We are living in the 20th century now. We have so much new technology that take the form of the newest versions of iPhones, iPads, Nintendo 3DS. What happened to the gadgets and gizmos of the 90s? Does anyone still remember them? Let’s take a walk back to the 90s when these devices were popular.
1) Cassette tapes and players. These were used to record songs or voices. This device appeared in the latest Marvel movie, Guardians of the Galaxy and the cassette tape played a very retro song. Being a tape, it plays in sequence and while fast forward and rewinding are allowed, it certainly isn’t advised lest it spoils the tape.
2) Video tapes. They were both the visual and audio version of the cassette tape. They required players of their own to play them too. The only thing about the players were that they weren’t portable like the cassette tape players. I remember that these were important to people who wanted to watch certain TV programmes but weren’t at home. They would ask family members at home to record the programmes for them so they could watch it at another time. However, the recording isn’t exactly flawless in terms of quality.
3) Diskettes. I last saw this at a mini game booth at a movie screening. They were among a group of items children had to guess from just touching them blindfolded. They were used to save documents and other files on the computer in the 90s. Compared to our thumb drive storage space now, their data storage was much less. The thing about diskettes that made them more attractive to a kid is that they can come in many colours. Introduced at a stage whereby computers were becoming a necessity, many children in the 90s would have seen if not used them during computer lessons.
4) Pagers or beepers. There were no handphones back then. So what did business men use to communicate with each other? Yup, the pager. It was trending for a period of time. They could be attached to their belt or trousers. They would beep when someone wanted to contact them and leave a number for the owner to contact at his own time. At that period of time, communication wasn’t as convenient and people had to look for public pay phones or use home phones to make calls.
5) Game Boy. The one device that all kids would have heard of. It was the one gaming device that was a must have and could be used to play all sorts of games, especially Pokemon. All that was on the device was an ‘A’ and ‘B’ button, a directional pad and ‘start’ and ‘select’ buttons.
Games would take the form of cartridges and if you wanted more games you had to buy the cartridges. There were many games available such as Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda etc.
The next time you see a child playing on his hand phone or iPad, you have a chance to educate him on the gadgets and gizmos of the past, so he can better appreciate the technology he now enjoys.
Writer: Samuel Low