Technology never stays the same for very long, leaving those who use it daily or build a career around it with a near-constant scurry to keep their skills up to date.
The longer people have been around, the more extinct technology skills they’ve probably amassed, from those probably not mourned a whole lot–putting a needle on a record without scratching it, changing the ribbon on a typewriter or having to pry oneself from the sofa to change the channel–to those that longtime techies still hold a soft spot for.
Shortly after Robert Scoble reminisced about outmoded talents on his blog Feb. 16 and encouraged someone to register and build a wiki on the domain obsoleteskills.com, it was done (must be nice to be Robert Scoble, eh?) and in just a few days, the site has grown to several hundred entries.
Though not everyone may agree with some items, few argue that others, such as COBOL, TSR programming, SYS editing and low formatting a hard drive, haven’t gone the way of the dinosaurs.
But, of course, the list is just beginning. What would you add? What skills did you work hard to perfect, only to not need them shortly thereafter? Have you been able to fold them into anything you do now?