Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. And we continue now with our 11:00 AM to noon spring fundraising party and our most fun call-ins of 2023, round two. Today we are re-asking the question, what piece of obsolete technology do you miss? Now, the original segment was inspired by Netflix announcing that it will no longer mail DVDs of movies.

Remember that? It's going pure streaming. We thought to ask did you use and like the mail DVD service at one time and you'll miss it? Then we expanded it to any piece of obsolete technology that you now miss. Here are some of the answers we got the first time.

Speaker 2: Oh, I miss paper maps. I remember going on road trips with my family and having that big map and marking your exit and gas stations and being able to get your destination and feel like you're moving on the map.

Speaker 3: What I'm missing is my Blackberry. I know I make everybody laugh. My children, my wife, everywhere I used to go, I had my Blackberry for over 20 years. Always work.

Speaker 4: We would make these mixed tapes that would take I feel like weeks to make because you were waiting for those specific songs, but it was like a labor of love.

Brian Lehrer: A labor of love to make the mixtapes on the old technology. When we ran out of time that day, so many of you are still hanging on wanting to cite obsolete pieces of technology that you miss in your lives or at least enjoyed at the same time, so here's round two. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

One caller I didn't get to said he misses manual roll-down car windows rather than today's electric ones. My question to him would've been, why? What is it about cranking that little handle round and round that's preferable to the touch of a button? Is it that it's exercise that keeps your wrist in shape or who knows what? Maybe he'll call back.

With inspiration from Netflix ending its DVD mailer service for movies, what piece of obsolete technology do you now miss? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. We're going to do a pledge drive fundraising break here as your calls are coming in, and then we will take your most missed pieces of obsolete technology calls. Stay with us.

[MUSIC - Marden Hill: Hijack]

Brian Lehrer on WNYC. To reset a little bit, in the 11 o'clock hour of our membership drive, which is going to be today through next Wednesday as we try to raise money to fund the station, we're doing serious stuff in the 10 o'clock hour and we're doing an 11:00 a.m. to noon fundraising party on the Brian Lehrer Show with a low stakes pop quiz at the beginning of the hour.

We did it for today on the news of 2023. Were you paying attention? No grades, only prizes to give away, and we gave away a few. Then in part two, which we're up to now, we're doing second edition, second round of some of our most fun call-ins of the year that many of you called into and couldn't get on for in the available time because so many people had stuff.

The one that we're repeating today is your ode to obsolete technology. That was inspired by Netflix announcing that it will no longer send DVDs through the mail, so we invited people to call up and say, did you use those DVD mailers? Did you love them? Oh, by the way, what other kinds of technology that is now considered obsolete do you miss?

We had fun with it the first time, and it looks like we're going to have more fun with it the second time because our lines are full. I promised you, Joanne in Boone, you're on WNYC. Hi, Joanne.

Joanne: Hi, Brian. I love, I'm not using it right now- I mistook your your producer's question, but I love my Western Electric 1970s vintage brown trim line foam. It feels good in the hand. It's got the push buttons. It looks cool. It is still plugged into a phone jack in my apartment where unfortunately like most landlines, it collects spam but I still love it. I can't bear to get rid of it. It would be my phone forever if it only had, what is it, caller ID.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, can you not get caller ID on landlines? I don't know because I don't have a-

Joanne: No, I don't think so. [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: -pure landline anymore myself. There was a little scare recently when I think some arm of the federal government said something that made people think that they're going to completely phase out those dedicated landlines. That's not exactly the case as I understand it, but obviously, they are going away as people transition to cell phones.

Tell me why you like yours. One of the reasons that some people want to maintain a landline is that in theory, at least, if the electricity goes out, that doesn't affect the landline system because it's just through those wires. It's not through the electricity like your other kinds of phones that are connected through your cable system.

Even though the phone itself, did you say princess phone, if the phone is electric, it would go out, but not all landline phones are. Is that why you want to keep your landline phone?

Joanne: Well I want to keep the landline phone for the silly reason of if I don't remember where the cell phone is, I can call it. Of course, I also have find your whatever on the-

Brian Lehrer: Yes, find my phone.

Joanne: -on the Apple devices, but find my phone and calling the phone.

Brian Lehrer: There you go. Joanne, thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Interestingly, a few people are calling up to say landline phones today, but we're going to let Joanne represent them and go on to Tom in Marstown who has something completely different. Hi, Tom. You're on WNYC.

Tom: I guess it's me, I didn't say Marstown, but if it's me, I miss the older cars. The newer cars I have, I have a knob for a gear shift handle. I missed the gear shift handle and sometimes it changes gears when it decides to. It takes me out of reverse and puts me into park.

I miss the radio. It was two knobs and five buttons, and believe me, that suited me for all the stations I would ever listen to. Now I've got 20 buttons on the touchscreen that I have to take my eyes off the road to look. So many features on this car, there's a myriad of buttons all feel the same, look the same, and there are no distinct knobs for heater and for the vent. I miss that.

The other thing I miss is a dumb TV. [laughter] I've got a smart TV that outsmarts me all the time. I'll tell you. There are so many channels that I never watch. The five buttons on the radio were more than enough with a few good radio stations I ever listened to. Stuck with this now, but that's what I miss, man.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, but you are not the guy who called up the first time we did this call in who I mentioned before who said that he misses the roll-down car windows?

Tom: No, no, I am not. I am not. You know what, speaking about car windows, I miss those little vent windows they used to have. They got rid of those in the late '70s or early '80s, but they had the little vent window you could open up and would divert air with a good blast into the car. Those are long gone.

Brian Lehrer: Tom, thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks for all those things. Max in Boham Hill, you're on WNYC. Hi , Max.

Max: Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. Sustaining member. Happy to be calling in on the pledge drive.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Max: I miss the old voting booths with the crank and the curtain. I unfortunately never actually got to vote in one, but I remember going with my mom, and the first year that I was able to vote, they still had them, but I was out of the country, so I had to vote by absentee, so I never got to actually vote with the little tabs and the crank and the curtain.

Brian Lehrer: What is it about that? Do you think it was more reliable? Was there something romantic about the crank and the curtain and it--? I remember those it did make a little clunk when you did it and you really felt like you cast your vote, different from slipping the piece of paper into the slot after you fill in the bubble form now. What is it about that that makes you wish you had done it?

Max: I think it is partially the romance. I've been a poll worker the past few years, and I understand the benefits of the optical scan ballot and being able to talk to the poll workers and get a new ballot is all improvement, but there was something about the physical sensation and there was also something about, I think the curtain and the fact that you were in a space that truly felt private and almost like a sacred space, which you just don't get with those rolling privacy booths that we have now.

Brian Lehrer: Which are only private for about, I don't know, 15% of your body. Max, thank you. Good one. Now we have Elias in Westbury, who's also going to remember a different kind of phone, not a landline, but another kind of obsolete phone I think. Elias, you're on WNYC. Hi.

Elias: Hey, how are you? I've had some time to sit and think and I was going to bring up rotary phones to you guys because I know as annoying as I feel like they were when we were using them, you look back on the nostalgia and flipping through the numbers, and then you had a certain amount of time. I was actually thinking that I would like to change my obsolete piece of technology back to [unintelligible 00:10:57] I would like to go even to a- I remember it's something that's lost and I think that in some form should come back but VHS tapes. Then I know we transitioned to DVDs and I'll tell you the reason why.

I feel like when you would meet somebody or go into someone's homes and the display of their VHS collections and/or DVD collections was a great way to immediately get to know or creep into somebody's mind. You got to see what they were into. What kind of movies they liked, whether it was [inaudible 00:11:34] or stuff like that. Even remembering going to Blockbuster Video and stuff like that, all that obsolete stuff. I thought about those things.

Brian Lehrer: The interaction around the VCR. That's an interesting take on it that definitely I hadn't thought of. Elias, thank you for both of those. Sharon in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sharon.

Sharon: Hi. I was always a good executive assistant because I had two Rolodexes, the big ones, the ones that roll. I was able to take somebody's business card, staple it to it, and that would have it by subject matter. I also had a separate Rolodex for people and their names. My bosses loved me. I always got a bonus. I listen to you, Brian, because you give me so much hope every day. I can't take cable TV anymore, but I loved my Rolodex. To go find somebody's number in my phone right now takes a hell of a lot of effort.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Last one. Andrea in Manhattan has a music one. Hi, Andrea. You're on WNYC.

Andrea: Hi, Brian. I have such nostalgia for eight-track tapes. I'm in my late 50s, I won't say exactly which year, late 50s. I have such a fond memory of sticking an 8-track tape in my parents' living room and Seals & Crofts, and what else did we do, Brasil 66 or whatever we were listening to and dancing with my siblings around the living room. Can I make one more comment about the caller ID that one of your previous callers made?

Brian Lehrer: Sure. Let me say about 8-track tapes though, that they were probably the shortest-lived music technology. For some reason, they never caught on. Of course, there was records for a long time, and cassette tapes, really really popular for the mixtapes and everything, and then CDs before the current Spotify era. The 8-tracks, they seem to come and go and maybe people found them too clunky or something like that, but you loved your 8-tracks.

Andrea: Yes. I don't have them anymore.

Brian Lehrer: Yeah, loved, done.

Andrea: It's just very nostalgic for me. I just wanted to tell your previous caller that I'm also someone who has a landline I kept for exactly the reason that you mentioned in case cell phone service goes out. It's just something that I have a 212 number which I'm reluctant to give up. I actually have an answering machine believe it or not from the '90s and you can get caller ID on your answering machine. You can have a landline phone with caller ID with an answering machine.

Brian Lehrer: I thought so. Thanks for that tip for Joanne in Boone. Maybe she will be able to hook that up. Andrea, thank you. Thanks to all of you who called. We could have kept going again with many more of you. So many pieces of obsolete technology that people miss or say they will miss when they're gone. Thank you for those.

We'll do another second round of one of our most fun callings of the year on tomorrow's show at the same time. We are in our 11:00 AM to noon Brian Lehrer Show fundraising party as part of our main fundraiser. Coming up next, part three for this hour, things to do around here this summer. Stay with us.

Copyright © 2023 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.