10 pieces of 'old school' technology that will make you feel all nostalgic

Feeling old?

Author: Anna Sky MagliolaPublished 1st Sep 2022
Last updated 7th Sep 2022

We're loving the throwbacks we play throughout the day on Downtown Radio, so for all the nostalgic moments we get reminded of, we thought we'd put together a list of 10 pieces of old school technology that we used to have.

That's right, it's time to turn back the clock and reminisce. Remember a time before broadband, when we had to entertain ourselves with a boombox or Tamagotchi? Just a word of warning, this might make you feel a little old too!

Here are 10 pieces of old school technology:

1. Floppy Disk

The closest we get to these now is when we hit the save button on Word. However, back in the day we'd have to get a floppy disk out and stick to eight character file names.

2. Video Tapes

We used to rewind for what seemed like hours to find our programmes. Does anybody else still call it 'taping' when recording on our fancy new machines?

3. Cassette Tapes

You've never known a real challenge until you have sat for ages with a pencil rewinding one of these manually. And, like with video if you wanted to get to a song in the middle of the tape you'd have to fast forward, no skipping.

4. Portable Cassette Player

Music on the go? Amazing.
Back then it was a novel idea to have music while you walk down the road, but now every smart phone can be your personal cassette player!

5. Boombox

If you really wanted to get the whole neighbourhood involved you could put one of these on your shoulder and pretend you had street cred.

6. Still Camera

Ah the days of having to pay to get a film developed and see if our pictures had come out right. There was no way we'd risk selfies with these!

7. Tamagotchi

Have you fed yours lately? Without regular food these little creatures would 'die'. Sad times for your little digital friend.

8. Handheld Calculator

With one of these on every phone, unless you're in school you probably won't have any use for it anymore.

9. Sega Megadrive or Dreamcast

There were three buttons and four directions, none of this complicated analogue and top button stuff. Plus we miss Sonic the Hedgehog.

10. Typewriters

If you didn't want to handwrite something but instead wanted that formal touch, then a typewriter was the way forward. Try not to mistype though as you couldn't just backspace!

We'll give an honourable mention to instant cameras and vinyl record players, but these have gone full circle and are very much in use and what all the cool kids have these days.