Going Retro

Going retro.

When people say going retro, they usually means something like flared jeans, bad nightclubs, big hair styles, strange guitar riffs & are highly wasted trousers that quite literally go up to the neck.

When you say the word retro, people tend to think of the seventies or even the 80s. The time when FedEx was King and an apple was a fruit.
To me the word retro wrote means something completely different.

In fact as of late I’ve been thinking about many past memories and experiences, have me yearning for some of the times in my youth.
Don’t ask me why, but over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking an awful lot about my past. Like the time I lusted after that big bulky cassette player, or the time when I came home to reckless Rick playing on the record player. Yes even I am “Just” old enough to remember LP’s!

In fact I still have a good bunch of them downstairs underneath the old record player that my father owned. In fact I still have that old cassette player that I saw on television. I still have my first MP3 player! I’m pretty sure I even have a few floppy disks still laying about.
But why is it lately, I’ve been thinking more and more about my past. About the old technology I used to have and lust after?

Perhaps it’s because of a new job in IT. Perhaps it’s because every day I’m surrounded by the latest technology with more bells and whistles than you can shake a stick at. Perhaps it’s because every now and then, I still pick up that old cassette player, plonk in a few AA battery’s and listen to an old cassette.

Perhaps it’s because every now and then I wind up the turntable, and played Jeff Wayne’s war of the world’s. In all its musical Glory, bellowing out with that soft muted Dolby tone.
I’m not sure I can completely explain why I feel the way I do about technology these days.

I’m not sure I even want to understand why I feel this way. All I know, is that I am enjoying reliving some old experiences.

Sometimes it’s nice to listen to that old tape I recorded off of the radio, with all of its crackling and hissing, and though soft imperfections that you can only get whilst listening to a tape.

Don’t get me wrong, I love listening to my music in high definition. I love the way that MP3 players have made things easy for us, and that you can listen to even the most audacious song in crystal clarity.
It’s never really been an issue for me until now.

A few years ago, I would have complained if someone gave me the option of listening to a tape rather than listening to my MP 3 player or even my CD player.

I would have wanted that crystal clarity that comes with a CD, the somewhat sterile sound that you can get sometimes. I would have preferred playing the latest game like quake, rather than playing an old retro classic like tetris. I would have preferred to be playing again on the latest technology that I had in my computer, and picking up the archaic game boy that sits in its bag even today.

True, had I been forced to I would have played with it for some time, before getting bored and moving on to the more high tech stuff that I owned.

Even now with my car, I sometimes lust after the simplicity that came with my old car. With its big carburettor, spark plugs and distributor rather than the precise fuel injection I have today along with its glow plugs and coil pack.

Even though the new technology is far more reliable, and far safer, there’s something about old technology that just, feels, like it should. I suppose that’s why over the last few days, the Tetris theme has been running in and out of my mind.

Those four or five simple chords, running around over and over again almost begging some childish instinct in me to play. I even found myself the other day, wanting to write rather than type or speak.
True things like voice recognition have come a long way, I’m even writing this entire blog Post now using voice recognition.

It’s also true that keyboard technology has come a long way. Gone are the days of notchy keys, strange brown or yellow stains and the tendency for the odd key to simply not work.

There is no denying that technology has become far more than simple transistors or valves. Technology has become intelligent, refined and usable for everyone.
But every now and then, it’s still nice to pick up that old cassette player and push the button that physically moves something inside the machine. Sometimes it’s nice to hear that tape whirr into action as the familiar hiss comes crackling through your earphones.

When I think of retro I’d tend to think of all things like this, rather than big hair, boom boxes & very bad hair styles. I’d still prefer kitt from Knight rider, to any of the new technology that comes out in the real world to prove certain things are possible. Retro for me, was all about technology and fantasy, rather than drugs or disco.

The technology for me, was in those old cassette players, or even those old record players. The fantasy for me was feeling like that piece of technology was alive. Even when I first started photography, my first camera was an old Russian machine. It was beautiful. It was a mix of leather and cast metal. It was a piece of technology that I knew if I had thrown it down a gorge, or dropped it on to the pavement, I would still be able to feel the shutter snap open as the spring bounced inside the button.

New technology simply does not have that. True you can make an iPod feel chunky and stylish, you can even make it feel heavy and recapture some of that old machinery with a hard drive sitting inside it that whirrs into life. You can make almost any piece of new technology feel a little bit like the old days. You can give anything chunky buttons to move fake switches to try and recapture some of that old technology feel, you can even make games in the older retro style. Complete with eight bit sound and cheesy graphics.

You can even make movies that had the sense of scale older films like dune or the old stargate film. You can give them that sense of perspective that you just don’t seem to get in the new movies. Everything nowadays seems to be controlled, clean, sterile.
I work in technology, and so I know how important things have become. I know how important it is to have a touch screen technology, or a phone that will do everything for you. I applaud it! I even support it and want to see more of it.

But even now, on this home built computer, I still miss my old Atari and the way the keys would clunk and click. Right now I am sat here with an earpiece and microphone attached to my head, as I dictate this blog Post. But I will never forget the feeling of writing something on paper.
I know it sounds silly, perhaps even a little worrying. But there are many things that I miss. I would never give up some of the technology that I have gained, or the things I have learnt. I would never give up my expensive keyboard or mouse. I would probably never go back to a cassette player or the days when making something to listen to in my car would take an evening’s work at the very least!

But I think it’s all right every now and then to think about the things in the past that inspired us. But for me when I think of retro I think if everything I have just mentioned was what everyone thought of, we wouldn’t be where we are today.

Maybe that isn’t such a bad thing, maybe it is. One thing I do know however, is that the moment I finish writing this post, I will more than likely go on to twitter, put on my expensive headphones and open iTunes whilst selecting new music that inspires me in other ways. I somehow doubt that I will get nostalgic, and pull out at old cassette player and listen to the old tape I have of the Moon landing or that album by the shadows.

Technology has taken us far and it’s a good thing. But it’s nice to remember some of the technology that we used to love and lust after.