Old technology vs. New
Call me a luddite, but I'm still crazy about old 35mm cameras. I am not sure what it is, but the simplicity of it, coupled with the feel of all senses involved is exciting. Case in point: I have a ~30 year old camera (thanks Bud!) that I shoot with all the time now. Things I like about this camera vs. the digital SLRs (sub-pro) I've tried:
- Instant shot. No waiting around for the camera to figure out that it's supposed to shoot, figuring out light exposure, etc, and then capturing. You hit the button, the picture is done.
- It's heavy. I can shoot slow speed stuff, as long as I'm careful, and it'll come out pretty good for the most part.
- The lenses I have for it have a nice quality feel to them. New cameras I've tried in the sub-pro level are very "plasticky" feeling. (I do know that I can take the lenses I use now and use them in certain brands of digital SLRs)
- Very simple to operate. Here's the list of settings: f-stop, shutter speed, focus, ISO setting. That's it, that's the list.
- "Feels good" in the hands.
I have used a couple cameras that would be considered pro or pretty close to pro. And while they do have all the bells and whistles, they are meant to have full manual control if asked.
The real point to all of this are these questions:
- What other type of technology do the geeks out there use that is ~30 years old that we can't seem to part with?
- Is this because people in our age group are spanning the big analog to digital conversion of our society and can't let go?
- Seeing as how fast technology turns over today, what types of things exist today that people will still be using in 30 years in its current form?
well, my big analog thing is PAPER.
i write/draw all my ideas for stuff with sharpies on a big sketchpad.
when i storyboard, i storyboard all my working/developing ideas on sticky notes that i move around on the big sketch pad.
this technology will never fade because it is infinitely configurable and there is simply no learning curve.
it's also very quiet, portable and user friendly in the way that only a blank sheet of paper can be. if only your friends were so unassuming.
it certainly has its drawbacks, like getting it wet, backing it up is not really easy and dissemination is kinda time-consuming: i scan the things to .pdf and such.
still, there is something [like with your camera fetish] that just, i dunno - - FEELS good. it's instantly gratifying and i can create text and images straight from my mind without the clunkiness of some human interface device, which all have a loooong way to go IMHO.
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answer to the first and last question:
tube amps! i'm mostly referring to guitar/bass amps..., but go to any quality recording studio and you'll find tubes in everything. not to mention 'hi-fi' stereo equipment..., though I think 'hi-fi' equipment may be all but gone in 30 years (i'm going to start another topic on a somewhat related note). i think electric musicians will always find the sound of tube amps way superior and natural compared to digital and solid-state technology.
And actually this has always confused me. For effects, it seems that since the output waveform of the amplifier is running at most about 20kHz any sort of processor / DSP around today would be able to handle any sort sound you want to throw at it. I think the trick then becomes converting the sound you want to hear into the digital representation.
For the amplification side, solid state FET / MOSFET / JFET should be at that level where you can get an extremely accurate amplification profile across the whole 20 - 20kHz audio spectrum, so all the brains should be in the effects side (aka make this sound like a fender, etc). Couple this with an array of speakers and you should be golden.
Reviews:
In short, it appears that tube amps were/are typically better in over-drive distorted mode, but I seem to hear rumblings that this is changing, that there are recent and better designs using solid state amplifiers that can accurately reproduce the tube waveform.
One thing about newer digital technology that works "better" than mechanical devices is that if designed correctly, digital devices can be self diagnosing, and let you know which part has failed. Sadly, consumer grade products typically don't provide this information to the operator in a manner which is easy to decipher (from Officespace: "PC Load Letter, WTF does that mean?"), or my favorite, the blinking red LED. Case in point, car computers can let you know which sensor isn't sending data, etc.