest computer to the newest computer because the newest one only has USB ports. It has CD-ROMs, but the old computer doesn't burn CDs so we can't transfer files that way. At some point, all the old stuff and new stuff needs to play nicely together.

[lilJester]

wait wait wait wait wait wait...... people still use floppy's? 0.o

[mikejackson999]

My problem with technology is lack of compatibility. I have a flash drive (USB) that I use to transport files from work to my brother's computers at home. (I refuse to own a computer of my own because of the expense and upkeep--besides, using his computer and Internet service is part of the rent he doesn't pay me to live in my house for free--AHEM).

So the problem is, on older computers--even with their USB ports, the flash drive won't work with the Windows 95/98 software. I can only transfer files to computers with the latest version of Windows. We're reaching a point where all our older files and programs will no longer be compatible. It's basically capitalist crapola that's meant to keep us spending money on updating technology when the old way works fine. Grrrrr!!! So, anyway, the old computers have floppy drives and zip drives, but we can't move files from the oldest computer to the newest computer because the newest one only has USB ports. It has CD-ROMs, but the old computer doesn't burn CDs so we can't transfer files that way. At some point, all the old stuff and new stuff needs to play nicely together.

But why should makers of these things make them backwards compatible for computers that may be 20+ yrs old? There has to be a cut off limit somewhere where old/new means the old is obsolete and no longer supported, which Microsoft and most PC makers decided years ago(XP is supposedly losing support this year).

I have a windows 98SE PC that I allow my kids to use for homework purposes and it can only go online via modem, and I would never even consider hooking up the external bluray burner to it to burn a bluray disc, or even consider putting the burning software I currently use on it, because more than likely, Win 98SE is not supported, and rightfully so.

[BabyGizmo]

I have the origional flopies in un-opened boxes for Windows Dos 3.1