You Know...The Whatchamacallit. Quiz

Answer: trolleys

Oh, yes, and also streetcars, trams, and cable-cars. They are still used in many localities, including San Francisco, California and Boston, Massachusetts, USA, and there are many more in Europe than in the USA. But most municipalities in the USA no longer use trolleys. General Motors and other American automobile manufacturers, along with Standard Oil, bought many streetcar lines, including National City Lines and Pacific City Lines.

They tore up the tracks and converted the lines to bus routes.

This may not be the only reason for the decline of the streetcar, but it was a major factor.

Answer: PDA

Right, it's the PDA or personal digital assistant, also quasi-generically called a palmtop computer. Palm Computing made the PDA all the rage with their Palm Pilot that ran Palm OS. It was invented by Jeff Hawkins, Donna Dubinsky, and Ed Colligan (who also founded Palm). Smart phones and tablets have pretty much rendered the PDA or the palmtop computer obsolete in the 21st century, although the terminology and the devices persisted to a limited extent.

Hewelett-Packard bought Palm in 2010.

Answer: aglet

Of course! The aglet is a great invention! It dates all the way back to ancient Rome and possibly earlier, as a decorative and functional attachment to ribbons (before the invention of the handy-dandy button). Evidently, the first one appeared on shoelaces in 1791. Harvey Kennedy invented the shoelace in 1790, but apparently it didn't occur to him to put one on his laces until a year later. THey used to be a replaceable item, something metallic that cobblers could put on a shoelace when they were repairing shoes.

But in the 21st century they are plastic and not really replaceable; you have to buy an entirely new shoelace. Sometimes progress goes backwards.

Answer: transom

That's right, the transom! Before air-conditioning, this was one of the ways that urban buildings provided for ventilation. Sometimes new buildings of the 21st century have sported this feature in an effort to be "green", and sometimes just because some people like "retro" features in their living or work space.

Answer: pneumatic tubes

Oh, yes, pneumatic tubes! William Murdoch invented this clever system for delivering stuff. At start of the 3rd millennium they were still used in drive-up tellers at banks and supermarkets. Murdoch envisioned using them for delivering small freight across far distance.

"Vacuum tube" properly applies to those tubes that rather resemble incandescent bulbs and were once used in electronic devices such as televisions, radio, and even early computers.

Answer: Super 8

Oh, yes! It was Kodak's "Super 8" (8mm) film in the handheld video cameras. It's 8 mm wide, just like the older "Regular 8" film, but the side perforations are smaller, so the usable area is larger. There were Super 16, Ultra 16, and Super 35 formats, too, but Super 8 is the format that most middle-class families used. The Super 8 cartridges were released in 1965 and were the fastest loading film system at the time; my grandparents could just pop it in without touching the film!

The camera is really quite small. I look closely and I see that my particular model, the Kodak M22, used a Kodak Exanakar Lens and carries its classic "Instamatic" brand name. *Sigh* Who knew even in the 1980s that digital technology would fell this photographic giant?

Answer: Kodachrome

Yes! "Mama, don't take my Kodachrome, and leave your boy so far from home! Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away!" Unfortunately, Kodak didn't listen to Simon & Garfunkel, and they discontinued making the film in 2009. A lab in Kansas processed the last Kodachrome roll in January 2011.

Kodachrome used a color reversal process developed by Kodak in 1935. The processing was very complex, involving a developer containing phenidone and hydroquinone, which formed three superimposed negative images, one for each primary color. Processing required well-trained chemists and large machinery. Well known for its longevity in dark storage, Kodachrome was favored by many professionals for decades, even after the rise of digital photography.

Answer: aerostats

Now I remember! An aerostat is any aircraft that uses a lighter-than-air gas to remain aloft. It includes rigid airships (zeppelins) and non-rigid airships (blimps), which can be powered and steered, as well as hot-air balloons and gas balloons, which are free-moving but unpowered. The U.S. Air Force has deployed aerostats such as the Tethered Aerostat Radar System in Iraq.

An aerostat is distinct from an aeorodyne, which uses aerodynamic lift -- how heavier-than-air craft like fixed-wing aircraft (airplanes) and rotorcraft (helicopters) fly.

Answer: aeronauts

Ahh ... aeronauts! That sounds much better than "balloonist", doesn't it? A famous English aeronaut was Stanley Spencer, who built and flew his airship made of bamboo over London in 1902. Even earlier, Thaddeus Lowe sent a telegram to Abraham Lincoln from a hydrogen balloon (that he had designed) to push for an Aeronautics Corps for the Union Army, mainly for reconnaissance.

He also developed an "oxyhydrogen" arc lamp for use with the balloons, with which he did in fact conduct recon missions in 1862 and 1863.

The term "aeronaut" began to disappear with the rise of the heavier-than-air airplane (no pun intended) and "aviator" became a more desirable profession. But we can bring it back if we try!

Answer: phonograph

Ohhh ... right! Other names in the English-speaking world are gramophone, record player, record changer, and turntable. (Which name was most used at any given time varied from country to country and even from decade to decade.) Audiophiles still prefer the sound of a vinyl record over digital recordings, especially compact discs, and with the invention of laser pickups to read the grooves, wear on the vinyl medium has been minimized.

It's been a busy day, so I'm glad to listen to these old recordings. I just wish I could remember where I put all my records ...