Retro Tech looks back at old devices, gadgets and formats that were once part of everyday life. We remember VHS tapes, CDs, floppy disks, old computers, Discman players and the simple technology that shaped many childhood memories.
I sold Bitcoin for $30 because I thought I had caught the top. When I started Bitcoin mining in 2013, the price was around $15, so a doubling looked like an excellent reason to sell. When I later saw how much further it went, I was, to put it politely, pissed off. Around the start
The Witcher 2 was the cover game for the June 2011 issue of Svet kompjutera, a Serbian computer magazine. I still have that issue in my collection of Svet kompjutera magazines. Geralt appears beneath the headline “Novi izazov”, which means “A New Challenge”. These days, opening that copy gives me a chance to see how
Before movie night became a menu on a screen, it often began with a trip outside the house. Renting a VHS tape meant walking into a neighborhood video store and looking along crowded shelves. You turned boxes over, read their summaries, and tried to choose the one movie worthy of the weekend. The tape might
Compact discs are finding a new audience, and this time the CD comeback is visible in the numbers. For years, the idea of a CD revival sounded like pure nostalgia. Streaming had become the easiest way to hear almost any song, while shelves full of jewel cases seemed to belong to another time. Still, many
Twenty-five years have now passed since the world’s first webcam, the Trojan Room Coffee Pot camera, was switched off at the University of Cambridge. It did not watch a busy street, a famous building or an important scientific experiment. It watched a coffee machine. The picture was small, grainy and black and white. It had
Gifts for analog photography lovers work best when they connect with the slower, more deliberate side of taking pictures. A film camera has a physical presence that a phone cannot fully reproduce: the weight of the body, the mechanical controls, the sound of the shutter and a roll with a limited number of exposures. Every
The new Commodore 64C Ultimate brings one of the most famous home computers back for a new generation. It combines the familiar 1980s design with modern hardware, HDMI, USB, Wi-Fi and support for original accessories. For millions of people, the Commodore 64 opened the door to games, programming and electronic music. It also created the
Retro music gifts can bring back powerful memories without being expensive or complicated. An old-style radio, cassette player or portable CD player can instantly recall another era. Some gifts are opened, admired and forgotten after a few days. Others return us to afternoons spent waiting for a favourite song on the radio. We once rewound
Retro tech gadgets from the 90s and 2000s still have a special kind of magic. They were not just screens, buttons and cables. Instead, they were CDs carried in plastic cases, Discman players that skipped if you moved too fast, MP3 players with tiny screens, wired headphones tangled in your backpack and computer desks filled
Retro gifts work best when they bring back a real memory. They can take someone back to a childhood bedroom, a Saturday morning in front of the TV, a stack of VHS tapes, cassette mixtapes, burned CDs, early video games, old-school cartoons and all those little details that once felt like a huge part of
