There’s nothing like an advert for a spurious technological product in black and white to make you realise just how much progress we’ve made as a tech society. Whether it’s bizarre contraptions for making phone calls or lighting products that barely look safe, it’s fair to say that we’ve all got a heck of a lot more access to reliable tech now.
Still, there’s a lot of fun and interest to be found in surveying images ofold techand reminding ourselves of how things used to be. That’s whereConcept Talk’s Instagram feedcomes in - it’s full of amazing photos from days gone by. We’ve combed through it to find some amazing photographs for your browsing pleasure.
Pimp my ride
This tech promised to add masses of lighting to your bicycle. Stay seen, stay safe.
Bikes, compared to cars at least, haven’t changed nearly so much - after all, the core technology can only come on so far. That said, it’s been a while since we saw a lighting option for a bicycle quite like this one, which straps a frankly astonishing number of bulbs to your bike. If people were concerned about being seen when it was dark, this certainly would have solved the problem.
Operator, please
A vision from the past of what the future might look like. Incredibly and amusingly far off the mark.
This is a photo so farfetched as to look amusing, but this idea of how people might look if fashion changed drastically, while telecommunications technology stayed bafflingly static, makes for an amusing collage of concepts.
Space commander
This is one hilarious concept vision of what space suits might look like. Highly impractical.
Similarly, this isn’t an actual design or prototype of a spacesuit, as we’d hope would be obvious, but even as an exploration of what suits could one day look like, it’s amusing how far off-base it is.
Communal listening
How else do you get eight kids to listen to the same source of audio?
We’d like to say that easy headphone splitting has become way easier since this image, but it amusingly hasn’t really, at least not if you still want eight kids to listen to the same source of audio. Still, whatever solution exist are probably a damn sight smaller, at least.
Spin the decks
One of the most ostentatious record player designs we’ve seen. With turntables housed inside a massive marble egg.
This might be the most ostentatious record player we’ve ever seen - a set of decks embedded in what can only be described as a giant marble egg, it’s just about one of the ugliest bits of interior decor on record, we think.
Social isolation
A concept of future life that shows everyone in bubbles. Doesn’t seem so far fetched in the current climate.
People’s imagined versions of the future always make for fascinating comparisons after the fact, and this painting from Italy is a perfect example. Its vision of isolated individuals zipping around in personal vehicles that seal them off from the rest of society is, on the one hand, far-fetched, but also bears at least a passing resemblance to some aspects of how we live now.
Green skies
People liked to imagine what our cities would look like decades into the future, and these predictions often skew towards the optimistic.
People also liked to imagine what our cities would look like decades into the future, and these predictions seem, for whatever reason, to often skew towards the optimistic.
Hence you get ideas like this one, which posited that the skyscrapers shooting up in cities around the globe would all be topped by gardens to lessen their environmental and visual impact. Sadly, this hasn’t really proven true.
Future aesthetics
Cars reflect our times more than we sometimes realise. This retro 1970s Ford design is a testament to that fact.
Cars reflect our times more than we sometimes realise - their designs and looks are generally tied to the sort of tech that we as a society are purchasing and hankering for. Now wonder, then, that this Ford model looks so funky - it’s from the 70s and we just can’t get enough of that colourful stripe.
Neon demon
From the 1930s, this neon salesman’s case is a great example of how futuristic some real retro technology can be.
Going all the way back to 1930, this neon salesman’s case is a great example of how futuristic some real retro technology can be - the way these tubes are powered is so low-fi that most of us would struggle to comprehend it. What’s obvious, though, is that it has a gorgeous look and feel to it, sure to be a collector’s item nowadays.
Rolling out
This might just be the coolest vehicle of any type that we’ve seen in quite some time, but the fact that it was built in the 1930s makes it almost jaw-dropping.
We can see the reasons why this didn’t spread to become a normal sort of thing to own, but that’s still a crying shame.
