Ask HN: What outdated tech are you still using and are perfectly happy with? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What outdated tech are you still using and are perfectly happy with?

40 pointscainxinth149 comments

Dumb light switches. The installation, software updates, re-pairing, latency, security issues, and 3-5 year obsolescence seem like way too high a price to pay just to avoid getting off the couch and flicking a switch that works 100% of the time and never needs any maintanence.

I've been using the same Hue lightbulbs for at least 8 years now and never had any of the issues you describe. When you have a home with children and a fair number of rooms, you'll find that turning off the lights at night is not just a simple matter of "getting off the couch and flicking a switch." Also, I've rarely encountered smart lighting that didn't have a physical switch as a fallback option (for example, my Lutron Caseta switches have buttons on them that will work just fine if the network goes down, and my Hue bulbs are all connected to dumb switches), so the idea it doesn't work "100% of the time" is a strawman argument.

I’ve been using Hue lights for about 6 years now. They’re mostly not a pain, except for when they are.

Some examples:

- I used to move a lot, like every year or so. Each move required a few hours of setup in the new place. Compared to screwing in a few bulbs, that’s a big difference.

- I waited so long to update my base that my hue app will no longer connect to it. I have to reset the whole system to get it back. I’m not going to do that until I have to, so I basically can’t add or change any hue light configurations without resetting everything.

- sometimes the hue light switches just don’t do anything. I’m guessing this is if they’re having trouble connecting to the network or something. I’ll just keep tapping the “off” button until something happens 30s later.

Yeah, I wish the Hue switches worked better, they must have trouble waking up from sleep or something. For my office, I never even touch my physical switch or app; instead, a motion sensor turns the lights on when I enter and then off when there's no motion for 10 minutes. It's been working great for years now with the only annoyance being the need to occasionally change the battery on the sensor. That won't work in the living room where I like different lighting for different situations or times of the day, but that's where Homekit scenes come in handy (obligatory smart-home-enthusiast note: Home Assistant controls my house, but Homekit works great as a quickly accessible UI).

Ultimately, I just don't get the fervent anti-smart-home sentiment. Sure, there are all kinds of silly products out there, and no, I don't use the app for my grill, but... oh well, I guess?

Playing with home automation has been a net gain for me. It's part hobby / part genuine improvements. Yeah, there are annoyances, but problem solving is often fun. YMMV...

FYI Hue just pushed an update that will require an account to use the app

> When you have a home with children and a fair number of rooms, you'll find that turning off the lights at night is not just a simple matter of "getting off the couch and flicking a switch."

What on earth are you talking about? My best guess is that your children turn on the lights, and you have to go around turning them off? Sounds like a parenting problem, not a technology problem.

Ha, I also don't always think to turn off lights when I leave a room, so I'm not going to be militant about my kids doing it if I can't. Do you seriously object to me solving this problem with tech? Do you even have kids??

Yes and yes ;)

As antagonistic as it sounds, I'm not trying to be a dick. I genuinely believe it's a bad thing to try and solve this problem with tech.

It's a parenting problem, so when it's solved with technology, it's not solved at all. The problem isn't the lights being left on, it's kids needing to learn responsibility and mindfulness. This is normal and fine, but if you solve it with tech, you're robbing them of the (difficult!) parenting necessary in this area.

A normal light switch is not an outdated tech by any stretch of imagination.

You clearly haven't seen the new lights that suck oxygen from the air to work, some people call them candles

I could be perfectly content with a traditional up/down physical light switch. But depending on the smart bulbs you choose, there's a lot of really cool features that might make it worth it to you despite the slightly more complex setup. And additionally, you can set up physical switches for these devices too.

> Safety. On vacation and want to change the room lights so potential thieves casing the joint don't suspect it's unoccupied? Easy to set up.

> Easily dim lighting via software to the level you want to reduce eye strain or a headache.

> Colorful lights are fun, and can impact mood in ways you like. Add a little orange to the light for comfort. Make it a little bluer for focus. And it makes sexy time more fun.

> It's sort of a social thing. It's pretty cool when you invite people to a party and you have unusual colored lights, or set it up to bounce to the music. Or program some red and green lights to make a christmas party have a cool theme.

For me to get the lights set up for movie watching would require me to flick 6 separate switches in 5 different locations.

I'll rather just say "Siri, movie time" and the lights fade out automatically.

And if I get up, a motion sensor will light the way to the kitchen or bathroom automatically.

* Terminal.

* Command-line tools in general. I wrote one too.

* Going even further, a development environment based on the command-line. My entire IDE is in the terminal. I wrote about it too. [1] That post is a little outdated, though.

[1]: https://gavinhoward.com/2020/12/my-development-environment-a...

I don't know if a terminal or CLI can be considered "outdated".

One man's outdated tech is another's timeless classic.

Using a terminal as a full-blown IDE probably is.

In my experience, that's always been the standard among Vim--and even some Emacs--users.

They said "terminal", not "CLI/TUI apps", so probably only using cat, sed, and ed ;)

I heat my house with a wood stove in the winter. It is inexpensive, works when the power goes out 1-3 times a year (I also use it for cooking then), and I can source fuel from my land. Ironically I use an electric chainsaw most of the time, and cut up big trees 45 minutes/day in the late winter, since the batteries last about that long.

I think pour-overs and the moka pot coffee maker, both of which I use daily, are better and nicer than technological advancements like the Keurig machine. They also work when the power is out.

I like to think and plan with pencil and paper. I like physical books because I like writing in the margins, or writing all the interesting words from them on the first page or inside the front cover. I suppose I highlight on the kindle too, so its not so bad either way.

For woodworking I have some electric tools but I really like using hand tools. The sawdust (or wood shavings instead of dust!) that hand tools create is much easier to clean up and I assume better for one's respiratory health than the ultra-fine particles. I also like that they are quiet, and I can work beside the wood stove at night to carve things.

+1 for moka pots. picked em up when backpacking with a bunch of Italians, and they're great for camping. there are a few easy hacks to make em great, like adding a paper filter on the inside (just watch out for the pressure)

Another +1 for the moka pot. Do not understand the popularity of home espresso machines.

Makefiles seem to be making a comeback. My current and previous teams use them extensively across projects in multiple languages and I don't have any major gripes.

Make is still the only build automation tool specified under POSIX standard. Also, makefiles never went anywhere because CMake emitted them.

I have taken a huge liking to Mill. It is a build tool written in Scala, but it is not only for Scala at all. The author’s blog post is quite informative (https://www.lihaoyi.com/post/SoWhatsSoSpecialAboutTheMillSca... ), but the core idea is that a functional program’s call stack maps one-to-one to a build description, where functions are build steps.

Something as simple as

  def cSources = ..
  def compile() = T {
    proc(“gcc”, cSources(), “-o”, outputBinary)
    Path(outputBinary) // last expression is result
  }
  def link() = T {
    // similar to previous one, using compile() somewhere
  }

will automagically convert this description into a build graph, that can be executed parallel and cached.

Does written in Scala mean, that you need the JVM to run it? That would make it a no-go for many projects.

What project couldn’t include it as a build-time only dependency?

They can get quite gnarly, check out Just as a modern alternative: https://github.com/casey/just

My biggest gripe is that it's impossible to lint or autoformat a Makefike, I wish other tools were more popular.

Yeah, I love when a naive dev helpfully replaces the tabs because their VSCode is setup that way.

(Make syntax requires tabs)

Really? I thought most new projects were switching to ninja[^1] and have never used it.

[^1]: https://ninja-build.org/

People handwrite ninja?

Makefiles have never left for me. They execute jobs related to build and packaging, and they do that job super well. Also helps that make is installed by default on most Linuxes

I'll see your Makefile and raise you ... autoconf!

On a bare POSIX system thing like CMake first needs to exist there to work. And it isn't in spec.

Autoconf emits a source distribution that's build-configured using a famous 'configure' shell script.

Since POSIX is still a thing I wouldn't even put autoconf as outdated. It still has purposes.

For example I'd say that outdated tech would be running your website using CGI, preferably using C backend for extra mushiness.

What outdated tech are you still using and are perfectly happy with?

- Spinning rust. My daily driver has 7200 RPM drives and an old Core i7-6700 CPU @ 3.40GHz. It's connected to my old Sony receiver from 1998 and using VLC to play music from the 70's at the moment, shaking the house. The drive has registered a lot of errors but keeps on working.

- 1990's Sony reference line receiver. It's not green-tech but helps warm the room in the morning, offsetting the wallboard heaters so the wasted energy is a wash. That plus my old JBL's I bought from a coworker in the 90's keep hibernating animals out of the ceiling.

- ICE vehicles. Truck, side-by-side, etc... and a 1947 Fordson 2N tractor that still out-performs horses though both tractor and horses have their moments. I buy all vehicles used and extend their life.

- Manual hand operated tools. Sometimes battery tools are more of a hassle when I have a quick thing to get done. They are perhaps useful to keep around when electricity is no more. The scythes and related tools are also good exercise.

- SFTP for transferring files. It's not really outdated, just fallen out of popular use. To be outdated bots or humans would have to be able to exploit due to being unmaintained or something else would have to be faster. Can't beat lftp+sftp for splitting big files into multiple TCP streams through firewalls. Torrents can come close but have other negative characteristics including being useless for private files.

- Cheap wired headphones. No batteries to replace or fail which is good given many Bluetooth headphones do not have user serviceable batteries. No RFI. No hacking or leaking data. Less junk in the landfill. They seem to still be popular for audiophiles.

- Wired keyboards and mice. Not sure if that is considered outdated tech.

- Wired switches, appliances, lights, Ethernet, surveillance cameras will always be perfectly good for me.

- I have a GPS map in the truck but I also keep paper map books in the truck and am happy to use both. GPS may be jammed soon.

- All the free notebooks and pens vendors gave me over the years for taking notes, to-do lists, reminders.

I have the same cpu. It’s crazy to think I’ve had it for almost ten years. Sometimes I feel like I want to buy I new system but I really don’t have any reason to.

Lots, but I don't think they'd be of interest.

Instead, here's a list of things I still use and believe are better without recent "advancements":

- Automatic (mechanical) watch: Aside from being amazing piece of technology just to marvel at, it's great because it's reparable and doesn't need batteries

- Paper books: I've had a Kindle for a long time, and appreciate the portability in certain circumstances, but nothing seems to be the same as a paper book. Can't put my finger on it, but it's probably to do with the immediacy of physical objects

- Non-IoT everything (fridges, light-switches, TVs, thermostats, etc.): I think we're all on the same page on this one, so I'll just say this; they're pointlessly shite

- Pen and paper, for study: Numerous studies show people remember things better and more deeply when they write them down

- Cash: Makes transactions more personal, and the spending of money more tangible

- Games consoles without internet: Switch it on, play games. I don't have time for a 20GiB "patch" that wasn't there on day one because you didn't have time to finish the game before release

I came here to make the same comment. Also, all my personal docs are text files I edit with emacs. I have a self hosted git repo I use to share docs between machines.

I too have a kindle but read mostly paper books. Niel Gaiman made a comment once that books were like sharks. Sharks survived for millions of years by being the best thing in their particular ecological niche. Books survive because they're the best at being books. I think he also made a comment that kindles are good at being bookshelves. So read a paper book at home, but take the kindle with you on a vacation when you can't take your home bookshelf with you.

>Non-IoT everything (fridges, light-switches, TVs, thermostats, etc.): I think we're all on the same page on this one, so I'll just say this; they're pointlessly shite

I want as few things in my house connected to the internet as possible. My computers, my video game consoles, and my phone, that's it. I don't see the value proposition for connecting my appliances or my light bulbs or whatever else to the internet.

> Non-IoT everything

Very happy with my Rachio smart sprinkler

It's not my opinion but apparently most manufacturers' that headphone jacks are outdated. I recently got my first mobile phone with BT only and I hate it, so I at least wish I had my headphone jack back.

All my computers use wired headphones and peripherals, but more because I hate changing batteries or disconnects. I don't dislike wifi, but if I am having video calls or playing games I try to avoid it, if I have a network cable close, just to avoid one source of error. The thought of getting battery powered shifters on a bike confuses me.

Not a fan of IoT and the two Shelly plugs I have I only use for measuring power usage, I don't think I've switched anything on or off except trying it out once.

I guess I'm not necessarily longing for old stuff, or not even for stuff that was hip and cool when I was young, but I think I am easy to satisfy with some "this generation of thing is SO much better than the one before" that I don't need incremental (to me) improvements.

Like:

Walkman: good; portable CD player: worse; Minidisc: didn't have one, but not better enough; MP3 player: much better; MP3s on phone: perfection, but technically only one less thing to carry, it's still an mp3 player (I still listen to CDs at home and in the car, but because the car is old and because I buy CDs in the first place...)

I went from a flagship phone back to a mid-tier one for the headphone jack, and I don't regret it for a day. I can use cheap headphones, which is great for me since I often lose or break them. I can plug into the aux input of my car. I make beats with the Pocket Operator KO, which I can sample directly from the phone with a cheap cable.

You could do all that with a $5 USB C to 3.5mm adapter (or a $10 one that also lets you charge).

Plus there is no shortage of cheap USB C headphones.

I never understand why so many people choose to die on this hill, especially considering that USB has replaced every other port already, usually to a positive reception.

> why so many people choose to die on this hill

I use the headphone jack every day, both in my car which has an aux in but not Bluetooth, and for actual headphones. I'm not hypothesizing, I owned a phone with no headphone jack and hated it. I don't want a dongle for a thing I use every day.

> Plus there is no shortage of cheap USB C headphones.

But not everything I use headphones for takes USBC. My computer has a headphone port. My guitar amp has a headphone out.

> USB has replaced every other port already, usually to a positive reception.

USB is great when it eliminates proprietary cables. Not when it forces you to buy additional adapters to use everyday features.

> Plus there is no shortage of cheap USB C headphones.

Just for the record, I thought about this part of your comment this morning and looked on Amazon to see what the options would be. There are barely any USB-C headphones. For earbuds, there are some, but almost nothing for on-ear / over-ear. Like single digits.

To be honest I never stumbled upon one of these, I'll have a look - thanks!

I bought a Pixel 3A phone shortly after it was released in 2019.

Since then, there have been 5 additional Pixel releases, each with shiny new features, and about a year ago I received an offer to trade in my Pixel 3A for the latest model at basically no cost.

Wait, what? Why would Google be willing to hand me a new phone that's four model years newer as if it's an even exchange for my old phone?

Well, it's because the Pixel 3A had an amazing feature that newer phones in the line no longer have: free unlimited storage in Google Photos.

Owners of newer models instead have to pay at least $2 a month for the most basic Google One data storage plan, and if you take a lot of photos and video, you likely have to upgrade to their higher-storage plans.

No thanks, I'm perfectly content with my older-model Pixel, and I will likely run it into the ground. Photo quality is still very good, especially for low-light photography, and there is nothing else about the phone that feels laggy.

IIUC the unlimited photos in high (not original) quality deal was/is for up to and including Pixel 5.

https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6220791

i'd still be using my Pixel 2 XL with LineageOS but it turns out it wasn't an OS/software issue that was slowing it down, the hardware was pretty borked. so when I flashed it, it died :/

picked up a newer pixel after trying the dumb-phone thing for a minute, but I'd rather still be on the pixel 2

I had a Pixel 2 for many years and loved it! It fell out of my pocket as I got out of the car one day, hit the concrete, and never turned on again. So I got a replacement Pixel 2 off Back Market! Still the least-worst, simplest phone, in my opinion.

My tape machines from the Tascam 424 series. I'm currently recapping and restoring a reel-to-reel machine. Would like more of those so that I can make insanely long delays and loops.

I also like retro consoles. I repair and restore various consoles from Nintendo: DMG-01 for me. The kids like the Nintendo DS's we got used; I have a box of spares I cannibalize for parts as we need for repairs or customization. I keep my Nintendo 2DSXL going; great bit of kit there.

I still build things with the classic 555 chips and the (re-issued) CEM-3340 chips. Working on a mod synth with one of my kids to help them learn electronics (and music).

I don't buy new computers anymore... we just have refurbished, off-lease Thinkpads. With a good backup system in place these can be swapped out, repaired, or replaced easily as life happens.

And I guess when I do woodworking I also don't use power-tools and build things with hand tools only. I tend to find tools at estate sales or garages and I restore them and put them to use.

A door. No Internet-connected camera. No doorbell. Not even a knocker. Just a door. No batteries. No hype cycle. No upgrades. No WiFi. Just a door. When someone is at the door, he knocks with his knuckles. It works. We’ll probably get a knocker at some point, but we don’t need one.

Mechanical watches. I came very close to getting into so-called ‘smart’ watches awhile back, but decided that would have been a pretty foolish waste of my money. Quartz would be more accurate, of course, but I like the sweeping hands and the clockwork.

Automatic mechanical watches don't get enough hype. They're examples of incredible engineering. Somebody shrunk a grandfather clock down so it could fit in a pocket, then someone else not only shrunk it down further, but made it so _the damn thing wound itself!_

They are examples of understandable engineering. A modern smartwatch is orders of magnitude more complicated and impressive but people can’t intuitively grok how they work like you can with a mechanical watch.

Even a basic digital watch like a Casio F91W is a much more impressive feat of engineering than the most expensive mechanical watches.

There may be some truth in this. I have basic understanding software and hardware. I was (and still am!) impressed at how my Amstrad drew graphics on the screen, but am considerably less impressed by the much more complicated graphics we have today.

Though this is likely partially as you said — a degree of separation by understanding — it's also because it's not all "one piece". Many different people in many different teams, departments, countries, are necessary to create something like a smartwatch. None of them can do it alone, and that has something to do with it for me.

But how will a VC make money off your "door" ?? Isn't that the purpose of modern technology: lock-in, enshittification and subscription fees? I would go so far as to say your stingy insistence of not giving money to one of my portfolio firms brands you as decidedly anti-american.

</snark>

Though there are times I think my co-workers do think like that.

I love quality hand tools. Not just what folks think of as "tools", but even something like a well made pen or mechanical pencil. Anything that is so simple that you can repair it with no prior knowledge or education, and can be used to then further repair other things or do useful tasks is something I love.

In particular, drafting pencils (Rotring 800/600) are one of my favorite things to write with. They work so precisely, and are durable, and easy to disassemble, clean, and repair. They're the "original" mechanical pencils before it became a commodity thing made out of plastic.

I love German-made hand tools, it's hard to beat push-through style ratchets for durability, simplicity, repairability, and ergonomics. I would put my Wera Zyklop push-through ratchets up against anything on the market anywhere in the world and guarantee it comes out on top.

ITT: A lot of people who think they are using "outdated" technology because they are not using something near the technical edge for a given use-case

yeah im thinking like people using zip drives or betamax.

like, light switches are still the standard way of handling lights everywhere; smart home stuff is the exception.

My 2002 Acura. New enough to have fuel injection, airbags and seat belts. Simple enough that parts are cheap and most work can be done in the driveway with hand tools. Durable enough that I can drive it as long as gas is affordable. I did install a modern head unit with Bluetooth and USB (but not CarPlay - old school segmented LCD)

TBH, I've started to wonder after all the recall news... are airbags really a liability on any older car? As they age in place, how do you quantify the personal risk and unknowns as to whether you are driving around with a cluster of safety devices or anti-personnel weapons waiting to be triggered?

I mostly ride motorcycles around, so the very tiny chance I'm injured by a faulty airbag is insignificant compared to actual risks.

I don't see the use case of modern laptops.

Phone has been better for media consumption for quite some time, due to a combination of power efficient chips and cellular connectivity. Laptops are pretty much good only as mobile work machines, and you don't need much hardware to run VSCode.

Ive also never needed long battery life, as places where Im actually able to sit and do work for extended periods, usually have some power outlet. Mobile charging bricks are also super cheap.

My go to is buy a $200 used/refurbished laptop with like 8gb of ram, throw in a SSD if it doesn't have one, install bunsenlabs linux.

Now that's something I kinda disagree on because I think this has much more to do with personal preference than with either tech being outdated.

There's basically zero reason for me to use a phone at home for anything longer than 5 minutes. The screen is tiny (and I can read small stuff perfectly fine), it doesn't stand on its own, I could be interrupted by notifications (yes, you can fiddle that you hear the sound you want and not the notifications, but I liberally mute and unmute everything because I don't use it to consume). I also hate to type even longer texts to people.

I'm also not going for new laptops, but I disagree in spirit because my T460p has negligible differences in computing power to a "modern" modern one, unless I'm compiling something it works as if it was from 2023. There's just nothing outdated about a laptop running a modern OS.

>The screen is tiny

I mean, I used to watch stuff on a big TV before switching over to watching stuff on laptop or tablet. So its just a matter of getting used to it. Now we have folding phones that are the best of both worlds.

This.

I bought a bunch of refurbished T480 for $200 bucks and it comes with 8GB of RAM + 256SSD. Perfectly works for each member of my family.

I might buy one too myself once my current macbook pro (2009) died.

- Still going strong on my Macbook Pro 2014 Retina. Battery needs to be replaced soon but otherwise, runs smooth like butter. The latest M1/M2 macbooks look like plastic in front of it at least asthetically.

- Love my 2010 Acura TL and the engine is as solid as it can be. Going strong at 125K miles.

Macbook is the strongest around 2014, there is an obvious downgrade both in hardware and software when I "upgraded" my 2014 macbook to a 2020 one

This is what worries me. I bought an M1 for someone else and the thing looked like cheap plastic. My 2014 macbook pro is soooo much better than that thing.

I talk to people sitting near me when I work instead of using slack even though I get grief for doing it this way.

Saw four people in the office today have a conference call with each other. It made me sad :( They weren't even in different rooms.

My HP LaserJet 1012 that I bought refurbished for $90 in 2004. I think I’m on my third toner cartridge. And through college it served as the house printer for half a dozen people.

I recently connected it to an old AirPort Express in bridge mode so that I can use it wirelessly. My partner got tired of plugging into it and wanted to upgrade it, but I refuse to part way with this simple and reliable beast.

I got a LaserJet P2015dn in 2007, and it has served me faithfully for 16 years, including a stint as our only printer when we started a new company circa 2011. I'd love to get a color laserjet but this one just works so well.

I have a LG plasma TV from 2008 that still works great. It's not a smart TV so I don't have to worry about keeping it up to date or having it slow down. I've gotten more than my money's worth.

I have a Samsung 1080p non-"smart" tv that just won't die. Sure, it's not the best picture available, but it's good enough for what I need and doesn't send my viewing habits to any motherships.

Plasma draws the pixels, so it does native resolution with no interpolation for all its supported resolutions. Is that correct? If so other than higher power draw suggests that is ideal.

My understanding is that plasma panels have a native resolution, similar to a LCD panel. If that native resolution isn't the same as the input resolution, there's typically a scaler in the plasma display that will massage the content to fit, very similar to a LCD panel.

Plamsa panels were commonly available as 1920x1080 or 1366x768. As long as you're watching natural images (movies etc), both are really fine; native 1080 line plasmas are a better fit for computer generated imagery because they're much easier to feed at their native resolution and avoid the scaler; a lack of 4k plasma displays isn't really a big problem, 1080p is still beautiful. Plasma screens don't have support for HDR, but they do have amazing black levels.

I went shopping for a new bed the other day and hadn't for decades. So I got some future shock when I found out that they now not only have wifi and bluetooth, but also artificial intelligence. The salesman pitched me an $11,000 Smart Bed. Fascinating. Call me a Luddite but I honestly prefer a dumb bed.

Please tell me smart beds gracefully degrade to dumb beds

That's not a given in today's world

Pen / paper: performant, private, persistent.

Does a 2012 MacBook Pro running Catalina count? That's my daily driver.

Some other older tech I use:

- Corded power tools. Don't have any using batteries.

- Dumb thermostat. Set it and forget it.

- Plain ol' doorbell.

- 25 year old truck with a manual transmission.

- Motorcycle with a carburetor and manual choke. No traction control, ABS or any other of that stuff.

- Post-It notes.

- Guitar amps with valves.

RSS.

People have been saying RSS is dead for years now. To me it's still better way of keeping up-to-date with content I'm interested in than anything else.

Perfectly happy is maybe a stretch, but there are a few bills I still write checks for. These are a small stick it to the man because these companies charge a "convenience fee" for paying by credit card, and the only other payment option is check. I can't believe it doesn't actually cost them more to pay for a person to open my envelope and process my payment, so it's pretty clear a "convenience fee" is just a cash grab, so a check it is. My bank gives me checks for free, and the postage stamp is cheaper than the fee. And yes, I'm aware of the security issues, but so far I've had my credit card numbers stolen not checks.

I guess the idea of "outdated" is different, as you're not the first person to mention checks still being used (in the US I assume).

Not 100% sure but I am relatively certain the last check I used here in Germany was in the 90s and the last one I had in hand was a return of an overpaid fee by some government org in the early 00s that I didn't bother cashing in (like 2 bucks or so).

IBM Model M keyboard, true original, complete with PS/2 connector and no Windows key.

My 2008 Philips 1080p LCD TV. I won't change it until it dies. All my friends are saying picture looks like crap but I love how natural it looks compared to theirs. New TVs all being smart doesn't help on my will to switch

If it helps, I have found LED TVs to be unnatural (too bright and contrasty) and OLED TVs to be beautiful.

Thank you ! Very helpful to know.

i like vi

sometimes i use macvim so i can move quickly to that program in particular and do other stuff in the terminal, since i use it for general distraction free writing

technically macvim is not vi, but i guess both are considered outdated in an age where if you tell your iphone not to sync to the cloud it erases days on notes on nazis.

(the whole point of privacy was autonomy, not shoving things up to an unencrypted cloud to get a bullshit warrant served on it and tim cook has forgotten what the world was like when storage was scarce)

In Windows, I use notepad.exe a lot.

Dumb cars, Dumb TVs. Printed books. Voice calls on the phone. I like reading the newspaper, just not subscribing to it. Paying with cash. Paper maps.

The last build of Notational Velocity dates back to 03.2011. It happily survived (let me check) 12 Mac OS X, then OS X, then macOS updates. Not bad.

Books. I love the tactile feel, I love being able to find what I need by physically navigating my library instead of my filesystem, I love being able to flip to a general section of a book that I'm familiar with and the serendipity of flipping to a random page in an unknown book.

I also love libgen and my digital collection is easily 10-100x larger than my physical, but physical books is where it's at.

Terminal

Vim (ok this is a timeless classic)

Going back from react/next/spa style to server rendered templates (thanks to htmx which I guess is not really outdated?)

PHP 7.

PHP 8 introduced too many breaking changes. Many of them making the language worse.

At our company, we ported all public facing projects to PHP 8 over the last 4 months. A pain in the ass.

All internal projects will stay on PHP 7, running in Docker containers, and will be ported to Python in the coming months.

Python is hopefully less likely to come with breaking changes in the future.

What changes made the language worse? I use both for my job and find php 8 way more pleasant.

It broke calling static functions without the need to declare them as static.

It broke adding properties dynamicly to objects.

It broke easy string handling for many functions where null was rendered as an empty string. This is especially annoying as you often get null values from the database. It makes sense to have a null value for "Don't know the color of the car" in the DB. And it makes sense to render it as "Color: " in the user interface. The easy string conversion always was one of the strengths of PHP.

It feels like Java all over again.

> Python is hopefully less likely to come with breaking changes in the future.

It's a lesson they're supposed to have learned going from 2 to 3.

Paper books.

- My automatic (non quartz) watch. Another watch that’s hybrid - has a battery reserve and charges by solar and hand movement.

The only time I don’t wear them is when I shower.

No charging, no updates, no BS. Works 100% of the time while being stylish.

- 2011 MacBook Air. Replaced the battery last year. Still going strong.

My Google Pixel 4a. I don't think it's outdated, but ask Google about that

Also my laptop that has no Windows 11 available for it because 7th Gen Intel isn't good enough anymore. I don't think it's outdated, but ask Microsoft about that

I made the switch from a Pixel 2XL to a 7 last year, and dang, the 2XL was better in most every respect. Fingerprint access with the 2 worked 99% of the time on the first try vs. about 10% (probably being generous) on the 7.

And voice-to-text is just as broken. I did side-by-side tests, and if you’re in perfect conditions, facing the phone directly, with no background noise (i.e., never), then the 7 performed okay, but it would fail horrible in any other case. The 2XL performed quite well, relatively. I even replaced the 7 thinking there was an issue, but the new one did the same thing.

Unfortunately, lack of updates means the 2 is no longer usable for many purposes.

The 4a strikes the perfect balance for me. It's one of the last flagship phones with both type C and an aux port. Plus no bezels and it has a great camera.

pixel 3 for me too

2009 cheese grater MacPro. 2010 13in MacBook Pro. iPod Classic IPod Shuffle Blu-ray player WiiU and a PSP for an occasional distraction.

They have been upgraded in various ways, the laptop probably has another year or two left in it before it gets retired.

- I cook on a wood-burning stove and heat the house using wood I harvest from dead trees in the forest surrounding our farm. This wood I often cleave using a cleaving axe after having cut it to size using a modern petrol-powered, frying oil lubricated chain saw.

- an Ural and a Dnepr motorcycle with sidecar, technology from the 1940's but made in the 80's

- a 1982 UTB 640DTC - that's a 4WD tractor made in Romania based on the Fiat of the same type number

- a 1960's Fordson Major-based excavator. Currently I'm not using it 'cause the engine is stuck, need to unstick it.

- a pre-WWII hair clipper which I use to trim my bread

- a flock of older Android devices from 2010 onwards

- unix - well, Linux but still...

- pencils, fountain pens

- ...

Sennheiser HD-25s.

I have a few other nicer pairs, some open ear, some wireless with noise cancelling, yet I still pick up the HD-25 regularly. The design is 30 years old.

(As a side note, please bring back 3.5mm jacks on phones)

I second the 3.5mm

My iPhone 13 pro has intermittent charging issues because of headphone usage.

My not-at-all smart 1080P TV. It has a USB port for firmware updates, the remote is a dedicated hardware device with buttons (but none for defunct streaming services), I've never had to accept a terms of service update, the manufacturer doesn't know anything about me, the default video settings are stellar, there's no low latency mode because it doesn't do anything that introduces latency, and it has an RS-232 port that allows full remote control over every single feature.

Drum machines from the 80s and 90s. 909 and 808 are just a lot of fun to play with. Same with all the analogue synthesizers, a lot of character and texture and awesome sounds.

Panasonic inverter microwave.

It lasted 10 years. I was able to get the same model online.

Sony LCD projection tv, got it in 2005 from CircuitCity, still going strong

TI-85 calculator from mid 1990s, still going strong

I've used TextPad forever as my main editor. IDEs are distracting for me, even something like Sublime is more than I want.

When I was a Java developer long ago I'd supplement it with some use of Eclipse as needed. But whatever drives my desire/need for simplicity in my editor is surely the same reason I left the Java ecosystem and the same reason I don't write/design code that can't be maintained without advanced IDE features.

  - Makefile
  - Vim (not neovim)
  - C99
  - Generating HTML string on server
  - Maintaining local music library

not outdated, but probably out of trend

[rambled musing]

If technology X is functional productive, is technology X really outdated?

If I think about how long the things I use will remain productive, the newest things have the shortest times…i.e. anything that requires the web.

A lot of technical change happens because scope expands. Battery powered screwdrivers make sense because more ordinary things use more screws and because there are more ordinary things in ordinary lives…e.g. DIY’d wire shelf organized closets.

[short answer]

String.

If you're still using it, and happy with it, it's NOT outdated...

Just because a manufacturer wants you to use a newer product, doesn't make what you're using "outdated".

Especially in the modern surveilance product marketplace, many many "updates" are really about allowing the vendor to extract more information from you. The products that extract less data aren't "outdated".

Manual coffee grinder. Didn't see much use lately, but I've used it a lot & that habit isn't going anywhere. Don't need electricity to get a good brew.

Pen & paper. And sometimes: pocket calculator.

Alcohol stove is my daily driver for cooking food / coffee / tea etc.

(Some) paper maps. They always work & rarely need replacement.

Nearly antique, hand-powered drill has been useful occasionally.

Snapchat Spectacles 1. I've never used Snapchat not plan to do, just take memory snapshots without blocking my view with phone.

Until recently, my Pebble Time Steel. The battery now only lasts ~1 day, and I didn’t think I’d be able to replace it myself. Wish there was a battery replacement service for these watches! I now have a Garmin that achieves nearly-weeklong battery life, but doesn’t have calendar functionality or the ability to easily check recent notifications.

I still use a 2013 MacBook Pro. Emacs, my favorite editor, is simultaneously outdated and light years into the future

I had a 2013 MBP and only upgraded this year, earlier in 2023.

1password version 6.8.9

Sometimes to get ideas worked out, I use a legal pad and a pencil. I like doing math on a $11 Casio calculator instead of the PC.

I still write native apps that use the Win32 API in Lazarus/Free Pascal for Windows. I've been known to write web pages in NotePad++.

My monitor is a 2011 Apple Cinema Display. I use an adapter to convert the output to USB-C. The webcam is very bad so I have an external one mounted on top. Otherwise it works amazingly for a 12 year old monitor!

* CD player * Tape recorder * Core2Duo Dell Laptop * 800x600 monitor * VGA & USB1.0 * 2002 Wacom Drawing Pad * Pacific Radio Alarm Clock * 2001 Ericsson phone * 2004 Fujitsu Siemens DT4 desktop (Pentium 4)

Java and C++ (if people online are to be believed)

1994 buckling spring Model M

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

My finances are in Microsoft Money 2004, running in a Windows 2000 VM.

SuSE Linux from 2012. For that matter, desktop from HP from 2012.

Medium format film cameras like Rolleiflex or Mamiya C.

Well, considering the price of used Fuji GFX50S (or SII) is gradually decreasing, perhaps one day I'm done with film.

SSH, apt-get, and Docker Compose, and/or apt-get

I am a big fan of infra as code, but the flexibility and reliability of SSH and doing it yourself is really nice too.

ssh is outdated?

I still use a small a home computer to host my personal projects, which I "deploy" using scp and run them under their own users

"omxplayer" on raspi. We use it with sshfs as a hacky "Chromecast".

Landline.

Swype (Android keyboard) and Lightning Launcher (Android launcher).

Used a pager until 2021!

Zellij is new but mostly based on outdated ideas and it’s great.

xgboost for much of my business ML work, and it does just fine in many enterprise needs.

p.s. I know it's not that outdated as it's quite popular in competitions.

xfig occasionally, but usually tikz when I have time.

A 2022 macbook pro

Bluetooth, Wifi, iPhone with lightning port...

Internal Combustion Engine

Pebble time

A DSLR.

HTTP 1.1

Huge fan of used equipment, and live in a great country to simply acquire 'peoples old stuff', to upgrade my even older stuff on the cheap.

1) pixel 3 -- Actually bought this new. It's in mint shape, and just had battery #3 placed in it. It does all the things I need it to do, and minus it's lackluster battery life from design onward, perfect. AND fits in a pocket, and allows your leg to still move without snapping it!

2) Every household appliance I have: Dishwasher, Fridge, washer/dryer -- These are all likely from the early 2000's and are of the most simple design. None of the devices have a screen or a 'digital' input mechanism. They are the opposite of fancy, but just do their job, on the daily.

3) Titan 440x paint sprayer -- Acquired this years ago now and have run a serious amount of paint through it. It's probably 15-20 years old. Again, it's not fancy. When you adjust the pressure, you turn a knob. You have no idea what value you are actually at. Need more pressure? Crank it right. Need less? Left. It's perfect.

4) Every car I've ever owned has been at least 8 years old, typically in the 10-12 year range. Always over 100k; Generally nearing 200k. -- I'm sure we're all 'handy' in one way or another here, and are generally able to figure out and be handy in the ways we have yet to learn. Being able to fix most things wrong with a car allows one to more calmly purchase what can turn into really solid purchases with a bit of love and well, luck. Everything is modern enough that 'high milage' isn't as much of a worry as to perceived and actual maintenance done before purchase. Keypoint: Always, always, own at least 2 if you go this route. Things will break, but as long as you can 'take the other one' for a few days/week life's schedule can be continued with 'fix car' / 'send car to get fixed' additions.

5) Woodstove. I live in Maine. It makes 110% sense to have a woodstove here. It's nice to know that as long as I have something to burn, the house will have heat, we can heat water, and we can cook food. The lax definition of input required vs all of the gains of the output it provides have a woodstove, certainly old tech, at the absolute top of perfectly happy with. Currently now heat with heat pumps for general 'fill heat' and the woodstove to raise from that to 'comfortable'.

I'm sure this list could go on forever. I find myself to like simple things that do their job. I like new simple things, that do their job, too. These days, it's seems however that the simple things are often not so simple, but 'smart' and with a feature-set that I really don't need, but often becomes the failure point.

I like the 'click' of the can opener when you squeeze it through the lid. If it fails, you can see why, and address the issue. I'd rather not abstract life away, but use tools that help free time.

Indoor plumbing.

I must be living under a rock. I didn’t even realize it was outdated! :-)

vim

not that it's really outdated ... just old

Tivo.

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