Each generation’s childhood is marked by objects that were typical for that time. In the past, technological changes occurred gradually, so children usually knew and understood what was once valuable and important to the previous generation. But today, there is an immense variety of gadgets and electronics around us, causing a generational gap.
It seems like just yesterday we were amazed by pagers and 3.5-inch floppy disks, but today we can hardly remember button cell phones and compact discs. Everything around us is changing rapidly. AdmiGram.com has decided to compile a collection of gadgets from our childhood, all of which can confidently be called the ancestors of modern gadgets. Your children and grandchildren have probably never even heard of them.
Gadgets from our childhood: you definitely had these
The great-grandmother of all flash drives and memory cards – the floppy disk. Oh, how much interesting stuff could fit in there.
© Fernando Lavin / Unsplash
Power sources. Batteries, large, clumsy, and heavy. No one even dreamed of elegant polymer batteries with 5,000 mAh back then.
© kabilis / eBay
The forefather of cell phones, the old but reliable rotary phone. Back then, installing a telephone in a home was a real celebration for the whole family.
© Eckhard Hoehmann / Unsplash
Nowadays, we have MP3 players and phones with music, but back then, a cassette tape could hold just 60 minutes of music.
© Edgar / Unsplash
Professional DSLR cameras and high-megapixel phone cameras no longer surprise anyone these days. But not too long ago, owning a Polaroid camera, which could produce an instant photo, was a matter of envy and luxury.
© Tom Barrett / Unsplash
Radios were large and clumsy compared to modern pocket-sized receivers, often resembling some kind of box with a combination lock or a portable toaster.
© Chandan Chaurasia / Unsplash
Today, we measure our MP3 players by the bitrate of playback or the gigabytes of storage capacity, but back then, we looked at the size and battery life of portable cassette players.
© Inkredo Designer / Unsplash
H.624, Blu-ray, AV1… In the past, it was all simpler; everyone had their collection of favorite movies on VHS videotapes on their shelves.
© Bruno Guerrero / Unsplash
As for reel-to-reel tape recorders like these, you could record anything you wanted on them. Only true music enthusiasts could afford them. It’s not like having a TikTok phone.
© Markus Spiske / Unsplash
And this little guy was the object of dreams and pride for anyone who couldn’t imagine their life without music nearby.
© Florian Schmetz / Unsplash
With the help of mini-projectors like these, you could turn any home into a real movie theater. No one was thinking about 4K and LCD screens back then.
© Alexander Andrews / Unsplash
image on top: grilled cheese / Flickr
