What's a technology that was cooler in its older iterations?
I don't mean BETTER. That's a different conversation. I mean cooler.
An old CRT display was literally a small scale particle accelerator, firing angry electron beams at light speed towards the viewers, bent by an electromagnet that alternates at an ultra high frequency, stopped by a rounded rectangle of glowing phosphors.
If a CRT goes bad it can actually make people sick.
That's just. Conceptually a lot COOLER than a modern LED panel, which really is just a bajillion very tiny lightbulbs.
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I'm not crazy old, but I'm old enough that the supermarket I went to as a kid had these at all the checkout aisles and the cashiers would use them to send cheques/reciepts/ whatever.
It was awesome to see.
They still use them today in some supermarkets, now they use them to send packets of cigarettes through the store.
That's actually a pretty good use. In my local market they send the person to a separate counter.
Very cool, I've never seen the ones that can send a person. Can they breathe in transit?
It's pneumatic, not vacuum. Geez.
Making it dangerous to smoke while in transit. I see why the people ones didn't catch on in the 50s.
Okay, maybe my town is just not up to date, but these are still in use at all the banks and pharmacies where I live. Are they phased elsewhere?
I haven't seen one in years, but the fact that they're all used is awesome.
They are used in some hospitals in central Europe
In the Netherlands I see them in nearly every big hospital. I think for sending blood samples to the lab quickly. (Possibly among other things)
The Kroger pharmacy here replaced their awesome pneumatic tube with a boring sliding drawer.