Have you ever had a Tamagotchi? You can have one today, but we can’t say the same about other devices that once were revolutionary, iconic, or simply beloved. Many of them faded into obscurity due to technological advancements, market shifts, or changing consumer preferences. While some are sorely missed, others evoke nostalgia for simpler times.

7 Portable Media Players (PMP)

We all had one in our pockets

I remember as it was today when I was gifted the first Sony Walkman. It was a cassette tape player you could strap to your belt and walk around town listening to your favorite music. That was one of the first devices that could be added to the long list of portable media players.

Then, one of my friends got cooler with the first portable CD player. That looked great, but it skipped songs if he made any sudden moves, so it wasn’t that great.

Sony’s MiniDisc (MD) players were a lot better because they offered better-quality audio and got rid of the skipping problem, at least partially.

However, the first PMP revolution was when Apple launched the first iPod in 2001. Back then, the word "cool" probably had a picture of an iPod. Microsoft’s Zune came a bit later, and then, a myriad of MP3 players invaded the market all over the globe.

Also, the Napster era hit us. It was just a matter of downloading some MP3 files, making a selection, and loading them into our MP3 player. There were MP3 players as big as USB flash drives, so you could have one in your pocket and listen to music all the way to work or while jogging. When the first smartphones were launched, they also had music-playing capabilities and enough memory to store a lot of songs. So, MP3 players soon became useless. But they were really cool and convenient.

6 3D TVs

Did they really disappear?

You probably didn’t know, but 3D TVs have a long history going back to 1935, when the first stereoscopic TV was produced. But let’s say that we can’t count it as a true tridimensional image. In 1981, Panasonic (then Matsushita Electric) developed an active shutter 3D system on the first 3D TV. As a fun fact, Panasonic adapted the 3D TV to work with Sega’s SubRoc-3D arcade game in 1982.

The popularity of 3D TV boomed again with the huge popularity of the Avatar movie. At CES 2010, all the major manufacturers released 3D TVs showcasing different technologies. However, there were never enough movies shot in 3D because it was obviously costly for producers.

Of course, you could also watch regular movies in 3D, but it was not the same. Long story short, the trend died out pretty quickly, with the number of viewers declining fast.

In 2017, most manufacturers stopped producing 3D-enabled TVs. You might still have one in your house, but you probably forgot where you’ve put the glasses for it, right?

The 3D TV trend went on and off for years, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it would boom again. You might have switched to an HMD (head-mounted display) or VR headset because you can use one of them to watch movies like you’re in a cinema.

5 LaserDisc players

They were never too popular in the U.S.

LaserDisc players were cool if you had one. They used large optical discs for movies and video content, offering the next step in quality for VHS players. It was introduced by MCA DiscoVision in 1978, but the laser readers were not that good back then. It was only in 1984 that Pioneer launched the LD-700 LaserDisc player that featured a laser diode.

The disk was 12 inches in diameter, as big as a vinyl disc, but it was made out of aluminum and plastic. The problem was that the players were pretty expensive, and at that point, the VHS had a massive market around it, with rentals and stores that sold movies for a fraction of a LaserDisc. In Japan, the LaserDisc was a lot more popular, with 10% of households owning one, but in the U.S., only about 2% of people owned one player.

In 1997, Sony launched the first DVD player in the U.S. The disc was smaller, cheaper, and a lot more convenient. That was a clear death note for the wonderful LaserDisc, which was just too impractical.

4 TiVo DVRs

The most popular recording system ever

Everyone knows about TiVo. Even if you are young and didn’t live with one in your house, you certainly heard stories about it. TiVo revolutionized TV watching by allowing users to pause, rewind, and record live television. It was the first mass-produced and popular DVR system.

The devices were launched by TiVo Corporation in 1999 as a way to simplify watching your favorite TV shows and programs. They had a full list of programs on the most important channels, so, for instance, you could schedule them to record every single episode of a series. However, it got more complex than that. The metadata on the programming list also allowed you to record shows with a certain actor in the cast or even a keyword.

It is hard to describe how TiVo changed everyone’s lives without understanding the context. We suddenly switched from TV-printed guides to some sort of on-demand television. That’s because you could just watch your favorite content instead of endlessly browsing through the channels for something interesting.

But that’s not all; TiVo offered something new: a rating system for the content. You could rate a program with up to three thumbs up or down, and these ratings were used to create so-called TiVo Suggestions.

TiVo is still out there, and it’s owned by Xperi, but after on-demand services like Netflix and Hulu appeared, DVRs became less and less popular. Even most TVs have built-in DVRs nowadays.

3 BlackBerry phones (with physical keyboard)

How could you type on that keyboard anyway?

The first Blackberry phone was introduced in 1999 by Research in Motion (RIM). The brand became popular for its keyboards and increased email security. Thanks to the latter, BlackBerry phones were the best choice for business people.

Just to understand how popular they were, in 2011, BlackBerry had 85 million subscribers worldwide. However, to this day, I can’t understand how people were able to type on that small smart keyboard. I tested a BlackBerry a long time ago, and I couldn’t get a grip on that sort of keyboard, but you probably could get used to it in time.

After the success of the Android and iOS platforms, BlackBerry quickly started to lose subscribers. Larger touchscreen devices were more versatile, and unlike BlackBerry, Google Store and App Store were offering a lot more applications for smartphones.

BlackBerry will remain a historical landmark for elegant design devices.

2 The Pager

One of the first cool gadgets

If you had a beeper in the 80s, that means you were an important person. Beeper was the popular name for pagers, the first cool gadget you could wear on your belt. As you’ve probably guessed, this gadget was a thing before the first cell phones were released.

The system worked like this: If you wanted to get hold of someone with a pager, you would call a dedicated number on a landline, and the pager owner would get a beeping alert. The first models just displayed the number of those who called you. Then, you had to go to a landline and call back that number to talk to the person.

Later on, the system would display a simple text message along the beeping and even allow a two-way messaging or message response when the sending device would allow that.

Back in the landline era, that was the only quick way to connect to someone who was out and about. It was ideal for medical personnel because they could be summoned in emergencies. However, they were mostly used by sales and business people. The pagers were used even after the first GSM phones because, at that point, they became very cheap compared to a mobile phone and subscription.

As a matter of fact, beeping someone was also a common thing with the first cell phones. If you didn’t have enough credit on your subscription, you would ring someone once and hang up. The person at the other end would call you back if they were more fortunate.

1 Fax machines

The e-mail’s grandfather

Once upon a time, there was no internet! Nowadays, that can be the beginning of a scary story around a fire with your kids, right? At least it triggered a long gasp when I told it to my 10-year-old daughter. And how did the people send information to each other? Well, they had a strange and noisy device called a fax machine.

You would insert a piece of paper into it and call the place where you wanted to send it. Simple, right? Not quite. The person on the other end would need to end the call and press a button on their own fax machine to provide a so-called fax tone. Then, you would finally press the Send button on the fax machine and call that number again. This time, the fax machine on the other end would finally start printing the document.

I almost got tired of explaining the process, let alone using the system. That whole process was happening every time because the businesses often used the same landline number for audio calls and faxes. If the receiving end had a dedicated number for faxes, the process would be a lot easier.

Was the fax cool? If you didn’t know about e-mails, fax machines were the ultimate feat of technology. Yeah, it was cool to know that a piece of paper would appear half a world away, looking exactly like the one on your hand. Well, almost exactly, because the fax machines only printed in black, and the quality was not so great.

Which device are you missing the most?

All these devices disappeared because something better or more performant replaced them. I didn't miss the rotary phone because it was a pain to dial a number, and even so, it was not a sure bet that someone would be on the other end to answer.

I’m also not missing my first cellphone because it would drop calls and only had two games. However, they were cool when they came up, and they changed our lives whether we liked it or not. Maybe soon, smartphones will be a thing of the past, and my daughter will remember the time she was using them instead of just projecting everything on her retina.