What's a technology that was cooler in its older iterations?
I don't mean BETTER. That's a different conversation. I mean cooler.
An old CRT display was literally a small scale particle accelerator, firing angry electron beams at light speed towards the viewers, bent by an electromagnet that alternates at an ultra high frequency, stopped by a rounded rectangle of glowing phosphors.
If a CRT goes bad it can actually make people sick.
That's just. Conceptually a lot COOLER than a modern LED panel, which really is just a bajillion very tiny lightbulbs.
Home stereo systems. As a kid I remained enthralled by the metal face and the heavily tactile buttons and switches and knobs. You felt a delicious variety of feedbacks for every action you took. I honestly think we really lost something special when tactility left technology. It was so satisfying to just use.
Find a video of the Marantz 2150 with the oscilloscope built in,or the Telefunken reel to deal with the glowing level meter. Really wished I'd kept both of those