15 Obsolete Technologies That Are, Somehow, Still Thriving Somewhere
Though they may seem obsolete, there are still many uses for things like fax machines, floppy disks, pagers, and dot matrix printers. In Japan, the fax machine is still a central pillar of communication in both corporate and government environments. An effort to banish faxes from Tokyo’s bureaucratic district has been met with surprising backlash. Also, there is still a market for floppy disks in certain industries like embroidery, tool and die, aviation because some planes built decades ago can only receive or send data through them. And pagers might be old-school but according to a study from the Journal of Hospital Medicine nearly 80% of hospitals still use them because cell signals have trouble penetrating some walls in hospitals and pagers signal multiple satellites. Meanwhile, COBOL is making a comeback governments and banks are pleading for COBOL programmers due to qualities that make it well suited to business programming domains, and dot matrix printers are used at airports because they're compatible with the reservation system, their ink is cheaper and these types of printers don't break down as often.
Some people in the US are still using dial-up internet.
Windows XP
This old-school word processor still has some loyal users.
Analog is back, baby!
CRTs are making a comeback in the gaming world.
VHS Tapes
Payphones are still around, but they're mostly used by tourists and migrants.
Russia ordered typewriters to avoid global electronic snooping.
Magnetic tapes are an old storage solution that is still better than digital in many ways.
The Last Abacus
Dot matrix printers are used at airports because they're old, cheap, and don't break down often.
COBOL is making a comeback because it's good for business programming domains.
Pagers might be old-school, but they still have a place in hospitals.
Floppy Disks
The fax machine is still a thing in Japan.
