As I'm sitting at my desk listening to my iPod, it dawned on me how the iPod and MP3 players are ushering the end of the CD era... just like CDs displaced vinyl and cassettes and prevented the ascension of DAT. Pretty soon flash drives will displace CDs for data storage, just like CDs displaced floppies. Then my mind wandered to thinking of the rapid pace of evolving technology and of the different things that have been rendered obsolete in the last 20-30 years: VHS, analog video, cars, etc. What's your favorite technology that is now obsolete? Conversely, what technology were you happy to see go away?

José

What's your favorite technology that is now obsolete? Film. For stills. Okay, so it's almost obsolete. I'm selling the 'Blad kit, and I'll miss the idea of a spring-loaded camera with no meter. No menus. No auto-focus. No batteries. There's something pure about it. The real crime is how the value of that kind of precision equipment has dropped like a stone.

I'll miss videotape when it's gone. At least for archiving. But as hard drives get cheaper ...

I'm really going to miss Darkroom Photography. Film. That's the
proper way to take a picture!
None of that digital garbage for me!
Picture takers today just click their mouse and a computer program fixes
any perceived flaws.
Automatic junk! Just push a button!

I'm sorry to see analog go.
Radio and television signals could be seen even with a certain amount
of interference. It would just be "snowy". The picture, or sound, would
continue.
Digital tv and radio can't abide the slightest interruption in signal. When
it occurs, the last bit of digital information received is repeated until a
full stream is restored. That's where the hard buzz comes from.
Plus, I hate those squares that pop up in the picture because the signal
isn't right.
Also, pick-up tubes used in video cameras gave a better picture. The
CCD used for cameras today cause fixed vertical streaks when a bright
light source is viewed (light bulb, street light, etc.). Analog video cameras
only produced a swirl if the camera was moved.
(I know. I was in Film school when the first CCD cameras were introduced.)

SteveR Beat me by 6 minutes!! D'Oh!!

I'm really going to miss Darkroom Photography. Film. That's the
proper way to take a picture!
None of that digital garbage for me!
Picture takers today just click their mouse and a computer program fixes
any perceived flaws.
Automatic junk! Just push a button!Whereas picture takers in the past had to shoot film, send it off and wait hours, days or weeks to get their slides or prints back -- delayed junk.

Sorry, but as a photographer who learned how to shoot on an all-manual SLR dating from the Vietnam War-era and who now shoots all-digital, I know better than to think the "computer program fixes any perceived flaws." I fix flaws in my images -- the tool I use to do so is a computer program. It's taken me more than 10 years of practice to learn to work in Photoshop to the degree of expertise I have today; in spirit, it's no different than the long hours over many years I might once have spent in a darkroom. The people who rely on software's automatic fixes to do it all for them wouldn't have been more than snapshooters in any era.

Sorry, but I bristle a bit at the idea that I "just push a button" and the computer fixes everything for me, as if I'm somehow cheating. Editing images using software is no different from dodging and burning in the darkroom.

Okay -- rant done. :tongue:

Qapla'

SSB

I'm probably quite a bit older than most of you on the board, here.

One challenge you'll find as your life progresses is to keep yourself from becoming obsolete!

I have seen and experienced a lot of change in my life and career: the use of film, video, high-definition, digital, etc. Going from compositing shots with aerial image and optical printers to compositing software on digital workstations and desktop computers.
Shots can be assembled and tweaked with software nowadays in a matter of hours or minutes that used to take days or even weeks to build on film.

Change happens so very fast, nowadays. Don't be afraid of change. Face it head-on and embrace it.

I haven't bought an i-pod, yet, but I am looking at them and am very close to getting one. I think they're great! Perfect for dumping my radio show downloads onto for listening in the car or when out walking without having to first burn a CD.

I'm an old dog whose more than willing to learn new tricks. :)

One thing that I find interesting about the progress of technology (and digital technology in particular) is in the way that it affects "community". Someone recently posted on another board that Kurt Cobain had died 10 years ago and there was a discussion about the musical impact of Nirvana and who and when would be the next group or individual that would have that group's impact, much less the impact of The Beatles or Elvis Presley. My response was - iPods don't lend themselves to revolutionary cultural/musical movements. They are not a "shared" thing in the sense that radio or television once was. I don't think an Elvis or a Beatles or even a Nirvana can really ever happen again. Of course, none of those musical movements would have occurred in the first place if not for 20th century technology. My wife works for an international company and barely goes into the "office" more than once or twice a month these days. She sits at a desk in her home office and with a laptop, wireless modem, and headset communicates with co-workers from around the world all day long. It's 9:30 pm and she is at the dining room table right now teleconferencing with associates in Beijing, China. But she doesn't "know" those people, doesn't have a clue what they look like, and it's highly unlikely that she'll ever meet a one of them. I just finished adding an original music track to an hour-long documentary I'm editing. I've never met the composer and wouldn't know him if I bumped into him on the street. Don't even know what his voice sounds like since we've only "spoken" to each other by email. When I finished the rough-cut of the documentary, I encoded it as a digitally compressed movie file, copied it to our FTP site, he downloaded it onto his computer, composed and assembled his entire multi-instrumental musical score using nothing but software, uploaded that digitally compressed audio file to our FTP site, and I imported it back into my original sequence - everything matching perfectly. It's a really good musical score and I admire the man's work. Wouldn't mind meeting him - but he lives 200 miles away so that's not very likely. I love the "ease" of things these days - but I miss some of the human interaction and genuine and lasting connections I used to make with like-minded people. It still happens, just less often.

The people who rely on software's automatic fixes to do it all for them wouldn't have been more than snapshooters in any era.

That's who I was thinking of.
I seem to meet so many people who claim to be "photographers",
and when I see their work it's the biggest load of garbage I ever saw.

sbaxter,
Are you a professional photographer?
You sound like a serious amateur, at the least.
Any chance of seeing something you did?

I miss vinyl. Shopping for and buying record albums was a lot more fun and interesting than purchasing the sterile compact disc. I also miss audiotape and the choices of should I go with the "High Bias" or the "Metal?" I also miss Beta.

I think I qualify for "geezer-status."

Strangely, I find myself agreeing with almost everything here. First, not to sidetrack the thread, but there seems to be so many photo-oriented posts that I'm taking the liberty of posting this (I just scanned it)

http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/1497/fairchild5fu.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Although I'm now a total convert to digital photography, I miss my darkroom (well, I have it but don't use it). The above photo was the kind of stuff I really loved to do but you just can't get the same effect with digital. It's a slow B&W film in a Bronica ETR. Images like this are just so packed with detail that you can get lost in them. They probably don't make a camera with enough megapixels to get the detail that you find in the original (an 8x10 I printed with my Beseler 67C and an 80mm Rodagon enlarging lens).

On another subject, I agree completey with Zorro. I think that technology has interfered with the sense of community that we used to share. Things like the iPod have allowed us to taylor the world to our specific needs and tastes. Time was, we were "forced" to get our daily music from the radio and that exposed us to things that appealed to others...and exposed others to things that appealed to us. Movies on TV were big events that EVERYBODY watched. In 1971, watching James Bond on the Sunday Night Movie was a huge event. These days, I can get all of my music and movies stored on media ready for my personal enjoyment. But that takes the fun out of knowing that others are sharing my experience.

These days, I can get all of my music and movies stored on media ready for my personal enjoyment. But that takes the fun out of knowing that others are sharing my experience.

Yes!
I can watch "STAR TREK II The Wrath of Khan" whenever I want,
(and usually do), but when I see it broadcast on TV I get excited
because everyone can see it too! :thumbsup:

I also miss the internal combustion engine.
Nowadays, the automobile is a computer with wheels.
So much crud built into a car! So many electronics!
I would love to have a pure mechanical car. They're so easy
to fix when something goes wrong, (which doesn't happen that often!)

One obsolete device I definitely don't miss is . . . THE TYPEWRITER! I learned to type on big, clunky manual typewriters back in 7th grade, and even then I knew there had to be something better. Feeding the paper in, straightening the paper, changing those messy ribbons, having to hit the carriage return when you heard that stupid bell, never being able to do proper quotation marks, or fractions, or accent marks, or technical symbols, or italics, or to change fonts instantly, or make more than three or four smudgy carbon copies. And making corrections was a joke! So-called typewriter erasers only destroyed the paper, correcting ribbons weren't much better, and white-out fluid was messy and took time to dry. As for revisions and editing, there was no such thing as cut-and-paste; you just had to make your changes and type the whole thing over again. I'll take today's computers, printers, and word-processing software any day over those noisy, clattering, antiquated machines!

On the other side of the coin, I miss real lath-and-plaster interior walls in new homes. Everything's drywall now, and there's something about even good quality drywall that just looks and feels, well, insubstantial and cheap. Anyone out there feel the same way?

Change happens so very fast, nowadays. Don't be afraid of change. Face it head-on and embrace it."A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on and licks it, or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away."

"Now you're beginning to talk like a doctor, bartender."

Now, where have I heard THAT before?

I preferred Beta over VHS.

I preferred a camera that went off when you pushed the button, not one or two seconds later.

I preferred Super-8 over video - I never had a video camera that could do everything my old Chinon 12SMR could do - 18/24fps selection with one-button 36fps slo-mo, in-camera dissolves, 12-1 zoom, and single-frame animation.

I preferred when the average car was low enough that I could see around it.



I question the viability of flash drives as permanent storage. On the extreme side, one good nuclear EMP and we lose everything. On the less extreme side, one prankster friend with a good magnet could wipe out your life's work. I still backup to DVD-R and a removeable USB hard drive, and keep my website on a flash drive too.

Let me see know. [Goes into old geezer mode and remembers childhood days in England.]

78's (pre 45s and pre-vinyl record)
Black and white TV with one channel
Reel to reel tape players
One choice of salad dressing
Radio serials
Pirate radio stations that played the music kids wanted to hear from ships anchored in the English Channel
2 shilling (about 40 cents) Airfix kits in plastic bags with two or three new releases every month
Really neat free stuff in cereal boxes
Candy cigarettes with great collector cards
Jim

Here's an off the wall one for you that I miss.... Mimeograph's.. I LOVED the smell of the ink while printing off the copies. Making the master copy, loading the machine and cranking that handle to get enough copies for all the students in your class. The Xerox copiers took all the fun out of it.

Right, we used to have those hand-cranked mimeograph (or "ditto") machines in school. You first had to type a master on special stencil material, and for some reason the copies always came out blue. And you could get high on the fumes from the duplicating fluid!

Can't say I miss those machines, though.

Must not be too many boater on the board, GPS is one of the greatest inventions of my lifetime. Anybody whoever tried to find a specific spot on the water with the old LORAN or shore cuts knows of which I speak. That it's saved a lot of lives is just an added bonus.

I do miss two things, car hoods that could stay up by themselves, and battery-operated toys or gadgets that don't require a screwdriver to change the batteries.

sbaxter,
Are you a professional photographer?
You sound like a serious amateur, at the least.
Any chance of seeing something you did?
I'd call myself a semi-professional. I do some photography as part of my job, and do lots of serious amateur work on my own. I've been exploring some ideas for the possibility of selling some of my prints, but I'm not quite there yet. I don't think I'd want to get into something like shooting weddings -- takes up too much weekend time for my tastes. But if I can sell a product, I don't have to be there for someone to buy it.

The link below goes to the first of two pages with my work. Unfortunately, several of the links to the larger images are broken now. I am looking into posting my photos on a different site that will allow me to upload many more images. But this will give you a taste ...

http://www.photoshopuser.com/napmem/gallery/view_img.php?id=23932

Qapla'

SSB

I question the viability of flash drives as permanent storage. On the extreme side, one good nuclear EMP and we lose everything. On the less extreme side, one prankster friend with a good magnet could wipe out your life's work. I still backup to DVD-R and a removeable USB hard drive, and keep my website on a flash drive too.

I taught a class on the side at a JC a couple of years ago. It was a brand new class and I was creating the lectures and presentations from scratch. I didn't bother to back them up because I was tweaking them almost daily so in my mind the notes weren't "done". I figured I'd burn them on to a CD after my first semester.

You probably guessed it: at around Week 10 of the semester my PC crashed and I lost everything. Took me several days full of painful and intense anguish, but I managed to retrieve 90% of the notes. After that, I had them saved on floppies, flash drives two CDs, on my home PC and on my laptop.

José

I do miss two things, car hoods that could stay up by themselves,


A victim of the construction of lighter, and smaller cars.


and battery-operated toys or gadgets that don't require a screwdriver to change the batteries.

A victim of our litigious society. Can't have the little darling popping open the battery compartment and choking on a battery.

I personally don't care for ipods, but then I have a minidisc, which seems to be losing favor, at least in the U.S.. I much prefer my slr over my digital camera, I can do more with the slr.

David.

I much prefer my slr over my digital camera, I can do more with the slr.No doubt ... which is why I prefer my digital SLR over the film SLR I used to use. And -- hey, John P? With a digital SLR, that second or two of delay ("shutter lag") isn't an issue, either. All the digital point-and-shoots I've used drove me crazy for the same reason.

Qapla'

SSB

I miss vinyl. Shopping for and buying record albums was a lot more fun and interesting than purchasing the sterile compact disc. I also miss audiotape and the choices of should I go with the "High Bias" or the "Metal?" I also miss Beta.

I think I qualify for "geezer-status."

Right there with ya yama.
I miss the nice big record albums. Where the artwork just slapped you in the face.
And you could actually read the tracklist on the back of it.
CDs are convenient, but not nearly as great as vynils.

And I still love my cassette tapes.
Much more durable.
You can preach all you want about how much tougher CDs are supposed to be. But with my music listening habits, CDs wouldn't stand a chance.
In my car, when I switch tapes, I just pop the one out and toss it on the passenger seat, or in the glove compartment and grab the next one. No cases, no organizers. I don't have time for that stuff when I am driving.
They are on the floorboards, under the seats. Where ever they end up.
And god forbid I try to change a CD while working on my car, and covered in grease up to my elbows.
Found out the hard way that CDs and petrolium products like grease, oil, and gas don't get along. Especially on CDRs. But some of my store bought CDs became unplayable also from coming in contact with those products.
Never had that problem with a tape.

Found out the hard way that CDs and petrolium products like grease, oil, and gas don't get along. Especially on CDRs. But some of my store bought CDs became unplayable also from coming in contact with those products.
Never had that problem with a tape.

As long as you don't touch the tape with that stuff, your tapes should be okay.....but the tape will melt too if you get that stuff on them. Of course....you can always cut out any damaged section and splice the tape back together again. That's something you definitely can't do with vinyl.

Whereas picture takers in the past had to shoot film, send it off and wait hours, days or weeks to get their slides or prints back -- delayed junk.

Sorry, but as a photographer who learned how to shoot on an all-manual SLR dating from the Vietnam War-era and who now shoots all-digital, I know better than to think the "computer program fixes any perceived flaws." I fix flaws in my images -- the tool I use to do so is a computer program. It's taken me more than 10 years of practice to learn to work in Photoshop to the degree of expertise I have today; in spirit, it's no different than the long hours over many years I might once have spent in a darkroom. The people who rely on software's automatic fixes to do it all for them wouldn't have been more than snapshooters in any era.

Sorry, but I bristle a bit at the idea that I "just push a button" and the computer fixes everything for me, as if I'm somehow cheating. Editing images using software is no different from dodging and burning in the darkroom.

Okay -- rant done. :tongue:

Qapla'

SSB


I still have some darkroom chemicals, I think it's fixing solution, that contains cyanide.:eek:

Darkrooms were not always what they are now romanticized to be...

hey, John P? With a digital SLR, that second or two of delay ("shutter lag") isn't an issue, either.

I know! I get to use the Nikon (D70?) at work when the staff photog isn't available. It's WONDERFUL to use and honest-to-god SLR again. After the photog was out for 2 months (she had a baby) and I subbed for her, I had to drag my old Minolta X700 out of the closet and use it. I'd forgotten to joy of interchangeable lenses!

But alas, Digital SLRs are WAY expensive (and I wonder if Minolta makes one that'll take my old MD lenses?)

Darkroom vs Digital:

I enherited my great-grandfather's collection of 4X5 glass plate negatives from the turn of the last century. Mary got the bug to print them up. So we set up her old Omega enlarger from art school days (1975-78!) in the downstairs bathroom, and got the appropriate chemicals, and she spent the entire evening of O.J.'s escape attempt sealed in there making contact prints.

She got them all done nicely in a few hours, made a bit of a mess, got a bit of a headache, missed the Adventure of the White Bronco, and swore to god she'd never develop another neg in her life. But the 100-year-old family photos hang in our front hallway. The result re all 4X5 contact prints - she didn't want to go to the trouble of enlarging them.

However! When I myself got the bug to make a website featuring those photos, all I did was take the glass negs to work and scan them at maximum res (I don't have a backlit scanner at home). It took less time, and resulted in hi-res files that I can print at will, at almost any size, on any paper. I even put them on CD and sent them to local historical societies.
http://www.inpayne.com/family/granpaspix/gppix.html

http://www.inpayne.com/family/granpaspix/gp001.jpg

Your great-grandfather had a great collection if that one photograph is representative of the rest. That picture has such a great level of detail that it's amazing it was taken so long ago!

Digital SLRs are WAY expensive (and I wonder if Minolta makes one that'll take my old MD lenses?)Well, you know that Minolta merged with Konica, right? And they've pretty much thrown in the towel now -- they announced recently they were giving up the camera business and selling their property in that market to (IIRC) Sony, who will take up the line.

But as far as digital SLRs being expensive, I guess that depends on your definition of the word. Nikon and Canon both offer good D-SLRs, with a versatile zoom lens included, for around $600 to $700, respectively, from Amazon -- available for a little less elsewhere.

Qapla'

SSB

Speaking of cameras and as a snapshooter who knows nothin' about chemicals and darkrooms, I love APS... but they're slowly becoming obsolete in the wake of digital cameras. Too bad. I found them better to use than 35mm and digitals, but APS is slowly being squeezed out by both.

José

Your great-grandfather had a great collection if that one photograph is representative of the rest. That picture has such a great level of detail that it's amazing it was taken so long ago!

Click on the link above the picture to see the rest of them! :)

Scott - I knew it was now "Konica-Minolta" but I didn't know they were giving up. I'll scratch them off my list.

Scott - I knew it was now "Konica-Minolta" but I didn't know they were giving up. I'll scratch them off my list.Not sure you necessarily have to go that far; Sony seems to be serious about making inroads in the higher end of the market. This is why they've bought the line from K-M. In addition, last I heard K-M may be maufacturing lenses for Sony in the future.

I'd say that if you have an investment in Minolta lenses, it would pay to check into the availability of a D-SLR body with which you might use them.

Qapla'

SSB

Steam Locomotives. Vinyl records. Tube stereo equipment. the days before computers.

Steam Locomotives.Now there's one I'll second! Or even the older diesel locomotives that had style!

I don't miss vinyl records, though. I still have most of mine -- AND a working turntable. Other than the larger canvas for cover art, I don't miss 'em.

Qapla'

SSB

John P --

Here's a link to K-M's (oddly-worded) press release announcing their plans to abandon the photo and camera business (although it does indicate they will produce lenses and digital SLRs for Sony):

http://konicaminolta.com/releases/2006/0119_03_01.html

Qapla'

SSB

Thanks, Scott. Damn, that's sad. We've got, like, 4 generations of Minolta SLRs - my wife got her first all-manual Minolta in art school in '77. I got an XD-11 for myself shortly after we got married a few years later. Then I got an X-700 body when I broke the XD-11. And my mother has a fully-auto Maxxum. And here we are with all those lenses!

And here we are with all those lenses!Well, it looks as if Sony intends to continue the line, so they aren't useless (if K-M's D-SLR bodies will mount them). I don't think Sony will start over from scratch; they know they still have lots of existing lenses in the hands of consumers, and they'd be crazy not to tap that potential market. So it looks as if K-M is getting out of the business on one side but will stay in it as a subcontractor, producing lenses and cameras as part of a line that used to be theirs but now belongs to Sony.

Qapla'

SSB

Guys, I bit the bullet and just got a Digital SLR. Honestly, all the talk in this thread really pushed me over the edge.

I don't want to hijack this thread and turn into a pure camera thread. Since this topic seems to interest people, though, I'll post info about my new camera in a separate thread shortly. Right now, the batteries are charging so I haven't even been able to power it up (damn manual is 215 pages of English alone).

As soon as I get it (HOPEFULLY) working, I'll start a new thread and leave this one on it's original topic.

Whenever I'm in at Calumet Camera, I'm always drooling over the Fujifilm S3 Pro 12.34MP Digital SLR. I'll pick it up one of these days. My Nikon lenses will all fit, so it's just a matter of doing it. Since Fujifilm is now located right next door to the camera store (in a beloved old building that holds it's own special memories), I can wander over there and chat with the film guys who have done extensive tests showing just how close the Super CCD comes to duplicating the tonal range of color negative film. It's very impressive.

I love film. Most of my career has been deeply involved with it, and I've gotta tell ya that digital is getting so very, very close in capturing the subtlety and tonal range that it isn't funny. This camera comes about the closest that I've seen. Absolutely brilliant images. The photocells on the CCD are of two different sizes to mimic the exposure latitude of color film negative and allows the camera to capture an image in Film Simulation Mode that has the same characteristics of said film.

Dang! Just thinking about it makes me wish I was back in LA so I could run over and pick it up!

What I miss most is the 75 cent pack of cigarettes and the 65 cent gallon of gas.

What I miss most is the 75 cent pack of cigarettes and the 65 cent gallon of gas.

Not to mention $25 lids :cool:

(Sorry, it was all the talk about K-tel records...)

Not to mention $25 lids :cool:Careful — you never know who may be listening in these days!

I guess a lot of people are passionate about film vs. digital cameras but nobody gives a damn about DRYWALL!!

That's because it is such a dry subject. Baddup-pshishh...

Thank you, I'll be here through next week....

José

very similar...typing while I think...um...I miss...
The shutter click of my 73 Yashica.
The Monte Carlo 4 barrel carb kickin in.
Album cover art
ONE speed bikes. I have a 21 speed and seems like your either moving like lurch or peddling like a mouse in a cartoon. Speaking of which...cartoons only on Saturday or a few hours in the afternoon-now it's 24x7. Movies without CGI.

TUBE AMPs for guitars!!! None of these emulation mod boxes
------
I'll keep the dvd's, microwave and of course ...THE INTERNET! Otherwise I wouldn't have a great bunch of friends and model mentors like yall and would have never known about PL - even if I was late to the party :-)

Thanks.

The internet's a wonderful invention. Almost instant communication with others at the click of the mouse.

Strictly speaking, instantaneous long-distance communication has been around ever since the invention of the telegraph. All the improvements in communication since then -- trans-oceanic cable, the telephone, radio, facsimile, TV, cell phones, the Internet -- were inevitable once the telegraph became a reality. Before the telegraph, the only way to transmit information over distance was to carry it in some physical form (usually writing on paper) by the fastest or most practical means of transportation available -- a man on foot, a rider on horseback, a stagecoach, train, boat, whatever. With the telegraph, suddenly communication was no longer dependent on transportation as it had been since the Stone Age. It was a quantum leap, a paradigm shift in technology, equal in importance to the discovery of fire, the invention of the wheel, and the domestication of plants and animals. So, a toast to Samuel F.B. Morse!

Excuse me, didn't mean to go off on a rant there. . .

I miss the Pony Express!

What a way to deliver the news and mail!

A swift mount, riding like a bat out of Hell through treacherous
terrain filled with hostile Indians and hungry wildlife! :thumbsup:

Strictly speaking, instantaneous long-distance communication has been around ever since the invention of the telegraph. All the improvements in communication since then -- trans-oceanic cable, the telephone, radio, facsimile, TV, cell phones, the Internet -- were inevitable once the telegraph became a reality. Before the telegraph, the only way to transmit information over distance was to carry it in some physical form (usually writing on paper) by the fastest or most practical means of transportation available -- a man on foot, a rider on horseback, a stagecoach, train, boat, whatever. With the telegraph, suddenly communication was no longer dependent on transportation as it had been since the Stone Age. It was a quantum leap, a paradigm shift in technology, equal in importance to the discovery of fire, the invention of the wheel, and the domestication of plants and animals. So, a toast to Samuel F.B. Morse!

Excuse me, didn't mean to go off on a rant there. . .

With a telegraph you still needed someone to carry the message to the recipient. Stop. Or have the recipient go to the message center to pick it up. Stop. It was instantaneous but not really. Stop. Not to mention the cost of sending a telegram. Stop. And the clunkiness of it. Stop. Having a real conversation was extremely limited. Stop.

Was it inevitable? Yes. Practical? No.

The telephone was better but there was still a cost associated with. Not to mention the inability to "view" things. Shopping by phone had to be accompanied with something else (TV, catalog), and the ability to tap into the community was also limited. In order to communicate you needed someone else's number and, unless you were in a 1-900-CHAT-ROOM or had a multi-function phone, the number of participants was also limited.

Which brings up to the internet. To communicate with others, you simply set up shop (www.buymytrekcrap.com (http://www.buymytrekcrap.com)) or join a group (Geocities, MySpace or HobbyTalk). The cost of connectivity is spread out over time and you use existing facilities (PC or Mac from work or a computer you would've owned anyway) and existing infrastructure (cable or telephone lines). Web browsers allow you to view things (and if you go to porn sites, you get to view several things simultaneously thanks to pop ups... oh yeah, act like you haven't gone to one) so no other piece of hardware is needed.

José