archaic icons

In a recent lecture it occurred to me how many of our current icons are actually unknown objects to many younger users. Here are a few that depict items that are no longer in everyday use.


The floppy disk hasn't seen regular action for many years but it is the universal save icon nevertheless.



When was the last time you saw a telephone with a rotary pulse dial? This is one of a couple of common symbols still used to indicate a telephone.




Funny that my mobile telephone call and hang up buttons show green and red icons that look like traditional phone handsets. The mobile phone itself (of course) looks nothing like an old handset.





A pencil for write... come on... we live in the world of the paperless office. How did you get more tip? With a pencil "sharpener"? What?! The clutch pencil is certainly an improvement! Does anybody actually write still?



Incandescent bulbs are on their way out of light sockets around the world. It will be awhile before they are gone from the collective memory as representative of ideas though.




Until recently a popular digital photo application still used an icon (and text label) for a film roll when importing pictures from a digital camera. Slide shows in that same application are still represented with an icon that depicts couple of old 35mm slides.

...I am sure there are plenty of other traditional icons for modern concepts. Keep me posted if you find any more...