Rinker on Collectibles

RINKER ON COLLECTIBLES — Column #1546

Fading Technology: Is It Worth Saving?

A July 26, 2016 blog entitled “Goodbye, VHS: A Visual Ode to a Disappearing Format” by John Brownlee appeared on a number of internet websites. The blog was accompanied by a pictorial history of VHS tapes in their period sleeves. Brownlee explained that video as a physical medium is experiencing its death knell. After a life of nearly 40 years, the last VHR/VHS manufacturer is ceasing operations. The golden age of the VHS tape is over. [https://www.fastcodesign.com/3062172/goodbye-vhs-a-visual-history-of-1980s-bootlegging]

From the 1980s into the early 2000s, the VHS tape recorded hours of family memories, popularized inexpensive versions of concerts, educational programming, and movies, and allowed the pirating of copyright material for home use and a little side larceny. The VHS format was less than ideal. It is not a long-term preservation format. Its quality fades over time. VHS tapes survive in numbers impossible to quantify. The number is in the billions. Although most of these tapes are not worth saving, what about the examples that are? Who is going to do it?

How to preserve the information on VHS tapes is one of my dilemmas. I have more than 100 VHS tapes of my television appearances on programs including “Good Morning America,” “Oprah,” “Martha Stewart,” “Today,” and “Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser.” Two of my “Oprah” appearances occurred when she was a co-anchor on WJZ-TV in Baltimore, Maryland. My collection of individual episodes of HGTV’s “Collector Inspector (2003-2006), which I hosted, is on VHS tapes. Years ago, I bought a deck that allowed me to copy VHS tapes to disks. Have I done it? No. Do I still intend to? Yes. When? Your guess is as good as mine.

Historically, obsolete technology worked its way into attics and basements. From 1946 to fall 1948, I played in my grandparents William F. D. and Elsie Knoble Prosser’s attic located at 717 High Street, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. My father Paul worked at Bethlehem Steel’s Sparrows Point Shipyard during World War II. When the war ended, my parents moved back to Bethlehem from Dundalk, Maryland. We lived with my grandparents during my kindergarten and first grade years, finally moving to Hellertown, Pennsylvania, in October 1948.

While I cannot claim the Prosser family attic is responsible for my becoming a collector, it played a role in my love of stuff. There was plenty of old technology in the Prosser attic including several tube radios, box cameras, an early typewriter, and a phonograph. The treadle sewing machine was housed in the room at the top of the stairs. Grandma Prosser still used it.

Our family residence at 50 West Depot Street in Hellertown did not have an attic. None of my residences since High Street had an attic, something I just realized and nostalgically regret. There were basements, albeit in one case I had to be satisfied with a crawl space. Although a hindrance in terms of saving things, I managed to save more than my fair share.

Obsolete technology is difficult to discard. Although it usefulness subsides, its memories do not. Initially, saving is based upon the concept that if the new product malfunctions, the old product can substitute until the new product is repaired. This was a viable argument for products of industrial age technology such as typewriters and radios. It has no validity for technological products from the digital age.

In preparation for this column, I made a list of some of the obsolete technology I still own. The list includes my father’s Kodak No. 2A bellows camera in its period box that I remember using, the Dietz slide rule in its leather case that I acquired as a Lehigh freshman in September 1963, an early pocket calculator, a JVC cassette tape deck, and two obsolete computers. My Hi-Fi/Stereo equipment survives and is set up at Linda’s and my Altamonte Springs, Florida condo.

Technology nostalgia is a funny thing. Memory focuses more on how the technology impacts one’s life than on the objects themselves. When I learned to ten-finger type between my Junior and Senior years in high school, my parents bought me a Smith Corona portable typewriter. It was like moving up to Cadillac status after working with my parents’ 1930s old Remington portable. During graduate school, I acquired a Smith Corona Automatic 12, an electric typewriter. Memory has a mysterious component. I remember moving it several times, yet I cannot remember when it disappeared from my possession.

When my father acquired a Kodak Retina 35mm camera in the 1950s, life changed. Instead of black and white prints, family memories and other information was saved on 2 x 2, 35mm slides. From the 1950s through the mid-2000s, Kodak Kodachrome and Professional A film and Kodak Carousel projectors played a key role in my personal and professional life. Upwards of 100 rolls of 35mm film a year was sent for processing. I still use my Carousel projects, knowing full well that “resistance is futile” and that I need to convert the slides to digital images within the next year. This is in addition to the over 40 projection trays filled with personal 2 x 2 slides.

[Author’s Aside: I have a dilemma regarding the correct time and medium to which to convert my VHS and 35mm slides. I want to do it once. If I do it now, what assurances do I have that the digital technology I use will be viable 25 to 50 years in the future? Discussion already is underway regarding the future obsolescence of the compact disk and DVD. I have no trust in the longevity of the cloud, especially given the potential of “electronic” warfare. I belong to the “hard copy” generation, the generation who wants to hold, touch, see, and understand the objects in which its future is preserved.]

Technology products of the digital age as opposed to technology products of the industrial age have no longevity. Obsolescence is assumed. When my Samsung Galaxy 4 android phone no longer accepted a charge, I took it to a repair shop. The fix worked for about a month. Finally, I purchased a used Samsung Galaxy 5 android phone. It has more bells and whistles than I ever will use. Today, it is not about what the average customer wants but what the manufacturer insists he/she needs. I am glad I did not upgrade to a Galaxy 7 android phone. These are being recalled because some batteries overheated. It is such instances that confirm my assumption that if God exits, he is secretly a Luddite.

If second generation Baby Boomers and Generations X, Y, and Z had attics, what obsolete technology would they contain? The potential list is a long one and includes: (1) a wide range of non-digital cameras from Polaroids to Instamatics to early inexpensive digital models, (2) telephones ranging from Princess phones to early mobile devices (early mobile phones resembled walkie-talkies), (3) varieties of video games from Pong and Atari to early versions of the Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox, (4) pocket calculators, (5) electronic office equipment, especially adding machines, (6) early computer equipment including printers and other support material [I still anguish over my decision to allow Kevin Smith to auction my early Zenith portables; I should have kept one], (7) VHS, Beta, cassette, and a wealth of other recording equipment, (8) the last typewriters, especially the IBM Selectric, (8) phonographs that played 33 1/3 rpm, 45 rpm, and 78 rpm records and early CD players, (9) radios from the transistor era to early Bose; and, (10) tube television sets. The list is far from inclusive.

The first question that arises is who will be capable of repairing and maintaining this material in 25 years. The answer is a limited number of collector enthusiasts and no one else. Those who do not believe this assertion should try to find a modern day jeweler who can clean and repair a pocket watch.

The second question, the more critical of the two, is whether there is any reason to save any of this obsolete technology and if yes, whose responsibility is it. Do not expect collectors to step forward. The stuff is bulky, takes up a great deal of space, and has little to no secondary market resale value. The burden falls on historical institutions and museums. In this instance, the survival of a few examples is more than sufficient.

It pains me to suggest that tossing makes more sense than saving. Obsolete technology is a questionable collectible. If not junk now, it will be. Understanding that it is impossible to save everything, obsolete technology continues to remain at the bottom of my “must save” list.

Harry L. Rinker welcomes questions from readers about collectibles, those mass-produced items from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Selected letters will be answered in this column. Harry cannot provide personal answers. Photos and other material submitted cannot be returned. Send your questions to: Rinker on Collectibles, 5955 Mill Point Court SE, Kentwood, MI 49512. You also can e-mail your questions to harrylrinker@aol.com. Only e-mails containing a full name and mailing address will be considered.

You can listen and participate in WHATCHA GOT?, Harry’s antiques and collectibles radio call-in show, on Sunday mornings between 8:00 AM and 10:00 AM Eastern Time. If you cannot find it on a station in your area, WHATCHA GOT? streams live on the Internet at www.gcnlive.com.

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