Ask Lemmy

Portable consoles. They're dead now or replaced by indie shit. No, the switch doesn't count, if it can't fit in my pocket isn't portable.

Neither sure how to call it, nor is it a technology, more like a mindset. I am just gonna name it: "Prideful Craftsmanship"

Basically the incorporation of "useless" decorations and embellishments, to show off ones skill and maybe market oneself a little. Definitely superseded in the capitalist world. Things were just prettier or more interesting to look at, even stuff that wasn't meant to be flashy.

But with nearly everything being made to a price point, this practice has been somewhat lost.

I love that about CRTs, man.

How the fuck could we invent a tiny pocket sized particle accelerator electron beam gun that magnetically aimed its fire with such precision as to hit every individual phosphor, with the appropriate charge to make the right color, across an entire fucking screen, and do that 30+ times a second (for TV, or 60+ for a monitor)..

Yet the LCD is the high tech fancy monitor when its just a little grid of globs being electronically fired? How did the CRT get invented before the LCD?!

CDs and DVDs, because ownership beats convenience when you can get them second hand for pennies on the pound

Clothing and towels made with asbestos fabric. During the middle ages you could clean them by throwing them in the fire and they would come out clean. Eventually your lungs would give up on you but for a while you had a very cool way to impress your guests.

Pneumatic tubes were way, way cooler than email.

Of course, you could only use them to send a message to someone in the same office building, so the comparison isn’t perfect… but you know what I mean.

In the near to mid future, I think an answer to this question are Internal Combustion Engines. I love electric vehicles and look forward to the tech improving. But the sheer coolness factor of moving a large machine through perfectly timed and calibrated explosions is tough to beat.

Pre LCD/LED tech for numeral displays. Nixie tubes kicked so much ass, shame they are hard and expensive to source now.

I like the look of vacuum-fluorescent displays (VFDs) -- a high-contrast display with a black background, solid color areas. Enough brightness to cause some haloing spilling over into the blackness if you were looking at it. Led to a particular design style adapted to the technology, was very "high-tech" in maybe the 1980s.

OLEDs have high contrast, and I suppose you could probably replicate the look, but I doubt that the style will come back.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_fluorescent_display

EDIT: A few more car dashboards using similar style:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/skillshare/uploads/session/tmp/50c99738

https://www.pinterest.com/hudsandguis/retro-car-dashboards/

And some concept cars with similar dash:

https://www.hudsandguis.com/home/2022/retro-digital-dashboards

Some other devices using VFDs:

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/PkPSDOjhxwM/maxresdefault.jpg

https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1_TIdcGmWBuNkHFJHq6yatVXaZ/LINK1-VFD-Music-Audio-Spectrum-Indicator-Audio-VU-Meter-Amplifier-Board-Level-Precision-Clock-Adjustable-AGC.jpg