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Do you still love the Walkman?

    Sony’s latest versions of the Walkman, the groundbreaking portable music player first released in 1979, look nothing like the original cassette player that came with foam headphones. Instead, the latest Walkman is a digital music player that costs $1,600 or $3,200.

    This probably won’t be a big seller. Nor were the Nokia and BlackBerry phones that lived — at least until recently — long after those devices became relics to those of us who even remember them.

    I wanted to know: who likes technology that is long past its prime? Well, it’s people like Chris Fralic.

    The board partner of startup investment company First Round recalls buying a 2004 Sony PlayStation Portable video game device on eBay when it was only available in Japan. At a party, he pulled the device out of his shirt pocket and people flocked to it.

    “It was like beaming from the future,” Fralic told me on the phone this week, holding an old PSP in his hand.

    For you, this sort of thing might be outdated junk. For enthusiasts like Fralic, tech gadgets hold history – from the life of the collectors, the tech industry, the United States, or all of the above.

    “They all tell a story,” Fralic said. “I’ve used and sold this stuff and loved it from the moment it came out. It’s cool to look back and realize how important it was.”

    Fralic has converted a third-floor attic in his home into a personal museum for his collection of thousands of technological devices and memorabilia from the past 40 years or more.

    Yes, Fralic owns multiple versions of the old school Walkman and Sony’s Discman CD player. (He emailed me a photo as proof.) His collection also includes a hulking DEC PDP-11 minicomputer nicknamed R2-D2 that Fralic admitted is tricky to move.

    He owns the parts of an original “blue box” electronic device that Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak pieced together – before founding Apple Computer – to hack phone lines. His collection has so many telephones, including a Gordon Gekko-style monster and a Soviet-era “yellow telephone” designed to connect to the Kremlin.

    Technology is naturally fast moving and there is often no time or inclination to look back. But many old tech gadgets never really die. Instead, they live on in nostalgic products like Sony’s not-Walkman, and in the garages and attics of enthusiasts who believe the PSP is the coolest thing ever made.

    Addison Del Mastro’s love for a 1970s cassette changer from Japan and old clock radios isn’t about personal nostalgia. Del Mastro, who writes a newsletter about urban planning and land use, is 28 years old and barely in control of the stuff.

    But Del Mastro said that as a teenager, he took home a discarded RadioShack clock radio with imitation wood panels and a cassette player from his local recycling center. “I plugged the thing in and it worked.” He was addicted.

    Del Mastro said he appreciates the creativity and craftsmanship that went into decades-old consumer electronics, as well as the ability to understand how they worked.

    “You can open that spinning cassette player from 1970, and any layman can understand what’s going on,” he told me. “It keeps your brain and your hands busy. That experience is lacking in many modern technology or devices.”

    Adam Minter said he started hearing about electronics recyclers about a decade ago getting calls from people eager to buy outdated personal computers. They offered much more money than the PCs were worth to strip for commodities like gold.

    Minter, a former colleague of mine who wrote two books about the second life of our stuff, said those calls often came from collectors looking for every single computer chip ever made by Intel or other manufacturers. “It sounds weird, but is it?” said Minter. “You collect these artifacts from our technological age.”

    There are, of course, collectors and enthusiasts for everything. You might love vintage Bakelite jewelry or 1970s Italian bikes. Technological gadgets that inspire wonder and lust are no different. Talking to people for this newsletter felt like I’d drifted into an extremely nerdy subculture, and I may never get out of it.

    “If you break this crazy world, I’m a minor player in it,” Fralic said. “There are people who are crazy about this sort of thing.”

    Tip of the week

    If you are in the US and planning a trip abroad, Brian X. Chenothe New York Times’ personal technology columnist, has you covered.

    Taking a smartphone abroad can be a bad experience for Americans.

    International data plans from US carriers like Verizon and AT&T often work well, but they don’t come cheap. That $10 a day to use your phone in many other countries adds up to longer trips, and travel plans sometimes limit the data you use to look up online maps, restaurants, and tourist attractions.

    Over the years I have tried a number of alternatives on international travel. I’ve had mixed results with eSIMs – essentially a digital method of instructing your smartphone to connect to a foreign mobile network as soon as you arrive.

    In Thailand, the eSIM I bought didn’t work. When I tried to contact customer service, no one spoke English. On the other hand, when I was in Canada I used an eSIM which worked fine but was on the pricey side – $40 for one gigabyte of data. And eSIMs may not work on every smartphone.

    In my experience, purchasing a physical SIM card from a major carrier at your travel destination is the most foolproof and affordable way to take a smartphone abroad.

    When I traveled to Japan about five years ago, I ordered a pair of DoCoMo SIM cards with one gigabyte of data for $20 each. The SIM cards — small pieces of plastic that fit into your phone and contain instructions for Internet and telephone service networks — were delivered to my home before my trip.

    When I arrived in Japan, I took out my Verizon SIM card, replaced it with the DoCoMo card, and followed the instructions to activate the service. It worked fine, and if something went wrong, I had the option of walking into a DoCoMo store in Japan and asking for help.

    (Plan ahead and check with your phone provider to make sure you can use your phone outside of the US. And if you use an eSIM or SIM card abroad, you may not be able to access your regular phone number or text messages. )

    • Shooting is more fun than running Amazon: Bloomberg’s Brad Stone contacts Jeff Bezos, who last year retired as CEO of Amazon and now devotes much of his time to his private space business, his personal life, and his climate philanthropy. Don’t miss the details of Bezos’ tailored jumpsuit. (A subscription may be required.)

    • Wired spoke to Rafaela Vasquez, who was behind the wheel of an Uber self-driving test car in 2018 when it hit and killed a pedestrian, Elaine Herzberg. Vasquez faces criminal charges and she is at the center of a debate over who is to blame for deaths caused by automated cars. (A subscription may be required.)

    • The GasBuddy app is a privacy nightmare. Here are alternatives to finding cheaper gas, from The New York Times’ product review site Wirecutter.

    Please enjoy this sparkling horse mosaic in a New York subway station.

    We want to hear from you. Tell us what you think of this newsletter and what else you want us to discover. You can reach us at ontech@CBNewz.

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