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[Image]  1998 TECH GUIDE

         Returning to retro-tech

         Avoiding new gizmos isn't Luddite; in fact, it's often smart

         Learn more about futuristic gadgets in our 1998 Tech Guide Onlin=
e

         BY RICHARD FOLKERS

         Let's provoke an argument. Stroll into a crowded camera-club
         meeting and shout, "I can take my old, beat-up Leica and shoot
         rings around your automatic junk!" Drop into a snooty, high-end
         stereo store and proclaim the vinyl phonograph album superior to
         the compact disk. Or, try uttering, "Sorry, Mr. Gates, I just
         don't need Windows."

         Unfortunately, most new high-tech toys, gadgets with a major
         "cool" factor, don't satisfy for very long. There is always a
         faster processor, better digital-audio-sampling rate, or smoothe=
r
         autofocus around the corner. Who hasn't worried that a new
         purchase would instantly become outdated as soon as it left the
         store? But what if you're happy with what you've got? Or, put as
         a more heretical question: Do you need new technology?

         This story is about people who don't. Mind you, they're not
         cheapskates or head-in-the-sand Luddites, either. These people
         simply believe old technology makes them better thinkers, more
         efficient workers, and just a little more comfortable.

         Through a lens, manually. As Reverdy Johnson surveys a New Mexic=
o
         landscape through his viewfinder, it is he, rather than an
         automatic camera, making the decisions. Unlike Johnson's gear,
         today's techiest cameras will load and wind the film for you,
         calculate exposure, set the correct shutter speed and lens
         opening, and focus themselves. Johnson, a Santa Fe attorney and
         ardent amateur shooter, uses manual cameras, 1970s-vintage Leica
         rangefinder and Hasselblad medium-format models, which don't
         depend on batteries and electronics but on springs, gears, and a
         photographer's mind. "This creative process is one that entails
         workmanship. If you've got a machine doing it all for you, you
         lose that participation," the silver-haired Johnson says. He
         believes that by having to work at his photography, he is better
         able to visualize images, to see pictures before he shoots them.
         Photography, he says, is like driving an old sports car: "It
         takes a little effort, working your way through the gears, but
         you feel a lot closer to the road. You've got a relationship to
         what you're doing. You've got some control over it."

         Proven wings. Classic equipment, like Johnson's Leica cameras,
         has a quality of manufacture and design, along with durability,
         that serious users crave. That's true for more than just cameras.
         The Douglas DC-3, an aircraft that has been flying for more than
         60 years for airlines and the military, inspires similar fierce
         loyalty. After 18 years of steady service from his four DC-3s,
         Joe Sparling, chief pilot and president of Air North, isn't
         planning to scrap them but to sell his fleet to another user. Th=
e
         DC-3, he says, was an obvious choice for his company, which
         operates in the rugged territory of Alaska, the Yukon, and
         Canada's Northwest Territories. The taciturn, to-the-point
         Sparling says the plane is strong, tough, and versatile.

         "When introduced in the late '30s, the DC-3 was the finest and
         fastest aircraft of its time," says Bob van der Linden, curator
         of aeronautics of the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum. "It's
         aged very gracefully, and it's never been replaced. It's
         efficient and easy to fly." Of more than 13,000 DC-3 aircraft
         built, van der Linden estimates 400 are still flying today, ofte=
n
         carrying cargo to rough landing strips in remote locations.

         Sometimes, the simplicity of retro technology also makes it the
         best choice. Consider, as an example, watches--not the kind with
         digital displays, but ones with faces and hands. Digital watches
         are usually cheap and very accurate, and, more to the point, les=
s
         popular than are analog ones. In fact, analog watches command
         almost 80 percent of the market. Analog is a better presentation=
,
         says Joe Thompson, editor of the magazine American Time. "For al=
l
         of the loaded-up, souped-up digitals, it's not as useful as the
         information you get in a quick glance at your wrist." Hour and
         minute hands let you quickly gauge time, let you see how much of
         the hour has elapsed, and how much is to come. There is no menta=
l
         math to do. Try that with a digital watch that's blinking
         4:12:34.

         Thompson also cites the continuing allure of the mechanical
         watch, a timepiece devoid of quartz-timed electronics, the
         old-fashioned kind of watch you have to wind. Digital watches
         just don't have that allure. "A watch says something about you,"
         Thompson says, and "digital has a problem there."

         Efficiency in computing is Shelley Johnson's concern. An in-hous=
e
         attorney for an engineering company near Philadelphia, Johnson
         uses her computer for word processing and E-mail. In a modern
         office, her machine must run on Windows 95, right? Windows NT?
         Windows 3.1? "My company has Windows. I just refuse to do it,"
         declares Johnson. So, she's a Macintosh loyalist? No, again.
         Johnson uses MS-DOS, the original program PC operators used
         before the Web, before computer desktops got cluttered with
         pictures, graphics, and motion. DOS is all text. You type in
         commands, and you can't even use a mouse. DOS is simple; it does
         what Johnson wants. "Windows takes more time to access than DOS.
         There's more, and for what? More stuff I don't need."

         Getting what you need and no more is also the philosophy at
         Hollywood Video. The second-largest U.S. video-rental chain
         (behind Blockbuster), with more than 800 stores, Hollywood Video
         can turn an empty storefront into an operating store in just 36
         hours. And Hollywood's employees use DOS on their computers, not
         Windows. Windows technology requires much more hardware and a
         more expensive PC to run.

         There's also no doubt that older technology sometimes just feels
         good. For her writing, Seattle restaurateur Karen Binder chooses
         a fountain pen. It is, first, a reminder of her late father, who
         used one. It's also a "personal and intimate" way of
         communicating. "I'm a big E-mail gal, but if I want to say
         something of substance and meaning, I send it in ink, in fountai=
n
         pen. When I use my fountain pen, I'm saying something by the act
         of using it." Pen maker Parker is trying to make the statement o=
f
         using a fountain pen even louder with the reissue of classic
         pens. The new Duofold Norman Rockwell Limited Edition Fountain
         Pen is the reproduction of a pen Santa Claus held in a 1929
         advertisement drawn by Rockwell. That pen sells for $1,500, a
         significant price for a warm, fuzzy feeling. (Other Parker
         models, also based on the 1920s design, but mass-produced, sell
         for about $350.)

         In the groove. It is lingering comfort, a love of music, and a
         desire to share them both with his daughters that keeps John
         Dillworth listening to phonograph albums. Don't ask him to trash
         compact disks, though. Dillworth says he's not a "digital must
         die" album enthusiast.

         Ann Turner, a reviewer for The Absolute Sound, a high-end audio
         publication, agrees that there is a place for both technologies.
         CDs and albums have different strengths. "CDs have perfect pitch
         stability and low harmonic distortion." Vinyl, says Turner, "has
         more warmth, a sense of space."

         Dillworth, 38, a New York computer consultant, has a collection
         of 800 rock and jazz albums, along with CDs, which are
         predominantly classical. Of course, album grooves do wear out in
         time. They require care, to keep them clean and free of annoying
         ticks and pops. But, for Dillworth, that's fine. Listening to
         albums is also a way of sharing memories with his daughters,
         introducing them to music of his youth in the way he heard it.
         "You can't erase moments like putting records on with your
         family," he says.

         Even the most ardent lover of vinyl can't expect to find every
         new release. Fewer and fewer companies press vinyl. Die-hards ca=
n
         look to the World Wide Web, at companies like Music Direct and
         Garage-A-Records for albums. Furthermore, not many companies
         still make cartridges and replacement styluses (needles), either.
         However, at least one American firm remains an enthusiastic
         supplier. Jim Rochman, the manager of phonographic products for
         Shure Brothers Inc., an Evanston, Ill., cartridge manufacturer,
         says that is because collectors and audiophiles have a special
         ally: rap and hip-hop artists. Stage performers use records and
         turntables to get the genre's distinctive scratching sound, whic=
h
         has helped keep Shure's sales strong.

         For the retro feel with new technology, Mobile Fidelity, a
         Sebastopol, Calif.-based company, sells CDs that use what it say=
s
         is a proprietary technology to produce recordings that have more
         of the warmth of vinyl. Prices are premium, though, $30 for a
         single disk.

         Another noteworthy category of retro is old-looking just for fun.
         If classic TV shows like The Brady Bunch and Leave It to Beaver
         can come back as feature films, why not return to classic office
         and home furnishings? Sure, you could drop $1,150 on a Herman
         Miller Aeron chair, with its ergonomic adjustments. But just
         imagine how you'd feel, instead, in a 1920s-style wooden-swivel
         desk chair, the kind that supports your entire back almost like
         you're in a rocker. Pottery Barn sells a reproduction of that
         retro chair, and for a mere $300. While you're there, if you pin=
e
         for the days before touch-tones and voice mail, grab their
         Classic Telephone for $70. Its receiver is heavy and its base
         quaintly unsleek, and the numbers are on a rotary dial--well,
         sort of. The numbers are really touch-tone buttons. Even retro
         technology has limits.

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