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1. Pendrives — the OG portable kings
Before the cloud came along and made everything "floaty", we had pendrives.
Glorious, chunky lil things that you'd attach to your lanyard, not for convenience, but because losing one felt like misplacing your entire identity.
You'd name your drive something profound like "Untitled 1" or "MY FILES PLS DON'T OPEN", which ironically made everyone want to open it.
Also, shoutout to the unspoken trauma of "Safely Remove Hardware". Did it really matter? We may never know.
2. CD Burners — for when your music taste needed to be immortalised
Making a mixtape was an art form. You'd burn songs onto a blank CD, scribble "Panic! Mixxx" with a Sharpie, and hand it to your crush like it was a love letter in disc form.
The CD would eventually get scratched because someone (you) left it on the car dashboard, but the emotional damage? Permanent.
Also: Windows Media Player visuals? Peak psychedelic vibes.
3. Floppy disks — the save icon walked so Google Drive could run
At 1.44MB, these babies could barely hold a single high-res selfie today. But back in the day? Entire essays, school projects, and a suspicious .exe file called "game3" lived on them.
You'd pray it didn't get corrupted. Or magnetised. Or stepped on. Or… looked at the wrong way.
And yes, we used to carry them in actual plastic folders like business documents. The drama.
4. MP3 Players — the pre-Spotify chaos
You never knew which song would play next. There was no shuffle algorithm, just vibes.
LimeWire-ripped tracks with the occasional radio DJ voice halfway through, "You're listening to Hot 107!" — and then BAM, Rihanna's Umbrella.
Battery life was questionable. Headphone wires were always tangled. But you felt so cool pressing the tiny buttons while walking to tuition.
5. Digital Cameras — because not everything was "taken on an iPhone"
Every millennial has at least one cursed photo taken with a Canon Powershot.
The flash was always too much. Eyes? Red. Skin? Ghostly. But we still posed with peace signs and side bangs like it was high fashion.
You had to transfer photos to your computer and then upload them to Facebook albums like: "Class Trip 2009 <3". The filters? Not even sepia could save them.
Ironically, they appear to be back in trend with the younger generation as "vintage" cameras. Ouch.
6. The Blackberry — the phone that made you feel like a corporate boss at 17
If you had BBM, you were elite. No debate.
The little clacky keyboard. The LED blinking like it had secrets. The agony of someone reading your message and not replying, and the original "left on read" pain.
And of course, the games. BrickBreaker supremacy. Still undefeated.
7. VGA Cables — a rite of passage for all budding IT support cousins
If you've ever connected a PC to a monitor using a VGA cable without screwing it in properly, you already know the pain of flickering screens and loose connections.
You'd be crawling under the table, full Mission: Impossible mode, trying to fix display issues during a PowerPoint presentation. Respect to the unpaid tech heroes of family gatherings.
8. Cassette Tapes and Walkmans — the original "offline mode"
Before Spotify Premium, we had cassettes. If the tape got tangled? Out came the trusty pencil to "perform surgery". And rewinding? Manual. Tedious. Sacred.
And let's not forget the humble Walkman — chunky, clippy, and zero skip protection. A pothole on the road? Music stopped. Instantly.
9. Dial-Up Modems — the soundtrack of suffering
The screechy, robotic dial-up tone is probably still echoing in your head as we speak. You couldn't be online and use the phone — one or the other. Choose your warrior.
Logging into MSN Messenger felt like hacking into NASA. Worth it, though.
BONUS: Infrared file transfers — patience was truly a virtue
Not exactly a tech device but still worth a mention.
Sending a single song to your friend via infrared meant both of you had to sit with your phones awkwardly touching for 10 minutes. If someone moved? Restart. If the connection dropped? Cry.
But once the file finally sent… chef's kiss. Victory never felt so earned.
