Most People These Days Can't Recognize Any Of These Once Wildly Popular Gadgets

Technological advancements have left a lot of popular gadgets in the dust

Elana

• Published in Interesting
• March 26, 2019

The technology explosion over the last two centuries has been nearly indescribable. Time has blown past at it's standard pace but with each technological advancement it feels faster. The last three decades have been especially distinct in the sort of advancements that every household is affected by, rendering every day objects of yesterday useless and unrecognizable to each new generation that booms. If you were to merely step back in time 50 years you would see a world nearly unrecognizable in the average household! Children born in the last ten years especially would be perplexed and confused by the smallest details, not to mention the big ones.

Curious about all the little things that once made life easy but are no longer "a thing," we dove head-first into the past to discover all the trinkets, gadgets, and gizmos that most of you probably won't recognize. Some of you may not even comprehend the necessity of the objects you'll see today because technology in some areas have advanced that far!

1. Tailor's Chalk

This thin, flat piece of hard chalk or soapstone was used by tailors and seamstresses for making easy to remove marks on cloth. Most of the time your tailor or seamstress today won't use such a trinket of the past.

2. Floppy Disks

This ancient mode of storing computer data was introduced in the early 70's. They held approximately 1.4MB of data. The amount of data you can hold in your mobile device makes a floppy disk not only look like chump change, but like it never should have existed in the first place. Most kids today could never comprehend how common these little square, mostly plastic disks were not that long ago.

3. Wonder Sauna Hot Pants

The concept of lose weight quick schemes is certainly not lost on today's modern person, I'm sure you've all crossed paths with your high school friend who know would be more than happy to fit you with their MLM products! Back in the 70's though, these Wonder Sauna Hot Pants were all the rage. They broke the barriers most of us don't fall for today because we've come to understand healthy weight loss is all about the healthy diet and exercise program.

These vintage inflatable pants promised to melt stomach and thigh fat (everyone's least favorite fat,) while you did your normal routine around the house! People really bought them!

4. Church Keys

No, these little gizmos were not for unlocking cathedral doors. But they did grant access to something that some might consider just as great: beer. Or anything properly bottled or canned, really.

They were a staple in every household and every man's pocket, particularly before twist tops and pull tabs existed. Chances are if you handed one of these vintage pieces to a youth of today they would give you a particularly puzzled look.

5. Classic Needle Threaders

There was a point in history, not too terribly long ago, where it was expected that every girl knew how to sew. Today, a lot of people sew, regardless of their gender, and almost entirely by desire to learn for personal reasons and not societal expectations. Some gadgets included in sewing kits have never changed like thread, needles, pin cushions, and of course a tape measure.

Needle threaders, however, like these coin-shaped doohickeys here, are not quite so common anymore and the ones we have today definitely don't look like this (in most cases.) Needle threaders were ideal for helping those with shaky hands are not-so-fantastic eyesight thread needles a lot easier.

6. Record Adapter

At first glance, today's youngsters might think this little trinket is an old fashioned fidget spinner. In a sense, I guess you could look at it that way?

Record adapters were used back when spinning records was all the hype, instead of a hipster sort of underground hype. They helped accommodate LP's to fit onto the record player turntables when the records were different. Neat!

7. Answering Machines

Most households today don't even have a land-line, let alone a whole separate device to record messages if you didn't answer in time. But a couple decades ago they were still in every home. Vintage answering machines did similar things that your voicemail does today, except it recorded onto a cassette tape (something else you've probably never heard of at this point,) and you had to erase old messages or replace cassette tapes!

Elana