They were at the cutting edge of convention at one time, but in front of our eyes, we have seen them go RIP one by one. DARE lists 10 things that have gone out of business in our lifetime.
1. Typewriter
From their invention in the 1870s till about the 1980s (and till a little later in developing countries like India), typewriters were indispensable. An American, William Austin Burt first patented the typewriter in 1829 but it never went into commercial production. Commercial success, in fact, eluded the machine until 1873, when E. Remington and Sons (the sewing machine manufacturer) sold the machine. After Remington (later Remington Rand), IBM became the leading typewriter manufacturer and introduced many innovations in the machine, the last of which was the development of the “electronic” typewriter in 1989. The very next year, IBM hived off its typewriter business and sold it to Lexmark. By this time, however, most big corporations and governments in the developed world had replaced typewriters with word processors and personal computers. The machine that made the phrase “typewriter girl” a part of the lingo of the early 20th century office, is now virtually extinct, barring some small business establishments where it can still be seen.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typewriter, http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bltypewriter.htm
2. Video cassette recorder (VCR)
The development of the VCR was led by the development of video cassette recording in general, the first commercially successful video cassette recorder being the Ampex VRX-1000 (which used the two inch Quadruplex format) in 1956. Other players like Sony and Philips followed suit, with products intended for commercial use. The “VCR” format first came into vogue in 1970 when Philips introduced a home video cassette format (also supported by Grundig and Loewe) by the same name. By the late 1970s, when European and Japanese companies like JVC, Sanyo, Panasonic, Funai and Technicolor entered the fray with technologically advanced versions of the machine, the VCR became a rage in the mass market and in 1980, there were three competing technical standards—JVC’s VHS, Sony’s Betamax and the Philips’ Video 2000. This led to an inevitable format war. By the late 1990s and the beginning of this decade, digital formats, such as VCDs and DVDs have virtually eclipsed the humble VCR and manufacturers have either stopped production completely or just produce the basic versions of these machines.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videocassette_recorder
3. TELEX network and the teleprinter
A global teleprinter network,(called the Telex network), which essentially used a switched routing network, based on pulse telephone dialing, was established in the 1920s, and was in vogue through most of the last century, primarily for business communications. While in the US, the service was provided by Western Union and AT&T; in India, the Department of Posts & Telegraph did the same. Dial-up systems such as Telex and TWX worked in such a way that anything typed on one appeared at the other end in real time. Telex is still used for certain specific applications by sailors, weathermen and the armed forces in some countries Almost all business applications, though, now use the Internet as the preferred means of sending information; most countries have now discontinued telex/services. Development of technologies such as fax, the personal computer (PC), the Internet, inkjet and laser printers, etc have made the device, the teleprompter, obsolete.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraphy#Telex, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleprinter, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/586267/telex
4. Pager
Till the latter half of the last decade, when mobile phones became a mass market phenomenon, the pager, a short messaging device, was the primary device used for personal and mobile communication. Major manufacturers of pagers include Motorola, Ericsson and Siemens, all of whom also manufacture mobile phones. Today, however, the the pager has a limited role, primarily in the “critical messaging” segment that requires quick, personal or group messaging. Unlike many other mobile communications networks, they work best in times of emergency or disaster as they have a relatively unclogged network available. Therefore, they are still popular with emergency service personnel, paramedics, and IT support staff. In most developing countries like India, however, pagers have been phased out and replaced by mobile telephony.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pager, http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid40_gci212739,00.html
5. Pocket watch
This was the most popular type of watch right from its development in the 16th century till the first half of the 20th century. Originally, mostly owned by the aristocratic elite, the pocket watch became the common man’s timekeeper by the close of the 19th century. After the First World War, the pocket watch was replaced by the wrist watch, which until then had been considered effeminate. It was not until the 1970s and the 1980s, when three-piece suits with waist pockets were in vogue for a few years, that pocket watches again appeared and became a fashion statement, only to fade away soon after. Although the pocket watch is no longer in popular use, men still wear them, mostly during ceremonial occasions and it has become the prized possession of antique collectors the world over.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_watch
6. Floppy disk
Developed in the mid-1970s by IBM, the flexible floppy disk completely changed the concept of computer storage. It came in three formats—8-inch, 5¼-inch, and 3½-inch and was popular till the late 1990s. Other popular manufacturers included Sony, BSAF, Memorex, Shugart Associates, and Burroughs Corporation. While floppy disk drives still have some limited uses, especially with obsolete computer equipment that may still be in industrial use, they have now been largely superseded by newer devices such as USB flash drives, external hard drives, CDs, DVDs, and memory cards.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk, http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/F/floppy_disk.html, http://computer.howstuffworks.com/floppy-disk-drive.htm.
7. Letterpress printing
Invented by a German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century; in this technology, a reversed, raised surface is inked and then pressed into a sheet of paper to obtain a positive right-reading image. It was the most widely used form of printing until the 19th century, and remained in vogue for printing books till the second half of the last century. The major manufacturers included Vandercook, Chandler & Price, Kelsey, Heidelberg and Adana Printing Presses. By the 1950s and the 1960s though, offset printing—where the inked image is transferred from a plate to a rubber blanket, then onto the printing surface—became the most popular form of commercial printing. Lately, commercial letterpress has been revived in the US, UK and Canada, under the “Small Press Movement”.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letterpress_printing.
8. Black &White TV
First commercial television (TV) transmission began in the US in 1941, and although color TV broadcasts had been introduced in the US in the 1950s, it was not until the following decade that color television became prominent in the developed world. Admiral, Andrea, Base, Calbest, Capehart and Certified Radio Labs, were some of the earliest players in the field. The first commercially successful color TV player in the US was GE, which introduced its Porta-Color sets in the 1960s. In India though TV transmission officially took off on Sept 15, 1959, color transmission took off only in 1982, when the Asian Games, held in Delhi, were telecast live in color by Doordarshan. Whereas in the beginning, TV sets were mostly imported into India, some local players like Texla and Uptron garnered a large chunk of the market for a brief while, only to fade away with the emergence of big brands like Philips, Sony, Videocon, etc in the wake of the cable revolution in the 1990s.
Source: http://www.tvhistory.tv/History%20of%20TV.htm, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television
9. Telephones with rotary dial
First introduced in 1904, it became commercially available by 1919 when Bell Systems began producing it in the US. For over half a century after that, this technology was in use. During the 1970s and the 1980s, touch-tone dialing, again pioneered by Bell Telephone Laboratories, where a keypad replaced a dial, became the norm. Rotary dial is now used only in designer phones.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_dial, http://www.theaesthetic.com/NewFiles/online9_phones.html
10. Color reversal film (for still image cameras)
In June this year, when Eastman Kodak announced that it would retire its seventy-four-year-old flagship color reversal film brand ‘Kodachrome,’ it was actually the end of an era. The reversal film, a type of photographic film that produces a positive image on a transparent base, was first patented by the Lumière brothers in 1903 and marked in 1907 as the ‘Autochrome Lumière’ process. Over time, Eastman Kodak and Fuji became the two leading global manufacturers of the color reversal film, with their brands ‘Kodachrome’ and ‘Fuji Velvia’. In the last decade though, digital photography has progressively reduced the demand for film, and it would soon be a relic of the past.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodachrome, http://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversal_film
Epilogue:
The march of time waits for none and in its wake all things must pass. Letterpress printing, which revolutionized the way the world exchanges knowledge, lasted in its original form for nearly five centuries, and is still in commercial use. Newer technologies like pagers and videocassette recorders, however, faded way too quickly (less than two decades) and morphed into smarter variants. This happened not only because they were incremental innovations over technologies that already existed, but also because in the last century the speed at which technology has changed, has far outpaced any other time in history. And this change will only be quicker as time moves on.
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written by PRADEEP ATHAVALE, September 04, 2009
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one more important development happening is cable-less interaction between different devices ( keyboard, mouse, cordless phone, remote key for car etc )