Pulled it out last weekend to see if it would even turn on, and it booted up with 60% charge like nothing happened. Where did you all store your forgotten gadgets that still surprised you?
I used to scan old Polaroids and 35mm negatives on a flatbed scanner from 2008. A guy on a photo forum told me my scans looked "flat and lifeless" and to try a dedicated film scanner instead. Picked up a used Plustek 8100 for $150 on eBay and ran my first roll of Kodak Gold through it. The difference in color depth and sharpness was night and day, even on 8-bit files. I spent three hours re-scanning my favorite shots from a trip to Portland six years ago. Anyone else hold onto a scanner way longer than they should?
Tried plugging it into a modern Windows 11 laptop and the hard drive started clicking like crazy... apparently the old FireWire drivers are completely gone. Anybody know a workaround or is it truly dead tech now?
Was dead set on buying a beat up T420 off eBay for $60 to play DOS games. Read a forum post where a guy said the Pi 400 handles DOSBox Pure with zero fan noise and takes up less desk space. Tried one at a friend's place last month. Boots Duke Nukem 3D faster than any laptop I ever owned. Now my $100 Pi sits next to the monitor and I don't even miss the ThinkPad. Anyone else ditch the old laptop route for a tiny board?
Tbh my coworker at Gold's Gym in Austin swore by powering down his external hard drive every single night to "save its life." I followed that for like 4 years with my 2008 Seagate 1TB, and it died after only 3 years of use. I read later that constant spin up and spin down actually wears out the bearings faster than just leaving it on. Has anyone else killed a drive by following that old tip?
Had a Garmin eTrex from around 2003 that I still used for trail marking, and the screen just went blank halfway up a ridge in Shenandoah. Anyone else still hanging onto ancient GPS units or have you all switched to phone apps?
I had a Palm Pilot Vx I kept using as a simple address book and calendar until pretty recently. Carried it in my bag for like 8 years after smartphones took over. Last month the sync cable finally gave out and I couldn't find a replacement anywhere local. Had to move everything into my phone manually which took like 4 hours. Anyone else hold onto a dead gadget way longer than made sense?
I was convinced those $300 dedicated film scanners were the only way to get good scans, but I tried my dad's old CanoScan 8800F sitting in his basement and honestly the results are way better for 35mm. Anyone else find an old gadget that outperforms the modern version?
I dug out my old Creative Nomad Jukebox from a box in the garage last weekend. It still had about 200 songs loaded on it, mostly 128kbps rips from burned CDs I made back in 2002. The battery somehow held a charge long enough for me to scroll through the playlists. Anyone else still have a dead format player kicking around with their music from high school on it?
My uncle Ed used to say floppy disks were indestructible and perfect for backing up his tax returns. He had a box of 30 disks from the late 90s with his whole life on them. Last year I tried to read one for him and every single disk was corrupted or unreadable. The magnetic coating flaked off inside the drive and ruined it too. Cost me $60 to replace my USB floppy drive after that. Has anyone else run into old disks that just crumble when you try to use them?
I saw a listing for a Palm Pilot m515 from around 2003 and got nostalgic. Paid $80 thinking it would be a fun relic to mess with, but it arrived with a cracked screen and a dead battery that won't hold a charge. The seller just said 'sold as is' and ghosted me. Has anyone else gotten burned buying old PDAs or similar junk?
Found my Garmin Nuvi 350 in a drawer last weekend. Fired it up and it wanted to route me through a Kmart that's been gone for ten years. I used to swear by that thing for road trips around Ohio. Now I just pull up Google Maps on my phone and never think twice. It's wild how fast that whole category of gadgets just vanished. Anyone else still hold onto an old standalone GPS for nostalgia?
Met a guy at a coffee shop in Portland who swore it was the best phone ever made, but after 3 months with one in 2019 I just got annoyed at typing one letter at a time with no copy-paste. Anyone else try going retro and realize the nostalgia doesn't match the reality?
I dug out my LG EnV3 from a drawer last week and those 2 megapixel shots have way more character than the washed out garbage from my old HTC Thunderbolt. The flash was weak and the shutter lag was brutal, but the colors looked natural instead of that fake HDR look. I swear phone cameras peaked around 2012 and then just went downhill with all the processing. Anybody else keep a dumb phone around just for the camera feel?
I pulled my old Motorola Razr out of a drawer last month and swapped my SIM card in just to see if I could survive without a smartphone. Turns out T9 texting takes forever, Google Maps just shows a blank screen, and I had to print MapQuest directions for a trip to the grocery store. Has anyone else ever tried going back to an old device for fun and immediately regretted it?
I dragged my dad's old Compaq Presario out of the basement last weekend just to see if it still worked. That thing with its 133 MHz processor and 16 MB of RAM went from power button to desktop in about 45 seconds. My 2023 Dell with an SSD takes close to two minutes because of all the startup programs and bloatware. What happened that made new tech feel slower than stuff from 30 years ago? Has anyone else noticed this weird backward step in boot times?
I ended up keeping it because pulling it out at truck stops still gets a laugh from the younger drivers, but honestly I have zero use for it now and the screen is all scratched up, has anyone else held onto a gadget way past its useful life just for the nostalgia factor?
I dug up a copy of Adobe Fireworks CS6 from 2011 and it still runs perfectly on Windows 10 for basic web mockups. Everyone acts like old software is useless once support ends, but half the time the features that stop working are just cloud syncing or online activation garbage - the core tools are totally fine. Anyone else still running something from the 2000s that works way better than people claim?