14 Vintage Computer Peripherals That Are Gone Forever
These vintage peripherals once defined how we used our computers, but now they live on only in memory and tech museums.
- Alyana Aguja
- 5 min read
In the golden age of personal computing, these devices were everyday essentials. They connected us, printed our work, stored our files, and gamified our leisure. As technology advanced, many of these peripherals disappeared not with a bang but with a quiet unplug, leaving behind a strange mix of frustration and fondness.
1. Serial Mice
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Before USB ports ruled the world, serial mice with their clunky connectors and ball tracking were standard issue. Cleaning the gunk off the rubber ball was a monthly ritual if you wanted smooth cursor movement. They were slow, unresponsive by today’s standards, and yet somehow felt charmingly analog.
2. Dot Matrix Printers
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The screeching noise of a dot matrix printer at work could be heard from another room, but that sound meant progress. These beasts were the go-to for invoices, school papers, and banners before inkjets and lasers took over. The perforated edges of the paper had to be carefully ripped off after each print — like some kind of office origami.
3. Zip Drives
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Iomega’s Zip drives were a temporary miracle in the ’90s, boasting 100 MB of storage when floppy disks could only dream of that kind of space. They clicked loudly and mysteriously failed at the worst moments, yet they felt futuristic. For a brief moment, they were in every classroom and office, a stepping stone between floppy disks and USB sticks.
4. 5.25-Inch Floppy Drives
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These huge, bendable disks were how we played Oregon Trail and Prince of Persia. You had to be delicate not to touch the exposed magnetic surface, as one fingerprint could ruin your saved game. Their size and fragility made them impractical, but there was something magical about sliding one into a drive and hearing it spin up.
5. Parallel Port Scanners
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Before USB became standard, scanners plugged into a massive parallel port, and transferring an image took ages. The setup was awkward and required its own software that worked only if your stars aligned. Today’s plug-and-play scanners make these look prehistoric, but they once felt like cutting-edge tech.
6. CRT Monitor Light Guns
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Games like Duck Hunt used light guns that only worked with CRT screens, making them obsolete with the rise of LCDs. Aimed at the screen and powered by cathode ray timing, they were part toy, part tech. When TVs changed, these quirky peripherals simply stopped working, leaving behind a very specific kind of nostalgia.
7. Trackballs with Serial Connectors
Image from Wikipedia
Trackballs were an early alternative to mice, and the ones with serial connections looked like something from a spaceship dashboard. They were favored by some graphic designers and arcade-style gamers. With the rise of optical mice and USB, their slow, clunky design fell out of favor.
8. SCSI Zip and Jaz Drives
Image from Wikipedia
The SCSI versions of Zip and Jaz drives promised fast data access, but required arcane knowledge to set jumpers and SCSI IDs correctly. If your setup was wrong, nothing worked, and no error messages helped you. Despite being powerful, they were a nightmare to troubleshoot and were not missed by many.
9. PCMCIA Modems
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Laptops in the ’90s relied on PCMCIA slots to access dial-up internet through plug-in modems. You’d slide the card in and pray the tiny cords didn’t fray or fall out. They were clunky, but they were the closest thing we had to mobile internet.
10. Game Port Joysticks
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Before USB controllers, joysticks used a 15-pin game port usually found on sound cards. They were popular for flight sims and racing games but required constant calibration and never felt entirely precise. You had to fiddle with settings in each game just to get the thing working.
11. PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse Connectors
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Named after the IBM Personal System/2, PS/2 ports were once the standard way to connect keyboards and mice. They were color-coded to prevent confusion, but plugging them in the wrong way could bend the pins. USB quietly took over, and today, most people don’t even recognize the small round ports.
12. Paper-Based Plotters
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These early printing devices used pens to physically draw lines on paper, often used in engineering and architecture. They had a mesmerizing quality as the arm swooped back and forth with precision. But they were painfully slow and required manual pen replacement, making them obsolete in the digital drafting era.
13. Thermal Transfer Fax Machines
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Used widely in homes and offices, thermal transfer fax machines printed documents using heat-sensitive paper that faded over time. The prints often smelled like warm plastic and had a distinctive feel. While faxes still exist in some industries, this specific style of machine is a relic of the ‘90s office.
14. External CD Burners with FireWire
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When CDs were the way to share files, music, or backups, external burners with FireWire connections were sought after for their speed. You’d wait 20 minutes to burn a disc, only to find it didn’t work on someone else’s machine. FireWire has since vanished, and with it, the ritual of “burning a mix.”