My August on eBay

It’s another month and time for another mandatory monthly post. A lot has happened to me in the past month. Apart from my first days as an amateur art teacher and my long list of home improvements (which mostly involve building bookcases I bought from B&Q and moving A LOT of books), the 5th August 2017 will be remembered as the day of a significant milestone in my life … the day I first bought something on eBay.

Friends and regular readers will know that I have a thing for technology. I am fascinated by human ingenuity in all its guises. Gadgets, buildings, magic tricks, cons, works of art, special effects, music, movies, you name it. If a human made it, I’m interested.

This is why I’m kind of annoyed by some who believe the pyramids were built by aliens, and not fellow humans. Such thinking sells our species short, in the same way a lot of men claim the credit of work by women over the years. Maybe that’s why they are not many female conspiracy theorists and “flat-earthers.” Although I could be wrong about that, due to the stereotype (and a stereotype that is rarely bashed by the PC police, for some reason.).

Anyway, I find technology interesting. And not just the new stuff you find on sale
I find older technology more interesting, due to what people managed I to do with the limitations of their day. It’s not a surprise that high number of videos I watch on YouTube are of the subject of old devices and technology. I am a regular viewer of a number of channels that deal with this subject (Tech Moan, 8-bit Guy, Oddity Archive, Nostalgia Nerd, the teardown videos on the EEV Blog and Lazy Game Reviews, to name a few).

I find their videos easier to digest than dull technical text in old books, which makes researching for my computer book much easier (and fun).

For years (maybe since I discovered that book) I had always had the curious itch to take things apart to see inside them. I have always taken apart ballpoint pens because of this. Since then I have taken apart a few flashlights, two calculators, a radio cassette player, a VCR and (recently) my dad’s old PC from the mid-1990s.

For years I have developed ideas involving tinkering with such old devices, even using them in works of art. And in August 2017 the first step in those ideas becoming reality was made. On 5th August 2017, I bought my first piece of vintage technology on eBay… a typewriter.

(I actually bought an old Pentax SLR camera a while earlier through Amazon, but I call the typewriter purchase more significant because it was bought directly through eBay, starting the habit in bidding for other pieces of old technology. You be amazed at the price some people were selling stuff you might think be worth much more, especially as “job lots.”)

For a rough idea about the pricing of collectable things (and how things can change over time), watch this video from The 8-Bit Guy….

Are apple iBook laptops collector's items yet?

  - 8-Bit Guy (2015)

His last point is one reason for my “madness.” This stuff my not stay that cheap for long. What may have been dirty cheap years ago could now be fetching prices of over $100… or even more.

By the time of this publication I have amassed a small collection of devices from the late-20th century. This includes….

• A few cameras
• Two 1980s VCRs (which are surprisingly big!)
• A Super 8 movie projector (as seen above)
• A Psion II pocket organiser from 1986
• And a Mini Disc player.

For now, I’m going to stop using eBay for the time being, before I bankrupt myself and fill my home with old devices that have not much resale value to most people. My collect contains enough to satisfy my curiosity for a while.

So, why do it? Seeing pictures and videos of old things is one thing, but having examples I can play with is something else. Remember asking for an amazing toy you saw in a shop or on TV and asking your parents to get it for you and they say “no,” because it’s too expensive? Same thing here. And asides, how many can say they have in their procession a Betamax video recorder?

My New Phone

And now... another meaningless post made to give the impression that I'm still alive. Busy with other things. But don't worry, normal service will assume... eventually.

Until then let me tell you about my new phone. 2017 is turning out to be my busiest year. So much so I made a big decision ... I need to get a new mobile phone.

I can explain my decision by showing you a picture of my previous phone... a Nokia E5.

My Nokia E5

(excuse the tiger wallpaper)

Purchased from the Carphone Warehouse in December 2010 this phone has served me well. At the time I bought it touchscreen-based smartphones were still relatively new, so they were still phones physical keypads and keyboards (like Blackberrys and my old Nokia) on sale. I wanted a phone with keyboard, as I found texting with a traditional keypad annoying. It also had a 5 megapixel camera (which I have used a lot, because you only need a minimum of 4 megapixels for print quality images) and had internet connectivity through 3G. 

Some of you may be asking why didn't I upgrade earlier? I mean, I bought it in 2010. Why didn't I get a new phone until 2017? The answer is simple.... Do you know what goes into making such devices? Have you ever taken one apart and seen all that plastic and exotic metals?

Blackberry Curve 8520 tear-down 

from Visual Dictionary (2011)

Making a phone requires a lot of energy and a number of materials from all over the world, including lithium for its battery. They are (basically) nearly inseparable "toxic" piles of gold and silver leaf. And it doesn't help that many are made to have a lifespan of just a year or so (if you could afford to buy the latest model every year or so). 

According to this article, if I had thrown away my Nokia when most people would have done, I would have added a few extra grams to the 1.3 million tonne British share of the 48.9 million tonnes of e-waste that was generated worldwide in 2012. (And it said that this will increase by over 60 tonnes by 2017). 

I am not most people. I have kept my phone going as long as possible. Although it was dropped a couple of times in its life it still worked (even with a crack in one corner of the casing). 

However, this year proved to the point that it was time to upgrade. You see the Nokia was able to access the web wirelessly and I was able to use that function for a year or so after buying it.... until it stopped doing so and gave the excuse of "insufficient memory." I didn't know at the time that my Nokia only had 256 MB of RAM. This amount of RAM was typical for a phone at the time, but if I knew at the time, I would have been disappointed, because (at the same time) the RAM in laptops were in the Gigabytes! 256 MB was considered "a lot" in desktop computers in the year 2000. My phone had the same amount of memory as a high-spec Power Mac G4 from 2000. I know some of you will not have encountered this problem with your phones at the time, but many did. The many who quickly loaded them with apps and media. Although I didn't do this with my phone, the functions I used on it (web serving, GPS, a few word docs and the occasional YouTube clip (in the first year at least) used up a lot of meg. By 2013 I was no longer able to serve the web or use GPS on it, due to "insufficient memory." After that, the only things I was using my Nokia for were to call, text, note down what manga and movies I bought and take pictures. This was okay... until now.

As my work for NAS involves a lot of e-mailing and travelling about it was become more apparent that I needed access to e-mail on the go. And the only way I could do that was by getting a new phone. 

I was hesitant to do so to begin with, because phones with keyboards have disappeared. Almost all phones now have touchscreens. Could I get use to using a touch screen to type text? Turns out I could. After all, I have had a tablet for a while now.

So I saved up a bit of dole and (last week) looked around a Carphone Warehouse, inquired about transitioning my SIM card from a 3G to a 4G device (turns out you can without changing your pay as you go deal), and bought my self a new touchscreen smart phone - a Samsung Galaxy A5.

My tablet was a Samsung, so a friend suggested that I should get a Samsung so I could pair them up. But I know some of you are going to point out the battery problem their Galaxy Note 7 was having last year. Am I worried about it happening to my phone? No, because its an A5, not a Note 7. Also, the similar sounding S7 model cost over £500! (the A5 only cost about £350. I had the money to go that far.) 

Why I choose the A5 (apart from the price)? It's not because it has a 16 megapixels camera (front and back). Its not because of its Octa-Core 1.9 GHz processor. And its not because of its 256 GB of internal storage (which is great). What really sold it to me was this - it has 3 GB of RAM! That's more than enough for a PC to be able to edit video. As our wireless networks improve (and our web pages take up as much memory as Doom!) our phones need such RAM to cope with our web habits. And by buying the A5, I have insured myself for the next couple of years.

I was wise to wait until now to buy a touchscreen smart phone. The smart don't buy new tech when its brand new. they wait a while until the early kinks are worked out and the price drops. 

When Apple introduced the first iPhone back in 2007 it was unlike any mobile phone on the market. It set the template for future phones. But it wasn't perfect. It's processor was under-clocked to less than half a Gigahert. It only had a rare-facing 2 megapixel camera. It had only 128 MB of RAM, a 3.5-in screen with 320×480 resolution and no 3G connectivity (you were highly dependent on Wi-Fi, as 2G was never going to cut it). Plus the screen got scratched and broken easily, the battery was crap and there was no app store (until a year later). And all that originally retailed for $599 (which was later dropped to $399 angering people who bought it earlier).

Almost ten years later phones (including my Samsung) are way better now. The screen is made of tougher stuff, Batteries can last a day (if you are a light user) and when you need a charge they are now many ways to do so, even without wires. Cameras with over 10 megapixels are the norm. We can now watch movies in HD on them without the use of Wi-Fi (depending where you are). And it will continue to get better. 

But, for now, my Samsung Galaxy A5 will do me fine. For the past week I have been getting use to using it. And boy I have found it very useful indeed. Thanks to this phone I can access my e-mail and Facebook without using my laptop! But I'll still use my laptop regularly, as typing long blog posts (like this one) are a strain on the fingers if you use a small touchscreen. 

Wow! This post turned out longer than expected. And I included pictures as well. Excellent. I'm on a roll!