Technological Dinosaurs

The classic black mid-20th century rotary-dial desk telephone. (AP)

A 'hotline' telephone to the White House that traveled with President John F. Kennedy. (AP)

Three 1.44-MB floppy disks, circa 1990. (AP)

A 'professional-looking' businessmen checks his wristwatch. (AP)

A man looks at new releases on VHS tape in an old-time -- i.e., about 10 years ago -- video store. (AP)

A mid-1990s television set, complete with VCR atop. (AP)

A fluorescent beeper from Metromedia Paging Services, state of the art in the mid-1990s. (AP)

Edwin H. Land, inventor of instant photography and founder of the Polaroid Corporation, demonstrating his revolutionary film. (AP)

Famed American writer Dorothy Parker at her trusty typewriter. (AP)

The IBM Selectric electric typewriter, state-of-the-art in 1961. (Oliver Kurmis/Wikimedia Commons)

Sony's second-generation Walkman, vintage 1980, with an external battery pack. Note the dual headphone jacks -- the second one disappeared on later models. (Esa Sorjonen/Wikimedia Commons)

Four Walkman-brand items by Sony, playing, clockwise from top left, CDs, cassette tapes, MiniDiscs and FM radio. (Marc Zimmermann/Wikimedia Commons)

The America Online startup window on Apple's Mac OS 8 operating system, probably in the late 1990s. (AP)

An early (March 1999) external DVD player for a PC. Notice the floppy-disk-style cartridge to protect the DVD inside. (AP)