Icons of a forgotten era
In the world of IT, developments in technology appear as quickly as they disappear. Some developments are revolutionary, while others are simply hype. Here’s a glance into a few perhaps forgotten, but once much-loved gadgets.
The floppy disk
Who’s not familiar with them? Those 8” floppies were huge, square, black and well… floppy. Gradually smaller diskettes with greater storage possibilities were developed, until the well-known hard 3 1/4” diskette made its debut. Yet the increasing flow of information soon became unmanageable and the CD and DVD thankfully made piles of diskettes superfluous.
The telex
The term TELEX is the contraction of the words Telegraph and Exchange. The telex was invented in the 1920s and functioned as a type of ‘slow chat’, whereby one entered a message from one end of the line using a keyboard, which was then printed at the other end. The telex soon replaced the telegraph, and played an essential role in the internationalising of the 20th century. Popular use of the modern fax during the mid seventies soon saw the role of the telex become increasingly limited, until it was eventually phased out.
The back-up tape
Every system manager knows that backups prevent disaster. The creation of back-ups using tapes has been taking place for decades now. In the past it was quite a hassle with regards to open ribbon and such (see image), but in this day and age it’s a little easier, thanks to greater storage capacity and a more compact format. Well-known back-up tapes include the DAT, the DDS and the IBM Magstar MP. Both Microsoft and IBM are trying to develop back-up software, but for the time being the back-up tape is here to stay.
Minitel
In most countries Minitel – a kind of precursor to the internet – is practically unheard of, yet it has been playing an important role in France for decades. Since 1982, when it was officially launched, it was possible to carry out certain processes via Minitel, such as purchasing train tickets and consulting the telephone book. This mostly took place via ‘poles’ in public spaces. This system is still currently in use in France (in 2006 a total of 700 million minutes were spent on Minitel), yet it is only a matter of time until Minitel is entirely replaced by the internet.
Thanks to the Computer Science department at the University of Virginia for images of the floppy disk and back-up tape - www.cs.virginia.edu and to Jean Louis Cangy for the image of the Minitel.
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