It can be amusing to think about those things we once thought so very cool, things that are rapidly fading from our lives.

You know what I’m talking about - the full-sized spare tire, 8-track tapes and programs that would convince your computer that your monochrome monitor was actually full color. Admittedly, that last one is pretty obscure, but I remember being back in college and buying my first computer. It had a 20 MB hard drive (it’s all you’ll ever need, my advisor/friend told me) and a monochrome monitor. The only way I could play the game, 688 Attack Sub, was to install a small color emulator program.

Enough of my little trip into the past. There’s a funny article at PCWorld.com, looking at 40 obsolete technologies - things that are either endangered or have all but disappeared from our world.

Here are a few:

• Hearing the Sound of a Modem Connecting: (Status: Nearly deceased.)  How a familiar series of sounds could simultaneously be so grating and so gratifying is a mystery that man may never unlock. Jonesing for a fix? Try the 56K Modem Emulator.
• Making Someone a Real Mix Tape: (Status: Deceased.)  Web sites like Mixtape.com and Songza may attempt to fill the void, but the art of laboring over a custom-made mix tape tailored for a special occasion or a special person–as romanticized by John Cusack’s character in High Fidelity –seems to have gone the way of electrical appliance repair and blacksmithing. It’s a damn shame, too, because mix tapes made great gifts for dates (and by “great” I mean “potentially highly prized by the recipient and yet incredibly cheap and easy to assemble”).
• Dialing on a Rotary Phone: (Status: Nearly deceased.)  The ease of touchtone dialing has made active use of rotary phones a novelty, though it isn’t clear whether those old Bell Telephone models will ever become truly rare, since they were built to withstand thermonuclear attack. In any case, mimes may never let the motion go from their repertoire.
• Booting Up to a C:\ Prompt: (Status: Nearly deceased.)  DOS, we’ll always fondly remember seeing your blinking prompt upon boot-up. Rest in peace, dear friend.
• Holding Up a Lighter at a Concert:  (Status: Showing signs of illness.)  Listening to a power ballad in a dimly lit stadium without a sea of gently undulating lighters for company is like spending time at Twitter without a sea of social media experts offering their insights and informed criticism: Something about it doesn’t feel right. Sure, holding up thousands of illuminated cell phones might be safer–but even if the phones have virtual lighter apps installed, it just isn’t the same.