Opinion Old is new

The inexorable march of technology continues to reshape our lives, much of what is cutting edge today is rendered obsolete in the blink of an eye. In the last two decades, for instance, we’ve gone from making mixed tapes to burning CDs to plugging our iPods directly into our computers. Cassettes are so very late-1980s, and storing data on tape now, in the 2010s, seems like an inefficient and eccentric trip down memory lane. But now, Japanese electronics giant Sony has tweaked the way magnetic tape is produced, enabling data storage of up to 185 terabytes of data — 74 times the capacity of traditional tapes and the equivalent of 3,700 Blu-ray discs. That means the improved cassette won’t just be valuable to a vintage tech-collector on a nostalgia trip, but also surpasses all digital rivals in terms of sheer capacity.

This fascination for older technology is hardly unprecedented. Consider, for instance, the preference of certain record collectors, many of whom were born after CDs became popular in the 1990s, for vinyl. The vinyl resurgence flummoxed many when the trend was first spotted a few years ago but these days, every major record label — and even the smaller ones — release LPs (as vinyl is also called) to satisfy young audiophiles who believe vinyl yields a depth and warmth in tone that MP3s lack.

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Nor is the resistance to the onslaught of technology limited to music storage. Polaroid, for instance, reintroduced its iconic instant camera a few years ago, complete with old-school colour film, while some iconoclasts in the movie industry stubbornly cling to shooting on celluloid on the ground that it remains a superior medium. Retro lovers are finding ways to update everything that is old — cameras, amplifiers, games, media — for contemporary use, demonstrating, in the process, the unheralded virtues of old tech.