technology related sensory memories from my childhood
- sliding the metal cover on floppy disks
- the slight resistance of inserting cassette and video tapes
- ripping off the strips of holed paper off of dot matrix printer paper
- rolling the wheel on a disposable camera to take another photo
The heaviness and rubber texture of the roller ball in a computer mouse, and the little ring of lint
Unkinking the curly cord of a telephone while you talked
The -peww sound and slowly fading image of a crt monitor turning off, and then running your finger through the static on the dusty glass
The crunch of opening or closing a plastic Disney vhs cover
The sound effects in kidpix
Extending and collapsing metal antennas and using them as magic wands
…God, it is so weird these things aren’t around any more. Cause it’s true, the sensations are so distinct. It’s bizarre to think about missing these tiny relics.
I don’t miss these things.
Mostly this is because I’m some kind of luddite and I still have vhs tapes and a video player to watch them, my phone at work has a curly cord annnnd the tv in my room is ye olde school cathode ray tube and and is currently hooked up to my mega drive but because it’s only got the aerial port at the back I had to get some mystical device from ebay to be able to even plug my dvd player into it.
pseudo-luddite bloody-mindedness + software engineering degree = a selection of old tech rigged to do things that maybe they shouldn’t