I hope others here will contribute to this thread, posting about technologies which existed in the past but are not made anymore, and would be unbelievable to people of this time.

I'll start this post with cell phone led stickers.

Around 2005, when I first got a cell phone, it was all the rage to attach LED stickers to cell phones, these stickers had cute cartoon characters on them and had tiny LEDs which would light up whenever the cell phone made and received a call, message, etc.

What was unbelievable about this technology was that they were not physically powered by anything like a battery or wires, they got all their power from the cell phone signals to light up their tiny LEDs.

Here is a photo of such stickers:

Another photo:



Do you know of any such technologies, which existed in the past, but now might seem too advanced, impossible to make.

 

 

I made a living for most of a life time with these.

 

I've got a HV power supply models that used the above ceramic tubes (and regular glass tubes) as shunt regulators for electron suppressor elements.


Some of the newer models use Russian tubes.

Their quality control was horrible but we did stock up on spares before the war.

 

I'm not sure if cloth diapers are made anymore.
They don't make plastic waste that fills up landfills and decomposes into unknown who-knows-what that flows down streams and into the oceans.

 

I made a living for most of a life time with these.

Don't forget to mention why they are unbelievable.

 

Don't forget to mention why they are unbelievable.

Why? Unbelievable is a dubious criteria.

 

I hope others here will contribute to this thread, posting about technologies which existed in the past but are not made anymore, and would be unbelievable to people of this time.

I'll start this post with cell phone led stickers.

Around 2005, when I first got a cell phone, it was all the rage to attach LED stickers to cell phones, these stickers had cute cartoon characters on them and had tiny LEDs which would light up whenever the cell phone made and received a call, message, etc.

What was unbelievable about this technology was that they were not physically powered by anything like a battery or wires, they got all their power from the cell phone signals to light up their tiny LEDs.

Here is a photo of such stickers:
View attachment 263481
Another photo:

View attachment 263482

Do you know of any such technologies, which existed in the past, but now might seem too advanced, impossible to make.

But there is nothing unbelievable or even mysterious about these.

 

Why? Unbelievable is a dubious criteria.

Because normal people have opinions - pretend today is "think like an novelist day".

 

Because normal people have opinions - pretend today is "think like an novelist day".

The magic word is 'believe', possibility and likely disconnected from reality. Unbelievable is bad even in a fictional novel.

 

The magic word is 'believe', possibility and likely disconnected from reality. Unbelievable is bad even in a fictional novel.

So, you're not a Disney fan?

 

So, you're not a Disney fan?

The old Disney, yes?

It would be Unbelievable for this to made today by a modern Disney.

Spoiler

"I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way."

 

The old Disney, yes?

It would be Unbelievable for this to made today by a modern Disney.

Spoiler

That movie's animation was the last of an era. The highest quality people with the patience of Job putting all of their brute-force solutions into each frame and then qu ily moving on to the next frame. My dad was involved in graphic arts - everything from hand-drawn local newspaper clearance sale ads to a national TV commercial with a combination of stop-motion video with animation cel overlays. He read/heard about the post-production animation in that movie and was so fascinated that he had to go see the movie. I don't if it was in Rolling Stone or Playboy or if he knew someone who worked on the movie. He seemed to know everything about that movie. He hated the storyline. After that movie he always pointed out that every other movie was digitally edited and was pretty disappointed. The flat (2D) of digital just when Roger Rabbit was so 3D. He passed before good 3D digital animation started.

 

Decatron counter tube ?

 

Decatron counter tube ?

View attachment 263492

 

Why? Unbelievable is a dubious criteria.

That's the topic I created, if you are posting in this thread, you should confine to that topic.

But there is nothing unbelievable or even mysterious about these.

Will a normal person now believe something like crystal radios existed? To a normal person it would unbelievable.

 

What teenager listening to an ipod would believe you can listen to radio stations with a razor blade and a piece of graphite from a pencil?

 

That's the topic I created, if you are posting in this thread, you should confine to that topic.



Will a normal person now believe something like crystal radios existed? To a normal person it would unbelievable.

I don't agree. There is a momentary mystery because of the lack of an obvious power source, but the explanation is trivial.
What is "magical" to me is a supercomputer I can carry in my pocket that has five different radio transceivers, a display better than many desktop computers (and all of them only a few years ago) is a few mm thick, and somehow also has a power source inside it that can run it for hours.

There isn't even a hope of a comprehensive explanation of that, and yet, here it is.

 

I don't agree. There is a momentary mystery because of the lack of an obvious power source, but the explanation is trivial.
What is "magical" to me is a supercomputer I can carry in my pocket that has five different radio transceivers, a display better than many desktop computers (and all of them only a few years ago) is a few mm thick, and somehow also has a power source inside it that can run it for hours.

There isn't even a hope of a comprehensive explanation of that, and yet, here it is.

Then kindly decide you have nothing to contribute instead of arguing that other people's opinions are somehow "wrong" or that the whole thread is wrong - unless you can't.

 

I grew up 20mls from Harwell.!
I worked with the Decatrons in Projection welders, as mains phase counters.