Finder said:
Technology that is dead after being replaced with something superior:
Looms
vinyl records
turntables
tube amplifiers
sail boats
paint brushes
bicycles
theater
radio
movies
film
analog watches
Hammond organs
airships
steam engines
wooden view cameras
It is sad none of these things survive today.
Hm, looms may be the mashines they make fabric with, so yes, those are the mashines which started the industrial revolution.
I know a company in germany pressing vinyl records, they just bought the last two presses left in europe. Most of their presses are older than 30 years, there are no sparparts and no support and nobody builds new presses. So when the last is press is gone they'll have to stop making vinyl records.
A couple of turntables are still made, usualy very expensive high end equipment and specialized DJ equipment. At least the DJ equipment aren't bought for the better sound, scratching isn't good for vinyl LPs
🙂
Tube amplifiers are made for the owners of high end turntables, the warmer sound etc. you don't get with transistors. Those often buy cables for some 100 Euro per meter because the special shielding reduces induction and thus improves the sound by an unmeasurable but clearly hearable amount of 0.0001%.
Sail boats for pleasure are wide available, but no shipyard trying to build a comercial ship powered by sails was succesfull, I should know, we had two of those shipyards employing some 20,000 people and both went bust in the 90s.
Paint brushes yes, but not all qualities we had some 10 to 20 years ago. Brushes for retouching are best found at cabbinet makers suppliers nowadays. They use these brushes for inlays etc. but you won't find them at photo stores anymore.
Bicycles are back again, from traditional black "Holland" style to high end exotic materials mashines. They are definitely part of the modern lifestyle. Add Oakley sunglasses, a 3G mobile phone and a digital camera and you're
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Theater here survives barely on government money, every seat in Bremens Theater is subsidized with 140 Euro per perfomance. A lot of tax money from people who don't go to the theater!
Radio is pretty well as is TV, especialy when you add internetradio to the equation.
The movie industry is pretty healthy, but they earn most with DVD sells. Only a handfull films earn more than cost in movie theaters. The movie theaters on the other hand are close to extinction. The bigger, we call them Multiplex, theaters with more than 6 screens earn some money, the good old single screen cinema is gone.
Ok, not quite, we still have two from the 12 we had 1989.
Film will be available as long as somebody makes it, see Agfa Photo.
Analog watches, hm, where is the cheap timex I had as a boy? Glashütte, Meyer u. Söhne etc. pp are available and they earn money with watches exceeding 20.000 Euro, but a watch is digital today.
Hammond Organs? Where?
Airships, don't remind me! I invested in Cargolifter who went bust before they began to produce their first airship. The hangar is now used for an indoor amusement park, which may go bust anytime soon.
Blimps are much cheaper and used for advertising, but they are not airships!
A friend of mine earns a healthy living with (model)steam engines, even some bigger ones to propell fun boats, see sailing boats. the boat engines may end this year since they don't meat environmental norms for boat engines.
Wooden view cameras? I know Calumet has them, but I don't know anybody using one.
And nobody produces film 8, 16, 35 or 70mm wide, they produce it a couple of meters wide and then cut to the desired size, as long as the mashines are working you can get anything you want.
Ilford just scraped their last mashine for 220 films, no spareparts no support and not enough demand to finance a new one. So Ilford in 220 is gone.
So if we have a look at the list, we find some products which are only available to the realy ritch, wristwatch at the price of a good medium sized japanese car, turntable at the price of a BMW 5, pleasure boats at the price of a house. Then we have products wich fit another purpose than what was intended, bicycles as sports and lifestyle gear instead of main/only form of transportation, steam engines as toys and so on.
The german motorcycle industry is a good example, in the 50s we had lots of different brands which died when the people could afford cars. By the way, most of german motorcycle producers built sewing mashines first, then bicycles and motorcycles later.
So if somebody finds a way to produce film in small quantities I see a posibility. Producing the world wide demand in a week has been proven as failure by Agfa Photo.
I know a couple people who have enough money to own Glashütte watches, Catalina and Elvstroem yachts and Ferraris and Bentleys as well, but those don't use film! Either P&S digitals or Canon 1Ds or digibacks on Hassy H1. One has a couple Leicas in a showcase which he remembers to use sometime soon when we meet 🙂
