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The Overhead Projector
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Ah, microfiche. I remember when I was a trainee and companies house was next door to the office. We'd order the fiche and I'd go round, pick it up and print what I wanted off it.
Speaking to current trainees about how easy they have it with electronic searches made me feel old enough but the follow up question "what's a microfiche" made it so much worse.
I really miss filling one of these with a playlist for the car
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Razzle, Escort, Men only....
Not a product as such, but the library has more or less ceased to exist as a physical entity for me. I've been maybe 3 times in the last 5 years, my job 15 years ago would have meant being there every day.
Of course the library still exists, and has been dramatically augmented by digitisation - I use the online library each day. But physically going to a building called the library and sitting down to read something has completely disappeared as an activity for me. Loads of the smaller libraries in universities have now shut, with resources all being centralised in 1 or 2 megalibraries.
Oh dear Lord, so much stuff here that was part of my working life.
Cow Gum for a while, but superceded by a stripe waxer, much easier to re-position text when pasting up.
That Agfa camera, I used to use one for making PMT's and line film and half-tones, which I then had to plan and strip up with red litho tape.
Rotring pencils with a .3 4H lead and a .5 blue for doing the artwork layout, because blue didn't camera.
Rotring and Mecanorma pens, Letraset, CS10 line board. Spray mount and Photo mount.
Punch tape for our first A-M photosetter. Cans of lighter fuel for cleaning artwork of wax before going under the camera.
I still have a linen tester that's around twenty-five years old, and I still use it, because I still hand-plan film for making plates, we just print raffle and lottery tickets in multi-million quantities, so plates just go on the machine until they wear out, at around 150,000 impressions.
TDK MA-XG metal tapes, for only the very best compilations, usually from 12" singles.
Minidisc: still got loads, keep meaning to put my Sony deck back into the system.
(Turns away, wiping tears from eyes).
What's this about people not using bread knives? I use one every day!
MiniMaglites. The single AAA cell version. Yes LEDs are brighter but show me your working LED torch in 25 years.
Oh, and hankering after my Rapidographs after reading this. Engineers use them too, not just graphic designers.
I thought that LEDs would outlast traditional incandescant bulbs.
Zippo lighters, a 1930s design that has stood the test of time.
What's this about people not using bread knives? I use one every day!
Some people may be confusing 'redundant' with 'used less commonly' ...
Was going to say mini disc, i stil have one somewhere and a few discs.
For me the biggest thing forced to retire would be Concorde, amazing plane, but the internet is quicker. 🙁
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and
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And many hours under the bonnet..
I used to use one of these all day every day:
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That waterboardings got a lot to answer for.