Throwback Thursday

A lot has changed in the past 15 years. Ultra-thin TVs that hang on the wall have replaced bulky tube and rear-projection TVs. DVD and CD players have become quaint relics of the early days of digital. The list goes on…

Our December 2001 holiday gift guide featured at least three tech relics that remind us of a time ruled by mechanical devices.

The Archos Jukebox 6000 fit in a shirt pocket and rocked a (then massive) 6-gigabyte hard drive, good for storing the equivalent of 150 CDs. It came with a set of headphones, a USB cable, and MusicMatch MP3 ripping software. All for $349.

RCA’s RC5400P portable DVD player with built-in speakers cost “only” $549. Michael Antonoff wrote: “Movie fans have been salivating over portable players like this one for the past couple of years but they’ve mostly been in the $1,000-plus range.”

The Philips EXP401 CD player was a bit of a curiosity because unlike the bulky portables of the day it fit in the palm of your hand. It was built to play 3-inch Mini CDs. Play time for one disc was 21 minutes for uncompressed music or 3 hours-worth of MP3 files. The little discs never really caught on.