Outdated ’90s Tech That Was Once Cutting Edge

The world is constantly changing and nowhere is this more evident than in our technology. Products released today are almost akin to a new car driven off a lot – the value decreases immediately, as newer models typically wait in the wings ready to replace them. The rate at which an item becomes obsolete is on the rise. Known as the velocity of obsolescence, it highlights how any particular item may have had a 3 to 5-year window before it was replaced, but now that window is more like 12 to 18 months, much like items from decades past, like this outdated '90s tech that was once cutting edge.

Consumers can be fickle. They want the latest and greatest products and when a new item hits the market, they'll trade up, recycling the "old" item they bought just six months earlier. Phones are just one example, gadgets that become obsolete after just a couple of months, and older models often can't support new accessories and features, like Apple TV whose older generations are no longer supported by Netflix. (Check out these everyday products invented by kids.)

24/7 Tempo compiled a list of outdated '90s tech that was once cutting-edge. This fast pace of change is relatively new. In the past, gadgets stuck around for decades. Now smartphones combine functions that once required separate devices – the Walkman, camcorder, DVD player, and more. These formerly innovative, must-have electronics are now effectively antiquated after just a few years, left to collect dust while consumers move on to the next big thing.

Here is outdated '90s tech that was once cutting edge.

Pagers, also known as "beepers," were the main form of communication before cell phones went mainstream. If you have ever watched a medical drama, you've seen a doctor being paged, checking the mini radio frequency device, and suddenly running away. A call or an email is forwarded to the pager; a message comes in with a number to call.

Although pagers are hardly used anymore, they remain one of the most reliable forms of communication available (and are still widely used by doctors). There is no delay in delivery, the network doesn't get overloaded, and there are no dead zones.

Walkman players were the thing in portable music, selling 400 million devices, and were incredibly popular (way before the iPod took over, then was replaced by online streaming). Many children of today either find them hard to operate or don't quite know how to. Cassette tapes, though certainly not as popular as during their heyday in the last century, are not dead. For nostalgic or artistic reasons, some people prefer them over downloads.

MP3 means MPEG Audio Layer III and is simply an audio compression device that makes a music file small enough to fit in the device without sacrificing sound quality. Invented in the early 1990s, the device took a few years to take off, becoming very popular around 1997. It was smaller than a Walkman, and lighter, too. The music device and format are now obsolete, replaced by the cell phone. Even the MP3's creators declared it dead in 2017.

The Personal Digital Assistant, or PDA, is what many used before there were apps to remind you of tasks, manage your days, and organize all other apps you have downloaded on your phone. These handheld PCs or Palms, as PDAs were also known, had it all — WiFi, pen-based keyboards, GPS antennas, and even voice recognition. They could even send a fax.

Digital recorders were one of the first products of the digital computer age, becoming very popular in the late 1990s. They were small, compact, light, fast, and had lots of memory and some could even record for as long as 10 hours. These small recorders were better than cassettes because the sound quality was higher, and the audio could be reproduced without losing quality.

Also, when audio is stored in a digital format, it can be enhanced, background noise can be removed, and tone is easier to control. All you needed was a USB plug to transfer the files to a computer.

Public phones are a rarity these days, and odds are, when you do find one on the street, they won't be in working order. Most telecommunications companies have left the pay phone business because of the abundance and convenience of cell phones. (AT&T officially left it in 2007, and Verizon in 2011.) There aren't many scenarios where you would need to use a payphone other than if you left your cell phone at home and you have an emergency.

Thanks to advances in technology, we have the Cloud, thumb drives, and other portable memory devices. This makes the floppy disk drive obsolete. There is no use for a floppy disk anymore (or even its successor, the hard disk) and it is simply a relic of a bygone era that was popular in the 1980s and 1990s.

Memory capability for computers has increased with time, so memory has increased as well. In 1991, some floppies could hold up to 2.8 MB, which is about one or two photo attachments. The official end of the floppy disk came in 2007 when PC World stopped selling it. Just a decade earlier, over 2 billion copies were in use.

GPS, which stands for Global Positioning System, is a satellite-based navigation system owned by the U.S. Government and operated by the U.S. Air Force. Portable GPS devices became mainstream in the United States in the mid-2000s. Before then, personal navigation was more popular in Europe and Asia. Americans preferred maps or printed directions from point A to point B. Smartphones, and the invention of map-based apps like Waze, have taken over that function as well.

The alarm clock, once widely used by almost everybody needing a nudge to get out of bed, is another convenient gadget that went from being widely used to almost obsolete. It has been replaced by the smartphone, even though that may not be the best idea, healthwise. While strong and consistent evidence linking cell phones to cancer is lacking, cell phones do emit radiofrequency radiation, which parts of the body can absorb. (Some alarm clocks emit less radiation than others.)

Professional and even amateur photographers still use high-performance digital cameras but everyone else uses their cell phones. Not only do they often do just as good a job as old-school point-and-shoot models, but they are easier to carry. Some smartphone cameras nowadays can even shoot 4K videos, and while you can buy inexpensive "regular" digital cameras, it seems unnecessary because the quality will not be as good.

Invented in 1995, and first released the following year, DVD players (digital video discs) outsold video recorders for the first time in 2002. Almost 20 years later, it's all about online streaming. Some people still have a DVD or Blu-ray player, and while they are still made, it never regained the same popularity it enjoyed in the early part of the 21st century.

CD album sales in the United States peaked between 1997 and 2001. As music streaming services slowly took over, CD sales declined, and have been on a steady downward trend since 2004. You can still find CDs in some music and tech stores, but they are no longer the norm. Even giants such as BestBuy started pulling them from their stores.

Portable CD players were first invented in 1984 by Sony and really took off in the mid-1990s. The Discman was even renamed the CD Walkman. By 1998, Sony had sold about 50 million of the devices. If you liked to listen to music on the go, it was a perfect choice. Compared to what's available today, some may think Discman players were too limited because you had to know what music you wanted to listen to and carry that CD.

The first flip phone, Motorola's StarTAC, came out in 1996. This kind of cell phone became a hit with consumers until the smartphone came along, offering a lot more features. But there seems to be a revival of the old trend. People tired of being swamped with all kinds of information all the time are going old school and getting flip phones again. Plus, it's often easier to carry and less cumbersome than many newer smartphone models.

Some of the best Nintendo games were Super Mario, Tetris, the Pokemon series, and a slew of others. But with the Game Boy, users were able to switch between games. Even though it wasn't the original device to allow people to change cartridges, it was the most popular one. Game Boy and its update, Game Boy Color, sold more than 118 million units until they were discontinued in the 2000s.

Nowadays you can just leave a voicemail, which, in many cases, is automatically transcribed or you can send a text by voice. Before cell phones and texting became available, people had little tape recorders that played back messages from people who had tried to reach them. It was convenient, even if it took hours before a person actually heard his or her messages.

Video cassette recorders became almost obsolete after the emergence of DVD players but it was the rise of online streaming services that killed what was left of both of them. The world's last VCR was made in July 2016. At their peak in the 1990s, VCRs sold 15 million units yearly.

Back in the day, it was hours, if not days, between taking a picture and actually seeing it. Before digital cameras made everything so much faster, people used film cameras, which were automatic or manual. You had to change the film every 36 pictures or so. You weren't afforded the ability to keep snapping the same image multiple times until you got the right one. Perhaps worst of all was that to see your vacation pictures you had to wait until you went home and had them developed, plus, there was no redoing of imperfect images.