- The Encyclopedia - Knowledge for the masses! 26 giant books with tiny print. Can you imagine an encyclopedia salesman today trying to make a living? Too outdated too quickly and too complicated to easily update.
- The Phonebook -this was a huge step forward from the switchboard operator but it turns out is too limited by being localized. It also has to be updated every year with a new 18 lb. 1384 page waste of paper.
- The Home Phone - Again, a great innovation in it's time (we had a party line when I was a kid) - but still too restricting in that calls were limited to "when I am home...not on another call... and willing to stand still long enough for our conversation!"
What are some other innovations that are fading fast?
3 comments:
We also had shortcut dialing in the local exchange when we were kids. I.e. you didn't have to dial the first 2 numbers, 'cus they were the same for everyone. As I recall, you had the easy to remember number 5-0505. They took away that about the same time as the part lines didn't they?
Wow - what a memory! That was our phone number in 1984 - which was after the party lines had gone away. I still can't believe you remember that number!
Yeah, I noticed a build up of four Yellow Pages in the corner of a room yesterday. Why do they even bother still?
-Marshall Jones Jr.
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