BBC: Tech that refuses to die

The exciting thing about technology is that it's always changing. Can you remember when computer floppy disks, hand-held Game Boys, and fax  machines were in fashion? Do you still have a Walkman cassette player from the 1980s?

Today technology progresses so quickly that old tech soom becomes obsolete, no longer in use having been replaced by something better or more fashionable. 

So, you might be surprised to hear thatn until recently the government of Japan still used three and-a-half inch floppy disks to store official documents: that around the world, music cassettes and Walkkmans are making a comeback; and that even the world-famous Swiss CERN physics laboratory uses old-fashioned magnetic tape reels to record its data. 

Yes, it seems that some old technology just refuses to die-maybe because people still love it, or maybe because of the old English proverb, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, meaning that things should only be changed if they don't work. So, in this programme, we'll be hearing about old tech which continues to be used today. And, as usual, we'll be learning some useful new vocabulary as well. 

But first I have a question for you, Georgei. Computers have seen some of the biggest advances in technology. But what was the name of the first computer developed for home use in the UK? Was it:

a) the Commodore 64    b) the Sinclair ZX80    or    c)  the BBC Micro?

Hmm, I'll guess it was the Commodore 64.

OK, Georgie, we'll find out if that's the correct answer later in the programme. One reason for not updating tech is if the original design still works well. NASA engineer, Jonathan Sauder, designed HAR-V, a mechanical rover able to survive the inhospitable  conditions on Venus where temperatures reach 460C. Here's Jonathan talking to BBC World Service programme. Tech Life:

...Venus has a very long night. It;s actually about 60 days long that you're in total darkness. So that's where we came up with the concept for HAR-V: a mechanical clockwork rover that could be powered by Venus's winds in order to allow it to survive Venus's long hot nights. 

Conditions on Venus mean that ordinary electronics simply won't work. That's why Jonathan built a clockwork rover, a machine with springs and wheels inside which works when it's wound up with a key. Clockwork technology from the 1st century being used in 2024 by NASA!

Other thec which refuses to die is just too much trouble to change. For example, contries around the world use different electrical plugs which would be better to standardise- but imagine the work involved! Here, Chris Vallance, presenter of BBC World Service's, Tech Life, discusses a similar example with Dr Tacye Phillpson, science curator at the National Mseum of Scotland:

Another piece of tech that people say has sort of refused to die is the QWERTY keyboard, the layout of keyboards that we all have, and is perhaps not the most efficient layout in terms of the speed of typing. 

It's teh layout we're all really, really used to though, and if you see court reporters, stenographers, they have special keyboards and can type so fast to takedown verbatim, but they also look very complicated, I don't actually want to learn to use one of those so I'll stick with QWERTY for the moment. 

Chris and Tacye discussed QWERTY, the traditional typewriter arrangement of keys on a computer keyboard in which the top line begins with the letter q,w,e.r.t and y. In terms of being able to type quickly, QWERY isn't the best- in fact, court reporters type much faster with alternative keyboards. Court reporters need to type fast to record  cases verbatim, using exactly the same words that were originally spoken.