2d ago

What old technology are you surprised is still in use today?

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Pager and satellite phone. Mostly a niche usecase for health workers and remote location settlement respectively.

Pagers.
Still in use by hospitals and emergency services
- Shit works

General Aviation is still using magnetos. The typical GA airplane is hilariously primitive.
- NOOO I NEED LEADED FUEL CAUSE MY LYCOMING IS FROM THE 60s 😭😭
  
  If you buy a brand new Skyhawk here in the space year 2025, it will come with a newly made Lycoming IO-360 that requires 100LL. I think they're still working on eliminating leaded avgas, I think because the Trump regime hasn't noticed it yet.

The IRS still use COBOL.
- So does pretty much the whole banking and credit industry. When you get money out of an ATM there's usually some COBOL code involved.
  
  True, we stack old technologies on top of older technologies, and somewhere at the bottom, there is z/OS with COBOL running. A young person right now learning COBOL has a secure future with big paychecks.
- That's not even a government thing. It's a finance/banking thing, as most major banks are still using mainframes and legacy COBOL code for most of their business logic.
- Reminds me I have to catalogue 2 Tandem Non-stop! Systems at work… I don’t need to meddle with the cobol code atop but still, this was quite a surprise to stumble upon.

Trigonometry is still used to take measures all around the world.

Steam engines.
The vast majority of our power comes from making something really hot and boiling water. Coal plant? Oil plant? Gas plant? Nuclear fission plant? Geothermal plant? The grand holy grail of energy production that would be a nuclear fusion plant? All steam engines.
Yes, unbeknownst to everyone, this is what a steampunk society realistically looks like.
- After first contact
  A: These are our mini neutron star fusion reactors. The most advanced technology to have ever existed. We basically take a chunk of neutron star matter and divide it into two. We neutralize the negative effect and extreme gravity with our space-time bending gravity manipulation technology. We let the two mini neutro spheres accelerate and collide. This generates enough energy to power atleast 3 planets for 1000 cycles. Not onl--
  H: Wait a minute. I have a question.
  A: Please feel free to ask any questions.
  H: How do you convert the raw energy generated into a usable form at that scale?
  A: We use utlra high intensity lasers for energy transfer to plane--
  H: No. That's not what I'm asking. How do you convert the raw energy at reactor into a usable form?
  A: ...
  H: ...
  A: We boil water wi--
  H: Motherf-- enrages and loses sanity
  Stolen from reddit.
- We made steampunk a reality by developing the technology to transfer steam power efficiently over long distances through metal wires.

Fax, still in official use in Germany.
- It's considered a secure method of document transfer over email, despite email being able to be secured and fax can be hacked with like a length of wire and a knife. Fucking irks me.
  
  How does one hack fax in that fashion?
- Very common in the US medical field as well
- Fax is too simple to completely die.

Welcome to "That's not surprising at all!"

I'm surprised nobody mentioned jack plugs yet. Basically unchanged since 1877 when it was invented for phone switchboards, roughly as old as safety pins or modern hairpins (give or take a few decades)
- If it ain't broke don't fix it.
- That can't be the actual name of those, is it?
  I've always kinda wondered, and generally call them TRS or something (I'm audio engineering background, American, millennial), so looked it up:
  From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_connector_(audio) under the "other terms" section:
  The 1902 International Library of Technology simply uses jack for the female and plug for the male connector.[3] The 1989 Sound Reinforcement Handbook uses phone jack for the female and phone plug for the male connector.[4] Robert McLeish, who worked at the BBC, uses jack or jack socket for the female and jack plug for the male connector in his 2005 book Radio Production.[5] The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, as of 2007, says the more fixed electrical connector is the jack, while the less fixed connector is the plug, without regard to the gender of the connector contacts.[6] The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 1975 also made a standard that was withdrawn in 1997.[7]
  The intended application for a phone connector has also resulted in names such as audio jack, headphone jack, stereo plug, microphone jack, aux input, etc. Among audio engineers, the connector may often simply be called a quarter-inch to distinguish it from XLR, another frequently used audio connector. These naming variations are also used for the 3.5 mm connectors, which have been called mini-phone, mini-stereo, mini jack, etc.
  RCA connectors are differently shaped, but confusingly are similarly named as phono plugs and phono jacks (or in the UK, phono sockets). 3.5 mm connectors are sometimes—counter to the connector manufacturers' nomenclature[8]—referred to as mini phonos.[9]
  Confusion also arises because phone jack and phone plug may sometimes refer to the RJ11 and various older telephone sockets and plugs that connect wired telephones to wall outlets.

fax machines, both in Germany and Japan.
- They're common in the US too in doctors offices and hospitals because of the security requirements of transmitting patient records and such.
  
  Legally defined as secure, not actually secure.
  They are fairly insecure in practice, since they are throwing the data at misdialed numbers and they are frequently placed in shared and insecure locations in the building where lots of people can access whatever comes through.
  
  I used to work at a retail store not even ten years ago, and we would submit delivery orders via fax. It's weird until you realize they're great for reliability and record-keeping. No batteries needed, totally existing infrastructure, kinda fun to use tbh.
  
  As someone who directly manages faxing in the company i work for, yup! In Healthcare and we send out results to doctors and hospitals through faxing all day every day. We have mostly converted to electronic fax. We still control the servers on prem but the account is linked to a cloud solution so all the faxes are created with the servers and instead of using our own telephony solution like we used to, we send directly over internet to the provider who then sends out to the clients at the last leg. Hundreds of thousands of pages every month. From my understanding, it's still the easiest solution to get away with not having to implement some new system that will be subjected to audits. Faxes are accepted, and little is required to show for compliance.
- And it's WAY older than people think. The first patent for a fax like machine was granted in 1843.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fax

Microsoft Windows
- If some of the stories are to be believed, some of the code dates back to 3.1/dos too
  
  Oh you can clearly see that this is true when you launch certain programs:
  https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/o1x183/the_famous_windows_31_dialogue_is_again_in/
- UNIX

IPv4.
IPv6 became a recognized standard by 1998.
EDIT: https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html#tab=ipv6-adoption
Nearly 30 years later, and less than half of the connections to Google are via IPv6.
- Fucking NAT. Never should have been allowed to escape from the lab.
  
  Lolol, you're not wrong. NAT made IPv6 a later problem
- IPv6 is such an ugly monster.
  
  It just isn't and I'm sick of people being scared of hexadecimals lol
  You can even spell stuff with them which is way easier to remember, my router's ULA is fd13:dead:beef::1
- I ❤️ IPv4
  
  There's no place like 127.0.0.1
- Based on how ISPs seem to not get their CGNAT setups right, it's not going away any time soon.
- As a South African, I have never even seen IPv6. My university has two /16 blocks and no NATing
- I'm almost at the point where all of my connections are IPv6, but still hampered by my mobile provider (ironically, since IPv6 was generally adopted earlier on mobile in many countries).

The sewing machine. Like we got 3d printers than can give me whatever I want in 20 hrs but I still got to fight with a sewing machine to stitch an outfit. Like why no polyester clothes printer?
- For one, polyester fabric and clothes are just terrible
  Two, technically you can 3d print a chainmail shirt, but it'd suck to wear normally
- We have knitting machines, and automated looms (weaving machines,) we even have sergers for fancy sewing. Its just plain easier to make the finished product as a custom job since humans aren't uniform in size, and it's way easier to weave a rectangular piece of cloth than any other shape.

Americans signing for credit card purchases.
But maybe that died in the past few years, it's been a while since I've visited. You must have tap by now, but if not... awkward
- Really depends on the place. Most chain stores, restaurants, etc, will have tap to pay. It's mostly local businesses using old hardware from budget credit card merchants that really require you to sign anymore. Sometimes there's the odd tap and still have to sign, but it's usually done on the electronic pad.

Steam turbines.
- Like those damn nuclear reactors!

There's a used bookstore near me that has the oldest cash register I've ever seen. It has keys like a typewriter, and makes the most satisfying "ka-ching" sound when it opens. They always use it to add up your purchase and print a receipt, even when you're paying with a credit card. But I always try to bring cash when I'm there so that the drawer gets used. (And also, y'know, screw credit card companies taking their cut.)
I know that's not really "in widespread use" today, which is probably what the question meant, but that was the first thing that came to mind for me.
- Wow. Many years ago I bought an old cash register to use as a prop in a play, sounds like the type you're talking about, and it was already way outdated then. Thing was amazingly heavy, like a refrigerator.

It surprises me how many system utilities I use that are older than I am. I am currently initializing a disk on a cloud server with an application that was written when Ford was the US president.
- Can you say which application it is? Does it run on a mainframe? Any idea what language was used to program it?
  Sorry this is just quite interesting.
  
  I'm gonna hazard a guess at dd
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_(Unix)
  
  Snot Flickerman was right, it's dd. It was in the docs I linked to show the commands. It runs on anything with storage devices and an operating system. I mainly use it on Windows servers running on AWS.

Car thermostats for the radiator. You don't want the coolant flowing when the engine first starts, because it will run like shit. So you have a cylinder filled with wax that expands with heat. That controls a valve to set the flow of coolant. Low tech, works fine, no particular reason to change it.
- I thought it was just a spring that expanded with heat and opened/closed with the expansion?
  
  Every one I've seen or replaced was just that. No idea what the wax thing is about so I looked it up.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wax_thermostatic_element
  OP's right!
- Is that how the covers over the radiator are operated as well

It surprises me how little stick-built houses have changed in the last 50 years or so, at least in the USA.

The Wheel. We should've graduated to antigravity by now, don't you think?
- Back to the Future lied to me again!
  
  In fact, it didn't.
  Hoverboards actually do exist. And for bonus points, so do speeder bikes. You probably already know about real-life jetpacks.
  I wish I could live another 100 years to see better optimized versions of them.
- we dont posess the knowlegde of how to do that, that isnt done by magnetism. maybe if aliens come to earth than maybe.
  
  Talking to a good friend 20 years ago, very smart guy, and he was thinking we already artificial gravity.

Pagers
- Hospitals use pagers because the frequency band they run on is better at penetrating walls. Shorter waves carry more data, but are easily blocked by walls. Pagers don’t need a lot of data, so they use really long waves.
  And hospitals are built like bunkers, to avoid the potential need to evacuate patients during an emergency. Things like fire breaks between individual rooms, earthquake protections, being strong enough to stand up during a hurricane, etc… The goal is to be able to shelter in place instead of evacuating, because a mass evacuation of bedridden patients who all need monitoring equipment would be a logistical nightmare.
  But this also means hospitals are really good at blocking wireless signals, because the walls are all super thick and sturdy. So they use pagers, which use long waves and can reliably penetrate the bunker-like walls. You don’t want a doctor to miss an emergency call because they were sitting in the basement; Hospitals need a wireless connection that reliably works every time. And pagers just happen to fit that specific niche.
- That's a good one. Why would companies give employees special purpose gizmos that just tell them to use the phone in their pocket to call the office.
- Seems like a good level of digital freedom actually. Be connected, but only just enough.
  
  Meshtastic > Pagers

Air traffic control still uses floppy disks, windows 95, and a plastic board of paper tag numbers to keep track of shit instead of a computer.
- To be fair I have infinity more confidence in the system you just described than whatever tech bro disruptor was going to pitch
- Not all of them, most of ATC in EASA airspace is Linux based and use electronic strips instead of the plastic paper strips.
  But the foundation of the ground/ground communication is still AFTN based on x400 network (Europe used to have an X.25 network for its CIDIN communications).
  The latest and newest tech for international data exchange is AMHS based on X400, often it is x400 over IP ok, but still a 50 years or so tech.
  The main idea behind ATC and aviation tech is reliability and compatibility with countries with less money to upgrade tech.

there's still new passenger airliners which use old fashioned control cables over fly by wire
- How did it go again?
  If it is Boeing, I ain't going!

An Ikarus 256 was used as a train replacement bus in normal traffic in Hungary yesterday
- For the uninitiated, Ikarus was a Hungarian bus factory that produced buses to the Eastern block, some of those are probably still running somewhere in Mongolia. The Ikarus 256 was produced between 1974-2002, so in the best case that thing was at least 23 years old.
  But even better, someone got to travel on an Ikarus 55 on the same day (1954-1974), which used to be great in their time, but definitely weren't made for 36C summers, the lack of air conditioning combined with the sunshine roof that used to increase the feel of comfort in 1958 created a living hell for the passengers packed into that rolling museum with barely openable windows.
  
  Ah, so it’s the Hungarian version of the USPS Grumman LLV (Long Life Vehicle).
  The United States Postal Service needed a vendor to produce mail trucks. They ended up signing a contract with an aerospace manufacturer named Grumman. The manufacturer retooled one of their plane factories, and started producing what they called the LLV. The company sold each truck extremely cheaply, but had an exclusive maintenance agreement to service the vehicles. Their goal was to make a profit on the service instead.
  But Grumman made the vehicles too well. The LLVs were basically a thin airplane aluminum skin bolted to a pre-fabbed General Motors wheel frame, and the engines were rock solid. They skipped basically all of the modern design conveniences like AC/heating or a radio. It was basically a glorified go kart with a windshield that could do ~55MPH. It basically bankrupted Grumman, because the LLVs never needed maintenance. They spent a ton of money to retool their factory and sold a ton of LLVs basically at materials cost, then never recouped their expenses. The LLVs were produced all the way back in the 80’s and early 90’s, and the USPS is still actively trying to phase them out in favor of newer EVs. Grumman folded in the mid 90’s, after a decade of continuous losses from the LLVs.
  Basically any American old enough to vote will know what a Grumman LLV looks like, even if they don’t know what it’s called:
- In Germany they'd charge extra for riding historic vehicles

Toilet paper
- Bidet gang ~~rise up~~ sit down!
  
  I'm on vacation right now and our AirBnB came with a bidet. I am so stoked about it because once I got used to it at home, I can't go back.
- 70% of humans dont use toilet paper, so it might be a new tech instead of an old one.
  
  A lot of those don't use water toilets either

Mirrors on cars.
I mean, logically I know why, but it just feels so weird and out of place in the 21st century.
Like you got this high tech vehicle with a bunch of computers inside and a lot of screens/displays, radios, GPS, “assisted driving”, then you see this mirror that’s thousands of years old and not some advanced 360 radar system.
I know that a mirror isn’t gonna fail like electronics do, so its better reliability, but still feel odd seeing old tech and new tech merged.
- I spend a fair bit of time on construction sites, and cameras have one huge issue compared to mirrors: They're one-way.
  With a mirror, I can see the driver in the mirror. I can make eyecontact and confirm that they've seen me. With a camera, I have no idea if they've seen me. Maybe they can see more, but if they happen not to be looking, I have no way to tell.
  And our stupid road regulations don't allow for both.
- You better take a long look in the mirror before you make a controversial statement like that.
  
  Also:
  OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR
- They should get rid of the windows too.
  
  Oh they're trying, hiphi Z and avatr 12 from the rear:
  
  Both rely on mirrors and cameras to replace the lack of rear glass
  
  No, they should make those transparent hologram displays from sci-fi shows to make them more "futuristic"
  I mean we all know the golden rule of: Hologram = Future 😅 /jk
- Kia/Hyundai uses cameras and screens instead of mirrors in South Korea but that technology is illegal here in the US so we get mirrors. Its not too different than adaptive headlights which can adjust themselves to not blind other drivers. Legal in Europe but illegal in the US.
  
  I think those are legal where I'm at, but if you have both mirrors and cameras it should be allowed by default. Also in the case of Honda e, I wonder how much power the screens and "mirrors" are eating, in a tiny car like that it might be noticeable.

SS7, part of the old ass 2g and 3g networks
- Kinda surprised this doesn't have more upvotes considering it seems that it continues to be a massive security vulnerability.
  
  Yep and a family member of mine was a victim of a SS7 attack yesterday

Floppy disk.
- The military loves them.

Phone numbers
- A decade ago, I thought phone numbers would soon die out. Instead, the most popular messaging apps use them as identifiers and adoption of those in North America is poor.
  
  Phone numbers are the new ICQ number

A lot of production industry still runs on PLC from the 90s or older and uses DOS supervision systems. They would continue using it but are usually forced to upgrade once they run out of spare parts and / or staff that can maintain it.
- Yep, my most important tool at work is controlled by DOS software running in a 386. Plenty of Windows XP’s around too.

Burning things for heat or energy.
Marriage.
Candy.
Social tribes.
War.
- Burning things for heat is never going away as long as humans are around, there's always going to be someone "off-grid" which means you're more than likely gonna be burning something for cooking and warmth (ie heat)
  
  You don't think humans will ever, even theoretically, reach a point where there is no need to burn things for heat?
- What old technology
  
  lists fire as technology
  Everybody itt:
  fire is not technology wahhh
- Love/hate, tribalism, and violence, are not technologies lol
  It's biology, it's encoded in DNA, the results of evolution.
  
  Is evolution not technology? Plus, a lot of this stuff is used as tools, as a means to an end, rather than just purely emotional reptilian response. A lot of it IS reptilian, but a lot of it is also vestigial, as a conscious tool, especially when used by a society, rather than a single biological person.
  It's complicated, for sure. But so are the rest of the usages of old technology.
  Back to the topic of biology vs technology, though, violence strictly speaking, is an abstract concept of events. We evolved it as a categorization or idea through the technology of language and conceptualization. The instinct in certain parts of our brains is biology, absolutely (and arguably also technology). But violence as a tool, as a means, I argue, is absolutely technology, in the same way that fire, or hunting, or fast food is technology.
  If it is something developed, used, and can be moved past, I'd argue that it can be seen as technology. It doesn't have to be electronic or even physical to be technology. Like farming methods, social structures, government, and even language.
  I'm not saying they aren't biological, that's a different subject. But those things are absolutely technologies. Just very primitive ones.... That we still use.

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