Ask HN: What old technology do you feel could do with a revival?

My recent comment[1] on the remarkable thread[2] got me thinking about the ideas which in my opinion did not reach their peak before they were obsoleted, not due to technical merits but due to business factors.

I see a lot of people who assume that all of the latest technology is a superset of all the advances that came before it and that everything we have today is better than whatever was created before. What kind of examples prove this assumption incorrect.

In terms of devices, I think these are things that were very innovative, useful and sadly do not have an suitable replacement today:

  a. The palm pilot or any of the PDAs for that matter
  b. The nokia 900 
  c. The nokia 810
  d. The pebble

  [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13865714 
  [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13865108