Period
The nineteenth century brought steam power, factory production, and the first practical uses of electricity. Telegraph wires, photography, and machines for the office and the shop appeared, and many everyday systems began to be standardized, tying distant places together for the first time in a lasting way.
Placed by when the older technology emerged. Many of these stayed in wide use long afterward.
Work and Productivity
Manual Drafting compared with Computer-Aided Design
Before screens, a design existed as ink on paper, copied by light and chemistry. Computer-aided design turned the drawing into editable data. This article…
Transportation
Paper Timetables compared with Real-Time Transit Apps
A printed timetable promises when a train should arrive; a transit app also reports where the vehicle is right now. This article compares the…
Access and Infrastructure
Paper Tickets compared with Mobile Passes
A ticket is a small promise that you paid and may enter. Paper made that promise something you could hold, tear and hand over…
Communication
Fax Machines compared with Digital Document Sharing
A fax machine sends a picture of a page over a phone line, and a shared file sends the page itself. The gap between…
Communication
Telegraphs compared with Instant Messaging
For most of history a message could travel no faster than the messenger carrying it. The telegraph broke that limit with wires and clicks…
Photography and Media
Photo Albums compared with Cloud Photo Libraries
A bound album holds a few hundred chosen prints; a cloud library holds a lifetime of automatic uploads. This article compares how each stores…
Work and Productivity
Typewriters compared with Word Processors
On a typewriter, a typo was a permanent fact of the page. On a word processor, the page is only a draft until it…
Communication
Telephone Exchanges compared with Internet Calling
A telephone exchange builds a dedicated path for each call, first by hand and later by machine. Internet calling instead cuts speech into small…
Home Technology
Incandescent Bulbs compared with LEDs
One bulb makes light by getting extremely hot; the other makes it by moving electrons across a semiconductor junction. That single difference explains most…
Work and Productivity
Mechanical Cash Registers compared with Point-of-Sale Systems
The first cash register was built to keep honest books, and the ring of its bell was part of the design. Modern point-of-sale systems…
Home Technology
Analog Thermostats compared with Smart Thermostats
A school janitor walking from room to room adjusting dampers led to one of the first automatic room thermostats. More than a century later…
Transportation
Carburetors compared with Fuel Injection
Gasoline burns as a vapor, not as a liquid, so every engine needs a way to turn fuel into a fine mist and blend…
Photography and Media
Film Cameras compared with Digital Cameras
One kind of camera records light as a chemical change on a strip of plastic; the other turns it into numbers. This article follows…
Information Storage
Punch Cards compared with Solid-State Storage
One card, one row of holes, roughly one line of text. Today's flash storage holds vastly more in something smaller than a stick of…
