Obsolete things

[FourEyesGood]

Please can you help me? I’m trying to compile a list of things that are now obselete, like fax machines and VHS tapes. (They don’t have to be technology-based, though.) This is for an amateur film I’m loosely involved in planning.
Thanks!

Just thought of another one: cheque books!

Milk bottle caps / pourers. I've been searching for them recently and there aren't many around.

Dial-a-disc

Computers with cd/dvds seem to be on the way out
Film cameras
Local shops not chains
Cobbled roads
Road maps in cars
Desktop computers in homes
Landlines as anything other than a way to get broadband or emergency use
Privacy

We have to use CD walkmen for exams! (Music teacher in a secondary school). Definitely not obsolete.

Minidisks

Has anyone mentioned those steering wheel locks which were bright yellow and huge?
Also coal bunkers we had one when I was little.
Soap pads that had suckers on the underneath to stick to the sink.

clocks on mantlepieces
china figurines of women
wedgwood wall plates
black ash furniture
teasmades
label makers
snake on mobile phones
reverse charge phone calls

I still use VHS videos and cassette tapes.

I don't own a carpet sweeper but they have them in the self-catering accommodation we stay in on holiday. Very handy things!

Another mercury arc rectifier fan here!

We have a spin dryer! We don't have the space for, or the money to run, a tumble dryer but the spin dryer, bought new from Currys a few years ago, is a godsend. It means the clothes dry more quickly and that there's less residual detergent on them so they last longer and don't cause as much irritation for my children who have eczema. It also means there's less chance of damp when drying clothes in the house.

We also have 2x clocks on 2x different mantelpieces in our house. I do like nice clocks though!

A lot of people still use film cameras and develop them themselves in their own darkrooms. Film cameras are making a bit of a come-back and you can still buy them brand new. A man who came to do a talk at our club still uses them because digital cameras didn't work at the top of mountains etc.

Dh has a label maker that plugs into the computer and prints out sticky labels. They've come in handy for labelling boxes for storage and for notes for the caravan when other people visit.

Someone said desktop computers in the home. I'd love a desktop with a fixed screen - so much better for editing than a laptop because the screen doesn't move so you're always looking at it in the same light with the same contrast and brightness. They're also more powerful and can do more things more quickly than a laptop can. I wish I could afford one!

"Manual sphygmomanometers" the almost automatic acceptance that an autosphygs read is correct drives me bonkers! I still don't trust them.

Haha I knew someone would say that. A manual one though is only as good as the person taking it. Given how little practice most people get with a manual sphyg these days I wouldn't trust a one-off reading from either of them.

Mix tapes!

I had to google what a sphygmomanometer is!
At the surgery I use, the nurse practitioners seem to use what I assume are the manual ones (where they put a stethoscope on your arm and look at their watch) and the doctors use the electronic ones.

We use fax machines daily in the NHS

"Haha I knew someone would say that. A manual one though is only as good as the person taking it. Given how little practice most people get with a manual sphyg these days I wouldn't trust a one-off reading from either of them."

Ffs yea you probably have a point there!

Maybe "basic nursing skills" should be on this list! I have a friend I did my training with who is now a mentor for trainees as well as a "regular" nurse - she & I have discussed at length the declining quality of recruits

Not in terms of intelligence or ability but in terms of willingness to do the "mundane" tasks that they now think are beneath them! They don't seem to be getting taught in the earlier stages of training that time spent with patients is extremely useful in terms of noticing changes that may be concerning (or even improvements), plus they seem dismissive of how important things like nutrition, hydration, complexion are.

It's not all of them not even the majority yet thankfully but a significant minority which is worrying.

She's got to a point where she susses such trainees out early on and makes a point of making them do the tasks they turn their noses up at and explaining why they're important and what they've learned as a result of doing them.

Kepthebeaches yea that sounds like manual ones. I had an incident about 18 months ago where I needed bp checking and the auto wasn't working and the nurse was saying she'd have to do it next time. Yet I saw she had a manual one! So I asked why she couldn't use that instead - she didn't know how!! Not even a youngster. It was important as without it I couldn't get the prescription I needed so I said is there nobody else could do it which is what happened in the end. Ridiculous that she didn't know how to do it at all! I also very much got the impression she'd have been the type (which I have also come across) who would have accepted a clearly wrong reading from the auto.

Seriously worrying.

Cars backfiring

Cars backfiring
Also cars needing to be run in. Do you remember those back window stickers saying ‘running in please pass’.
I’d completely forgotten about that.
Banks shutting at 3.30. I only discovered years after that they’d starting opening for longer.
Now of course there are far fewer banks in towns and cities.

I've not seen a treasury tag for years but I'm sure they're still around somewhere

My university has industrial quantities of them. They're used to fasten together multiple answer books for exams.

Slide rules
Ink wells
Quills
Blackboards
Canes

Attended filling stations? Was just wishing for one only yesterday! If anyone knows of one in North london, please share!

Abacus
Carbon paper
Hand cranked adding machines
Dictophones
Rotary duplicators (Gestetner?)
Kalamazoo carbon paper based accounting ledgers
Retractable car aerials
Steam trains
Bike radios
Parking lights for cars
Green shield stamps
Wind up grammophones

Landlines as anything other than a way to get broadband or emergency use

Still in use in lots of areas with poor mobile signals. Even in 2019, I can't get a good mobile signal in my office, so all calls in/out are on the landline.

I still wear a watch, use tippex, have a Filofax (which I love), have a fondue and use cheques.
We use a fax machine in work.

The suction chutes used for carrying messages around a building.