When I was a kid my family owned a device whose sole purpose was to rewind vhs tapes.
I own plenty of Libreboot computers without Intel Management Engine (2006-2009 era). For the average user in today’s world, I don’t see many people using them unless definitive proof came out that the government uses the IME to spy on them. These 2006-2009 era desktops/laptops can have the entire IME firmware removed, along with a 100% free BIOS. I collect as many as I can.
A tone dialer. Like this
https://images.app.goo.gl/fbdmckv44BY7fdWw9
Not for phone phreaking, just for speed-dialling.
I would make international calls frequently. I would buy calling cards. The process was: dial the 800 number on the card. Enter the id number on the card to use some of its credit. Dial the number to call. Their service would then connect me at a low rate to another country(probably making a voip call).
So I’d set up the 3 speed dial buttons with those. For each new card I’d only have to change the card’s unique number.
I was a phone phreak, and I still have my last old-school brown Radio Shack tone dialer which I’d been planning to make into a red box. Ultimately I was too lazy to swap the crystal in it, and it sat in my junk drawer for years while red boxing died. Now it’s a curiosity that sits on my shelf of hacker books. Maybe I’ll still do the crystal swap someday for the sheer hell of it.
Building one of those was always on my list when I got a copy of the Anarchist’s cookbook, never got around to it though.
There an app for that now.
At least, there is on the Flipper Zero.
TI-89 graphing calculator
There’s an app for that now
Ti-83 plus silver edition, baybee! I learned to code (badly) on that bad boy.
They’re still using the successor TI-84 in high school and it still costs around $100.
An iPod. It’s still the same iPod I got for my birthday 20 years ago. It probably still works… If I’d be able to find a cable for it.
I have used a dedicated MP3 player during the workout just few years back - I found carrying my entire almost 200g phone during the workout extremely inconvenient. In the end, I ended that for the benefit of bluetooth headphones which were not supported by the dedicated player.
My phone still has an SD card slot. So I can put my 64 GB SD card inside and have more music offline than my 4 GB iPod could ever have.
The iPod is a nice little piece of almost antique tech. But I’d still be using my phone over it.
Yes… But still… Especially when running… I find these things completely ridiculous.
For running, I got a smartwatch that can store some music locally, so I don’t need to be connected to listen. Still not perfect, kind of a hassle to use, and doesn’t always work perfectly. Almost miss those tiny iPod nanos. I feel like portable dedicated music players have gone backwards in features and usability with the rise in popularity of perpetually connected Internet devices and streaming services.
Ha, but with that smart watch we have almost came a full circle :) Except of course, it’s multipurpose and I presume much more expensive device now. What’s the model?
