F is for Floppy Disk

The floppy disk came in a many shapes and forms, but they all served the same function. These small square objects were a portable form of data storage for computers. A drive specifically built to read these devices where built onto most computers until they were eventually replaced by other data storage devices such as zip disks, CDs, DVDs, and flash memory cards, all of which had greater capacity and durability than the floppy. The rapid decline of this once ubiquitous device has lead to some interesting reuse projects for all the abandoned floppies out there.

R is for Rotary Dial

 

I can remember as a child, how long it used to take to dial my good friend on the phone, as her number had four 9s in it. There was no real way to rush the dial, as it slowly turned back to it's original position once you pushed it around clockwise.

The rotary dial, sometimes also called the "finger wheel" is a device that mounted on telephones starting in the late 1800s. This dial allowed the phone to send electrical pulses which corresponded to the number dialed, allowing you to connect to another phone using a unique series of pulses. The push button phone eventually replaced the rotary dial, after it was introduced in the 1960s, but it took several decades for the button phones to make the rotary completely obsolete. Technology once evolved at a less frenetic pace.  

Here is a news service announcement from back in the day when the rotary dial telephone was simply known as a "dial telephone." Another obsolete object, described as a directory (eventually to be popularly described as a "phone book") is also presented in this news piece.

E is for Eight Track

The eight-track is a portable magnetic tape sound recording technology. We used to have an eight track player in our giant American car and that's probably where most people will remember seeing this particular object. Much like the audio-cassette, the eight-track is one of the many links in the chain of the evolution of sound recording and transmission devices. 

A is for Abacus

Some people call the abacus a "counting frame," as it was developed as a tool to help with calculations prior to the invention of written numbers. There are examples of abici that were made of beans, stone and/or sand.

While the abacus is not as popular as it once was, it is still in use in some areas around the world as a  tool for learning to calculate many numbers at once. The abici that are made today are typically made of beads, wire and bamboo.

If you want to see some modern kids doing some fantastic calculations using abici, watch the video below.

 

What is A is for Abacus?

A is for abacus is a compendium of sketches of seemingly obsolete items. By obsolete, I mean to suggest things that are no longer in popular use. They might still be very useful, but for one reason or another, they have been largely replaced with something else.

I imagine this as a book for children - an audience that will likely never have experienced any of these objects, so each item is paired with a brief text which describes the item in a bit more detail.

The idea for this project came as I'm at the point in my life when many of my friends are starting to have kids. These kids have been born into a world of very rapid change. On the one hand, I think it's kind of funny to teach the alphabet to children using items they will likely never see or experience, on the other hand. I suspect that many of their parents will have seen many of these objects come and go during their life time and will re-experience them with a touch of nostalgia. That's certainly the case with me.

If you have any ideas for sketches, please let me know - I have most of them done, and will post one a week - but do welcome ideas for alternates!