Top 10 REVOLUTIONARY Products That Are Now OBSOLETE

10 Revolutionary Products That Are Now Obsolete
10.
Roll Film Camera, 1888-1988.
When the first successful digital camera was developed by Fuji (the DS-1P, 1988) the day
of the film camera was clearly on the way out.
The rolls of film that revolutionized photography and the Kodak cameras that made photography
something the common person could engage in have not only been replaced by digital cameras,
but also by all the other electronic devices (such as cell phones) that have digital cameras
built in.
9.
Percussion Cap 1820-1860’s.
After the flintlock ignition system of operating firearms had ruled for about 200 years or
more, the percussion cap gave gunners a more weather resistant and more reliable method
of firing their guns, not to mention making the loading process faster for military applications.
The percussion form of firearm ignition technology turned out to be the shortest run of any of
the ignition technologies used with firearms so far, as the (mostly) muzzle loading percussion
capped guns were replaced by breech loading firearms that used self contained metallic
cartridges that became state of the art during the American Civil War.
8.
Word Processor 1960-1990’s.
What seemed like an amazing and useful replacement for the typewriter, the word processor was
kind of like a typewriter with a memory so that corrections could be made electronically
without having to smudge up paper with erasers or Wite Out.
Making multiple copies of a document also became tremendously easier and neater than
using carbon paper or early photo-copiers.
The advent of the Internet and promulgation of the personal and office computer in the
1990’s turned all these word processing machines into dinosaurs after only a few decades
of use.
7.
Gatling Gun 1862-1883.
Patented in 1862 and seeing limited action during the American Civil War, the gun was
a marvel for its day, capable of firing about 200 rounds per minute as long as someone kept
putting ammo in the hopper.
In 1883 Hiram Maxim patented his real machine gun (that did not rely on hand cranked power
and could pump out 600 rounds per minute) and the Gatling Gun was basically obsolete
after ruling the world of rapid fire for only 21 years.
Still, the US and other militaries kept some Gatling Guns in service until 1911.
The Gatling Gun got something of a reprieve and rebirth in the 1950’s when the US military
came up with electric powered versions of Gatling Guns firing as many as 6000 rounds
per minute!
6.
Video Tape, 1951.
First demonstrated to the world in 1951, the use of magnetic tape to record and play back
video images instead of using photographic film was a giant leap forward in technology,
eventually making home video viewing and home video production extremely available to the
entire public, with no need to send your film for processing or using cumbersome projectors.
Video tape television shows did not happen until the late 1950’s, and video tape instant
replay first was used in 1963.
The first home video systems appeared in 1971 (the video cassette having been invented in
1969), and the industry fought a format war in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s between
Betamax and VHS (VHS won).
By 1978 the first LaserDisc digital type video was already unleashed on the public, and of
course, the industry hashed out a standard format they called DVD by 1995, which quickly
superseded VHS tapes leaving VHS based home video only about a 20 year run as our high
tech home video system.
Now we have even higher tech systems such as dual-layer DVD’s, miniDVD’s, and BluRay.
People can even record their own DVD video and copy other videos onto DVD, or load the
video information onto their computer hard drive or onto flash drive (thumb drive) devices.
In any case, it is obvious that Video Cassette Tapes are dinosaurs.
5.
Piston Engine Aircraft, 1903.
When the Wright Brothers made their first flight powered by a 12 horsepower straight
4 cylinder gasoline fueled piston engine, who could have dreamed that piston power would
be superseded within only 4 decades?
When jet engines made their debut in England and Germany during World War II, it was obvious
the piston engine was now obsolete.
Commercial use of jets quickly followed and the development of the turbo-prop engine for
propeller driven airplanes and helicopters quickly followed that.
4.
Vacuum Tube, 1904.
Used in the production of radio, television, radar and early electronic computers, when
the transistor was invented in the 1940 and developed in the 1950’s the vacuum tube
was bound for the scrap heap of history.
Well, that is an overstatement since tubes are still used in microwave ovens and a few
other applications, and Cathode Ray Tubes ruled television screens for another few decades,
but for the most part they have certainly been superseded by superior technology.
3.
Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) TV Screen, 1934.
The first televisions used this technology where a vacuum tube was used to project a
beam of electrons onto a phosphorescent screen to make a video picture.
This was first marketed by a German firm called Telefunken in 1934 though RCA had done much
of the research and primitive CRT’s had been experimented with as far back as 1869.
When the plasma screen was invented in 1964, it was only a matter of time before Plasma,
LCD and LED type television screens would replace the aging CRT technology.
The new systems were much lighter, thinner, had improved clarity and used far less energy.
Then the newer technologies went down in price, effectively killing off the CRT television
by 2010, after only about 6 decades of commercial dominance.
2.
Pager, 1958.
Patented by Al Gross in 1949, the Pager got its name from Motorola in 1959.
At first largely used by doctors the Motorola “Pageboy” was made available to the general
public in 1974, and pagers eventually became the mandatory accouterments of drug dealers.
(By 1980 over 3 million pagers were in use.)
Pagers became so pervasive by the early 1990’s that anyone of any importance at all carried
one or more, including (it seemed) every teenager.
(By 1994 over 61 million were in use.)
Suddenly, pagers were made obsolete and redundant by the proliferation of cell phones (first
demonstrated in 1973, first commercial model costing $3500 each in 1983) during the 1990’s
and beyond made pagers obsolete.
By 2010 there were 4.6 Billion cell phones in use world wide, and today that number is
around 6 Billion!
(In the US there is just under 1 cell phone per person, but in some countries there are
2 cell phones per person!)
1.
Incandescent Light Bulb.
With a miserable efficiency of only about 5%, the incandescent light bulb wastes so
much energy that as soon as the first oil crisis hit in 1973 its days were numbered.
With a production of about 16 lumens per watt compared to 60 lumens per watt by a compact
fluorescent bulb (and lasting around 15 times longer), the primacy of the incandescent light
bulb was obviously threatened as soon as the fluorescent light was first shown to the public
at the 1939 World’s Fair.
Commercially feasible incandescent lights date from around 1879, and thus only had about
a 60 year reign as the top technology.
Today, LED lights threaten to replace the compact fluorescent bulbs that are so prevalent
with even greater efficiency and life span, and other technologies are also being developed.

Top 10 REVOLUTIONARY Products That Are Now OBSOLETE

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