Obsolete technology

Long before everyone had a cellphone, a select few motorists had car phones - bulky, mobile phones that plugged into the car’s cigarette lighter.

Fewer than 250,000 pay phones still exist in the United States. With more than 60 percent of Americans owning a smartphone, there’s little need for pay phones.

Aaron Maier, left, Katie Rife and Scott Whiteman showcase about 2,500 copies from their collection of “Jerry Maguire” VHS tapes on Dec. 5, 2012. Once the dominant way of watching movies (or recording your favorite TV show), VHS faded quickly after DVDs took over the market. Film studios stopped distributing movies on VHS in 2008.

Jean Porter and Sally Biddleman, both 17, time the seven-time World Champion Albert Tangora at 140 words per minute at the World Typing Championship at Jones Commercial High School, Feb. 5, 1948. The typewriter is more likely to be seen in a museum than in use these days.

Like the typewriter, word processors - and their cousins, video display terminals, seen here in the Chicago Tribune newsroom in 1981 - have been obsolete for many years.

When was the last time you took film to get developed? The Eastman Kodak Co. was forced into bankruptcy and now focuses on commerical imaging as people no longer seek out film for photos.

Old Kodak film cameras are photographed in the Tribune studio in Chicago on Feb. 9, 2012. Kodak is no longer in the camera business, and the use of film cameras, even newer than these, are rare these days.

It pains us to say it, but newspaper readership has been falling for years. But just because people aren’t reading the actual paper, doesn’t mean they’re not reading. With digital audiences growing, more people read newspapers’ stories than ever before.