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When we think of the ’90s, rapid innovation and major cultural shifts come to mind. It felt like every year there was some new piece of tech to learn how to use. For people who grew up in this era where we always had a new piece of hardware to play with, it still feels like a tech utopia. Pull out your beeper, get your shock-resistant discman loaded up with your favorite CD, and let’s take a look at the iconic gadgets that made the ’90s such an exciting moment.
The Beeper
Beeper, pager, whatever you want to call it, this was the original mobile communication device. Popularized in the 1980s by emergency responders and business professionals, these devices reached the general public in the 1990s and quickly became a status symbol. At the time, mobile phones were crazy expensive which made beepers seem like a totally solid option if you wanted people to be able to reach you immediately. As the prices of cell phones declined, so did the amount of pager users. Even though these have been completely phased out today they still remind us of an era when it was fun to be available at all times.
Tamigotchi
Everyone who grew up in the ‘90s remembers these digital pets that required constant care. If you missed this trend or simply ignored it, Tamagotchis were toy pets that you had to feed and nurse like it was a real animal or it would straight up die on you. Tamagotchis were supposed to teach kids the importance of responsibility, but they mostly just taught us how to sneak these babies by our teachers.
Palm Pilot
Before there were smartphones there was the PalmPilot. These PDAs allowed early adopters to organize their lives with stylus-driven notes, contacts, and calendars. Kind of like an iPad and a Blackberry Frankensteined together (but without phone call capabilities), the PalmPilot was a signifier of a very important person – or just someone with a lot of money to throw around on a digital note taking system. The most interesting thing about the PalmPilot is that IMAX used them to run their Quick Turn Reel Units, which are used to screen feature films in 70mm. This outdated tech is so interwoven with IMAX that the company now uses a PalmPilot emulator.
The Game Boy
The Game Boy rocks. Released in North America in 1990, the ultimate portable gaming device provided hours of entertainment with games like The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening and Metroid II: Return of Samus, as long as you had enough battery power. Did the Game Boy totally destroy the eyes of a generation? Probably. But there was no better way to get through a family road trip than snuggling up with our Game Boy in the back seat of our parent’s station wagon.
Sony Discman
The Walkman may have made its debut in the ‘80s, but its ‘90s evolution gave us life as we made our way through the halls of middle school and high school. The classic Walkman cassette player will always be cool, but everyone who lived through the ‘90s got way more use out of Sony’s Discman which was released in 1995. The Discman D-145 is the piece of gear most of us first encountered and it was a game changer. Suddenly you could take your favorite tunes anywhere and you didn’t even have to fast forward through a song you didn’t want to hear.
The Talk Boy
Made famous by Home Alone 2, this handheld voice recorder let kids feel like secret agents, recording and playing back their own messages. Like the PalmPilot, this was a very specific piece of tech that served few purposes (recording yourself with a weird, slowed down voice and… other things?), but they sure were fun to play around with.
The iMac G3
No computer has ever looked cooler than the iMac G3. These aerodynamically shaped desktop machines came in all sorts of candy colors, and for a moment they made us feel like the future would shape up to be oh so cool. Released in 1998, the iMac G3 was as essential for doing homework as it was for staying up all night to haunt the Buffy the Vampire Slayer message boards.
Sony Playstation 1
Released in 1995, the Sony Playstation was a literal gamechanger. If the Nintendo belonged to the ‘80s, the Playstation felt like it was from the future. With a deep library of early 3D games, including Final Fantasy VII and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, the Playstation was marketed directly to young people with edgy commercials and games that felt way more extreme than anything Nintendo or Sega would touch. Nearly 30 years on, the Sony Playstation still feels relevant.
The Laser Pointer
Initially a novelty, laser pointers were must-have gadgets for kids looking to mess with teachers or entertain cats. Banned at pretty much every school in America, these annoying pieces of tech still hold a special place in the hearts of degenerates everywhere.
Microsoft Natural Keyboard
You’ve gotta remember these bad boys from your dad’s office or maybe even the computer room in your house. Released in 1994, this absolutely unhinged-looking keyboard defined an era of ergonomic typing. Microsoft’s Natural keyboard was made to be more comfortable to use, and that may be so but we just loved pretending that we were piloting the Millennium Falcon with this bad boy. They may have taken some getting used to, but the Natural ruled home offices in the ‘90s.