Your smartphone now has the power of a computer. You can access millions of tracks via Spotify or watch your movies in 4K. Things have changed a lot. So let yourself be carried away by a wind of nostalgia by (re)discovering some of the most popular technological devices of the 90’s.
Pagers
Long before the advent of laptops, it was the pager family that reigned supreme in high school classes. Kobby, Tatoo, Tam-Tam, all names that accompanied teenagers and adults in the mid-1990s. These small boxes used a radio message service to send messages to the recipients. The Tatoo allowed you to receive a message (first numeric and then alphanumeric!) to go to the phone booth to call back the number received.
The models that followed even allowed to read up to 80 characters from a sender’s message, which he had previously dictated to an operator. Pagers became scarce when the SMS arrived, but the system was still used for a long time by firefighters and hospital staff because the radio transmission range is extensive.
Floppy disks
Are you worried because your smartphone has only 64 GB of storage? Well, you should know that a few years ago, we still stored our documents on floppy disks (in 5, 25 or 8 inches). The latter is always the icon of choice for reporting a recording.
Invented at the end of the 1960s, it could initially contain 80,000 characters or one day of typing. It later developed and rocked many geeks during the 1990s. We must say that with 1.44 MB of storage (and sometimes much more if you put the price), it was already possible to keep many documents. A relic from the past!
The “almighty” Gameboy
The Gameboy is probably the only object you could get out on the bus without shame. That’s Nintendo’s extraordinary success. This mythical handheld console has stood the test of time and is still considered one of the best portable consoles in the history of video games. Faced with a more powerful Game Gear, this grey plastic block has been able to offer hours of happiness to nomadic gamers. Super Mario Land 2, Wario Land, Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Metroid II, and many other games.
VHS and VCR
The VHS cassette (for Video Home System) appeared well before the 90s, but this format became massively popular and was still in its prime at that time. Resolutely targeting the family market, the cassettes were composed of a magnetic tape reel wrapped around a drum, capable of reading, but also (and especially!) of recording video or audio signals.
Coupled with a video recorder, they made it possible to preserve the programmes or films shown on television. Ease of use, combined with a strong commitment from the film studios, has contributed significantly to its success and our memories.