• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Things that used to be common place in people’s homes

Status
Not open for further replies.

Journeyman

Established Member
Joined
16 Apr 2014
Messages
6,295
Regarding kettles, I can remember the days that when the element had worn out, it could easily be replaced.

Nowadays, you have to toss the kettle out and purchase a whole new one, which contributes to extra landfill waste.

Another small example of how the country has ended up in the terrible state it is in these days.
The EU has recently passed legislation that will force manufacturers to make appliances easier to repair, and make spares available to customers.

Just as well we got out, eh? *eyeroll*
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

swt_passenger

Veteran Member
Joined
7 Apr 2010
Messages
31,261
Regarding kettles, I can remember the days that when the element had worn out, it could easily be replaced.

Nowadays, you have to toss the kettle out and purchase a whole new one, which contributes to extra landfill waste.

Another small example of how the country has ended up in the terrible state it is in these days.
I remember changing them a few times, would have been early 70s I think? The safety cutout pushed the connector out of the kettle, they didn’t usually have a switch either, IIRC?

It’s annoying me that I can’t really remember the changeover happening, I wonder how long it took?

That's a positive move - whether Boris implements it for the UK would remain to be seen.
All the news about it in the last few days says they are going to...
 

Romsey

Member
Joined
30 Nov 2019
Messages
334
Location
Near bridge 200
Desktop PCs. Pretty much everyone I know uses laptops and/or tablets, unless they've got a Mac.
I beg to differ, quite a few people do use desktops.
I suffered two dead laptops in my final four years at work. This is being typed using a 10 year old desk top with a different screen and on it's third keyboard. Upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10. Both daughters reckon a laptop will just about last doing three year degree course plus a year for luck. Elder daughter is finishing her PhD and thinks it is touch and go whether the lap top will survive.

We have got a good IT repair company in the next town and their advice is buy a desktop if you have the space, they are much more reliable for the equivalent processor and memory. Basically there is enough space inside for ventilation to circulate and keep the components cool and the fan is less likely to be clogged with dust. If a circuit board does die it can be replaced as it isn't soldered into one lump.

Tablets are OK for casual browsing but not creating and editing documents or spreadsheets.
 

takno

Established Member
Joined
9 Jul 2016
Messages
5,037
I beg to differ, quite a few people do use desktops.
I suffered two dead laptops in my final four years at work. This is being typed using a 10 year old desk top with a different screen and on it's third keyboard. Upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10. Both daughters reckon a laptop will just about last doing three year degree course plus a year for luck. Elder daughter is finishing her PhD and thinks it is touch and go whether the lap top will survive.

We have got a good IT repair company in the next town and their advice is buy a desktop if you have the space, they are much more reliable for the equivalent processor and memory. Basically there is enough space inside for ventilation to circulate and keep the components cool and the fan is less likely to be clogged with dust. If a circuit board does die it can be replaced as it isn't soldered into one lump.

Tablets are OK for casual browsing but not creating and editing documents or spreadsheets.
I've never owned a desktop. I do generally only get 4 years out of a laptop, but then by that time they are pretty much obsolete for my purposes anyway - friends and family have often got a couple more years use out of them, so . In practice the majority of my work and life can be done from a tablet or even a phone though, including spreadsheets and documents. Outside of gaming rigs the number of desktops being sold now is tiny.
 

Journeyman

Established Member
Joined
16 Apr 2014
Messages
6,295
I've never owned a desktop. I do generally only get 4 years out of a laptop, but then by that time they are pretty much obsolete for my purposes anyway - friends and family have often got a couple more years use out of them, so . In practice the majority of my work and life can be done from a tablet or even a phone though, including spreadsheets and documents. Outside of gaming rigs the number of desktops being sold now is tiny.
They used to be common in offices, but the last couple of places I've worked have issued staff with laptops, and provided docking stations at desks, so you can take advantage of better keyboard, mouse and large monitor.
 

najaB

Veteran Member
Joined
28 Aug 2011
Messages
30,691
Location
Scotland
Outside of gaming rigs the number of desktops being sold now is tiny.
Depends on where you look. Smaller than it used to be, but far from tiny.

They used to be common in offices, but the last couple of places I've worked have issued staff with laptops, and provided docking stations at desks, so you can take advantage of better keyboard, mouse and large monitor.
That depends on what the business does. Call centers, for example, tend to still use desktop machines as the need to mobility is very low. Everyone in my office is issued with a laptop on joining but most of the developers and support people have at least one other desktop for testing/running VMs.
 

adrock1976

Established Member
Joined
10 Dec 2013
Messages
4,450
Location
What's it called? It's called Cumbernauld
Although more for the "Companies you expect to disappear" thread, something that both my mum and my grandmother used to have as a laundry aid was Bio-Tex prewash powder.

I have not seen that for years - not even in the likes of Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrison's, etc.
 

dgl

Established Member
Joined
5 Oct 2014
Messages
2,390
The two pin connectors are also used on some computers too, my Mac mini uses one.

It won't be the two pin connector you are thinking about, this is not a "figure of 8" connector or a "kettle" lead missing the earth pin, this is a rounded rectangular connector rated at 5A see: https://www.thomann.de/gb/schulz_nrk2.htm
11264001.jpg


As for the previous style of kettle connector, there was also the one used on Russel Hobbs coffee percolators, D shaped and had round pins rather than the flat pins used by "kettle" leads.
 

takno

Established Member
Joined
9 Jul 2016
Messages
5,037
Depends on where you look. Smaller than it used to be, but far from tiny.

That depends on what the business does. Call centers, for example, tend to still use desktop machines as the need to mobility is very low. Everyone in my office is issued with a laptop on joining but most of the developers and support people have at least one other desktop for testing/running VMs.
Are your laptops not capable of running your dev/test VMs? I know one of my team has a desktop, although that's strictly a gaming rig. Everybody else is strictly laptop only, and apart from the guy who's in love with his 6 year-old MacBook they can all run the full stack just fine.

I know a lot of less startuppy businesses were very much in the habit of buying desktops, but my impression was that even that had switched to laptops in the past year. Either way the domestic market is pretty small.

Anyway, this is way off topic. I'm enjoying the shocking realisation that I've lived through two full standards for plugging in kettles, 4 for charging phones, and about 5 for plugging in TVs. One day I will get round to emptying my spare cable box, and it's possible that the sheer waste of plastic and copper will trigger environmental Armageddon
 

Busaholic

Veteran Member
Joined
7 Jun 2014
Messages
14,029
Buying the Encyclopaedia Britannica was probably why they couldn't afford to have the heating on!

Although harder to do, you'd have been warmer lying above the radiator - heat rises... :D

When I bought an established bookshop in 1988, all the orders/sales in the month before the sale were supposed to accrue to me. I later found out that the sale of a set of Encyclopaedia Britannica at £1500 had been withheld from the records by the previous owner, of which £300 would have been pure profit. Near thirty years later, when I finally(?) retired, I was no nearer to ever making that amount of profit from any transaction!
 

najaB

Veteran Member
Joined
28 Aug 2011
Messages
30,691
Location
Scotland
Are your laptops not capable of running your dev/test VMs? I know one of my team has a desktop, although that's strictly a gaming rig.
Most business laptops max out at 16 or 32 GB of RAM. Many of the desktops have 128 or.more.
 

antharro

Member
Joined
20 Dec 2006
Messages
597
Read the first few pages of this and thought I'd post a list of stuff I still have in my house. :)

VCR
B&W TV
Hifi
Hifi separates
DVD player
Gramophone (valves)
Desktop PC (multiple)
Modem*
Standalone A4 scanner
Reel to reel tape recorder
Lava lamp
Radio alarm clock
Hardwired landline
More than one BT plug in the house

Separate hot and cold water taps throughout the house (except the kitchen sink)
Separate washer / dryer
Outside toilet

Mug tree
Larder
Hostess trolley
Drinks cabinet
Electric plate warmer

Wood fireplace
Coal scuttle
Boxes of matches

Carriage clock

Yellow pages
Thompson Local

Electric blankets
Electric bar heaters in bathrooms with pull switch

Artex

Telephone table (sold it recently though)

*It's worth noting though that modern broadband still uses a modem, regardless of whether it's cable or ADSL, so most of us still still use a modem!
 

dgl

Established Member
Joined
5 Oct 2014
Messages
2,390
Can you still get spares these days?
Depends on the valves in question, there is still a lot of NOS around plus some of the amplification tubes found use in guitar amps and as such are still being made. Though they don't fail all that often in simple stuff like radios, the Bush VHF64 at my grans still works fine yet it's never knowingly had a valve change (although it probably spent most of it's life in the loft).
 

eoff

Member
Joined
15 Aug 2020
Messages
441
Location
East Lothian
That's somewhat interesting since, AFAIK, SCART only carries analogue signals so I thought it would basically have died when analogue TV died.
I think it was the demise of CRTs that made digital connections more attractive.
 

Energy

Established Member
Joined
29 Dec 2018
Messages
4,418
*It's worth noting though that modern broadband still uses a modem, regardless of whether it's cable or ADSL, so most of us still still use a modem
Ignoring the lucky people who get fibre all the way to their home (the one which comes down a phone line is not fibre) who use a fancy box called an ONT, everyone uses a modem its just built into their router.
 

eoff

Member
Joined
15 Aug 2020
Messages
441
Location
East Lothian
Ignoring the lucky people who get fibre all the way to their home (the one which comes down a phone line is not fibre) who use a fancy box called an ONT, everyone uses a modem its just built into their router.
I think you will find that an ONT is a modem.
 

Energy

Established Member
Joined
29 Dec 2018
Messages
4,418
I think you will find that an ONT is a modem.
Just checked and you are correct, its just that modem is more commonly for coax and phone lines. Does mean that a seperate modem is common, just a fibre one.
 

najaB

Veteran Member
Joined
28 Aug 2011
Messages
30,691
Location
Scotland
Just checked and you are correct, its just that modem is more commonly for coax and phone lines. Does mean that a seperate modem is common, just a fibre one.
There will be a modulate/demodulate device any time a signal needs to change medium. So Ethernet to xDSL/DOCSIS or fibre will require a modem, the only question is if it is a separate device or embedded in the (b)router.
 

Peter Sarf

Established Member
Joined
12 Oct 2010
Messages
5,630
Location
Croydon
Talk of kettles reminds me. I have not seen a kettle that goes directly on the cooker for a long time. Well I own one for my camping stove but that is it.
I beg to differ, quite a few people do use desktops.
I suffered two dead laptops in my final four years at work. This is being typed using a 10 year old desk top with a different screen and on it's third keyboard. Upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10. Both daughters reckon a laptop will just about last doing three year degree course plus a year for luck. Elder daughter is finishing her PhD and thinks it is touch and go whether the lap top will survive.

We have got a good IT repair company in the next town and their advice is buy a desktop if you have the space, they are much more reliable for the equivalent processor and memory. Basically there is enough space inside for ventilation to circulate and keep the components cool and the fan is less likely to be clogged with dust. If a circuit board does die it can be replaced as it isn't soldered into one lump.

Tablets are OK for casual browsing but not creating and editing documents or spreadsheets.
I am using a second hand Thinkpad X230. Deliberately chosen for its reliability. But I do believe desktop computers suffer less with cooling problems. Particularly tower cases. And in both cases anything that fails can be replaced or upgraded. The onward march of software is what leads to the throwaway laptops.
 

Mcr Warrior

Veteran Member
Joined
8 Jan 2009
Messages
11,648
Talk of kettles reminds me. I have not seen a kettle that goes directly on the cooker for a long time.
Still available. Argos has a few. Other retailers are available. Referred to as "stove top" or "gas hob" kettles.

Probably no longer all that popular given that they invariably seem to take ages to come to the boil.
 

Peter Sarf

Established Member
Joined
12 Oct 2010
Messages
5,630
Location
Croydon
Still available. Argos has a few. Other retailers are available. Referred to as "stove top" or "gas hob" kettles.

Probably no longer all that popular given that they invariably seem to take ages to come to the boil.
And, if no whistle, end up boiling dry sooner or later !.
 

najaB

Veteran Member
Joined
28 Aug 2011
Messages
30,691
Location
Scotland
I am using a second hand Thinkpad X230. Deliberately chosen for its reliability. But I do believe desktop computers suffer less with cooling problems. Particularly tower cases. And in both cases anything that fails can be replaced or upgraded.
Desktop machines - other than ones that use OEM-specific components - are usually easier to repair/upgrade than their laptop kin due to the standardisation of components and interfaces. A PCIe slot is a PCIe slot and will take just about any PCIe graphics/adaptor card and an ATX case will take just about any ATX motherboard, etc. The same often can't be said of laptops.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top