As a devoted gadget-head, I often get nostalgic about what I considered cool technology of my youth. I was just thinking today about filmstrips - more specifically filmstrip projectors; and I wondered what the death of this technology was like. I know I was around as it happened, but they sort of passed into our distant memory without much of a memorial service.
For those of us too young to remember what these things were, they were mechanical contraptions that projected a still image (from a "strip" of 35mm film) onto a screen for public viewing. The filmstrips were educational in nature, and contained photographs and text related to specific topics (history, art, geography, animal husbandry, human sexuality, etc.). Later they incorporated audio narration that was manually synchronized to the different slides on the strip. A beep inserted into the narration gave the projector operator (more about this tasty position later) the cue to advance to the next slide.
Some of my earliest memories of non-printed media being introduced to my classroom were of filmstrip programs. I distinctly remember the dimming of lights, closing of blinds, the hum of the motor and warm air from the projector and above all the voice of the narrator (who I'm sure also did the voice over for the WWII era newsreels). In this environment we saw photographs of the wonders of the world, learned important history lessons with wall-sized images of battlefields and monuments and learned all the nasty stuff we could catch if we didn't listen to our Health teacher.
Being a fledgling geek (way before the term meant anything other than "dork"), I often volunteered to fill the lofty position of filmstrip operator. To me the task fell of threading the filmstrips, starting the cassette player (don't forget to flip it over halfway through) and trying to stay awake so as to not miss a "beep" (which would require enduring the wrath of a class full of kids making fun of you for falling asleep).
Although I don't have any proof as to how this technology died, a bit of web research indicates that they were used as early as the 1930s. I can remember being in classes where we used them as late as the early 1980s, so they represented an amazing lifespan for technology, especially when compared to the quick obsolescence of devices today. You can imagine the death spiral - full motion film as a start (although we used both during the time I was in school); followed by video (reel to reel, then different formats of video cassettes); CD multimedia presentations (remember the late 1990s?), and the PowerPoint and PC presentation technology of today.
It's nice to take a minute or so to remember these cool bits of technology that were so commonplace a couple of decades ago and wonder which gadget sitting on our desk (or in our pocket) today will be just as easily relegated to memory in over the next few years.
