11 Movies and TV Shows That’ll Make You Nostalgic for Bygone Gadgets

‘Desk Set,’ 1957

In the eighth film Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy made together, Ms. Hepburn plays a TV network’s invincibly knowledgeable research librarian. Her job becomes threatened when they install a bus-sized computer named EMERAC (Electromagnetic Memory and Research Arithmetical Calculator), capable of almost instantly solving problems that would have taken her the better part of an hour. Later, EMERAC goofs up royally, printing pink slips laying off everyone in the company. For some reason, this bleak view of early computing was sponsored in part by IBM. 

‘Mad Men,’ Season 1, 2007

Throughout the first season, initially set in 1960, we regularly see female staffers at the Sterling Cooper advertising agency operate its switchboards, manually connecting cords into the appropriate sockets so that the (mostly male) execs could communicate via telephone. Though these women work behind the scenes in a tiny room deprived of Rothko paintings and potted plants, their control of the phone lines gives them influence. 

‘WarGames,’ 1983

A teenage boy (the young Matthew Broderick)—who’s equipped with a beeping, blipping, buzzing phone modem—inadvertently hacks into a military supercomputer. Believing it to be part of a videogame he’s stumbled upon, he activates a simulation that convinces U.S. officials they are under attack. At one point in the film, he places a soda can tab in the mouthpiece of a pay phone, allowing him to make a call without paying for it. 

‘Wall Street,’ 1987

Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas, is such a hotshot wealthy Wall Street financier in 1985 that he’s among the first of his peers to own a cellphone, a 2-pound Motorola DynaTac 8000X. The phone retailed for $3,995 in 1983, or the equivalent of just under $12,000 today. With this device, he’s able to do the unthinkable: make a call from a beach, thanks to the phone’s absurdly long antenna. 

‘Seinfeld,’ Season 2, Episode 4, ‘The Phone Message,’ 1991

George Costanza (Jason Alexander) leaves a voice mail on a date’s answering machine, then, after several days without a response, leaves a far more aggressive one. The next day, she calls to tell him she has been out of town, unable to check messages. Panicked, George and Jerry Seinfeld try to sneakily access her voice mail machine to switch out the tapes, before she gets a chance to listen. The low-stakes heist succeeds, but not exactly how you might expect.

‘The Net,’ 1995 

A massive white desktop computer and encyclopedia-thick laptop get almost as much screen time as Sandra Bullock, as a programmer embroiled in a conspiracy surrounding suspicious floppy disks. It is one of the earliest movies where we see a character complete such futuristic online tasks as ordering pizza or booking flights.  

‘Scream,’ 1996

In a world before caller ID, the characters in this movie answer their home phone immediately when it rings, without even considering who they might have to speak to. Today, that might land you in a circuitous conversation with someone claiming that your vehicle’s insurance has expired. For Drew Barrymore’s Casey, the result was more conclusive. 

‘Perfect Blue,’ 1997

After discovering a blog featuring diary entries accurately detailing her every move (and written in the first person), J-pop-star-turned-actress Mima (voiced by Junko Iwao in this animated feature) can no longer distinguish her real self from her showbiz identities. Is the online persona the “real Mima,” or an early example of a stan who goes too far in her fanfiction? 

‘You’ve Got Mail,’ 1998 

Book-industry rivals (Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan) fall in love via email and an early AOL chat room, unaware of either’s real-world identity. Exchanging thoughts under the usernames “Shopgirl” and “NY152,” they agree to never discuss any defining information about their lives. But even had they done so, there were few ways to use such info to track somebody down in the pre-social-media world of 1998. 

‘Be Kind Rewind,’ 2008

Set in 2003, this film focuses on a clerk (Jack Black) at an independent video store. While attempting to sabotage a power plant he believes is interfering with his brain, he becomes magnetized and inadvertently wipes all his store’s VHS tapes. He and a colleague (Yasiin Bey, then known as Mos Def) must re-create the store’s entire film collection via camcorder. 

‘The Office,’ Season 2, Episode 10, ‘Christmas Party,’ 2005

Michael Scott (Steve Carell), a regional manager at the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, participates in a white elephant gift exchange—what he and his colleagues, being based in Scranton, Pa., call a “Yankee Swap.” Hoping to impress his colleague Ryan, he goes way over budget to buy the year’s most coveted object: an iPod. Given that the item is so hot, it quickly gets nabbed by a luckier employee. 

Corrections & Amplifications
Matthew Broderick’s character in “WarGames” initiated a simulation that made U.S. officials believe they were under attack. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said he activated Russia’s nuclear arsenal. (Corrected on Jan. 20)