Two technologies from the earlier history of the Internet

The technology that becomes obsolete and has been replaced by more modern things

GPS navigation system

Description:

GPS (Global Positioning System) is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that provides geolocation and time information to a GPS receiver anywhere on or near the Earth where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites. Obstacles such as mountains and buildings can block the relatively weak GPS signals.

Working principle:

The working/operation of the Global positioning system is based on the ‘trilateration’ mathematical principle. The position is determined from the distance measurements to satellites. From the figure, the four satellites are used to determine the position of the receiver on the earth. The target location is confirmed by the 4th satellite. And three satellites are used to trace the location.

A fourth satellite is used to confirm the target location of each of those space vehicles. The global positioning system consists of a satellite, control station, and monitor station, and receiver. The GPS receiver takes the information from the satellite and uses the method of triangulation to determine a user’s exact position.

History:

GPS history is based partly on the similar ground-based radio navigation systems, such as LORAN and the Decca Navigator, developed in the early 1940s and were used during World War II. Additional inspiration for the GPS system came when the Soviet Union launched the first Sputnik in 1957. A team of U.S. scientists led by Dr. Richard B. Kershner were monitoring Sputnik’s radio transmissions. They discovered that, because of the Doppler Effect, the frequency of the signal being transmitted by Sputnik was higher as the satellite approached and lower as it continued away from them. They realized that since they knew their exact location on the globe, they could pinpoint where the satellite was along its orbit by measuring the Doppler distortion.

The first satellite navigation system, Transit, was used by the United States Navy and was first successfully tested in 1960. Using a constellation of five satellites, it could provide a navigational fix approximately once per hour. In 1967, the U.S. Navy developed the Timation satellite which proved the ability to place accurate clocks in space, a technology the GPS system relies upon. In the 1970s, the ground-based Omega Navigation System, based on signal phase comparison, became the first worldwide radio navigation system.

The first experimental Block-I GPS satellite was launched in February 1978. The GPS satellites were initially manufactured by Rockwell International and are now manufactured by Lockheed Martin.

By 1985, ten more experimental Block-I satellites had been launched to validate the concept and on February 14, 1989, the first modern Block-II satellite was launched. The oldest GPS satellite still in operation was launched in August 1991. The 2nd Space Wing, which originally managed the system, was de-activated and replaced by the 50th Space Wing in 1992. By December 1993 the GPS system achieved initial operational capability and a complete constellation of 24 satellites was in orbit by January 17, 1994. In 1996, recognizing the importance of GPS to civilian users as well as military users, U.S. President Bill Clinton issued a policy directive declaring GPS to be a dual-use system and establishing an Interagency GPS Executive Board to manage it as a national asset. The most recent launch of GPS was on 17 November 2006.

The reason for extinction:

Current smartphones are more than capable of getting the modern human from point A to point B with the use of navigation apps like Google, Bing and Apple Maps. Advancements in mobile technology have forced other older technology into obsolescence.

The technology that survives to this day 

Pager

Description:

A pager is a wireless telecommunications device that receives and displays alphanumeric or voice messages. One-way pagers can only receive messages, while response pagers and two-way pagers can also acknowledge, reply to and originate messages using an internal transmitter.

Working principle:

One person sends a text message using a touch-tone telephone or even an email that gets forwarded to the pager of the person they want to talk to. Then the person carrying the pager either gets an audible beep or vibration that lets them know that a message is incoming. An incoming phone number or text message is displayed on the pagers' LCD screen.

History:

The first pager-like system was put into use by the Detroit Police Department in 1921. However, it was not until 1949 that the very first telephone pager was patented. The inventor's name was Al Gross, and his pagers were first used in New York City's Jewish Hospital. Gross' pager was not a consumer device available to everyone. In fact, the Federal Communications Commission did not approve the pager for public use until 1958. The technology was for many years reserved strictly for critical communications between emergency responders like police officers, firefighters, and medical professionals.

In 1959, Motorola produced a personal radio communications product that it called a pager. The device, about half the size of a deck of cards, contained a small receiver that delivered a radio message individually to those also carrying a pager. The first successful consumer pager was Motorola's Pageboy I, introduced in 1964. It had no display and could not store messages, but it was portable and it notified the wearer by the tone what action they should take.

There were 3.2 million pager users worldwide at the beginning of the 1980s.  At that time pagers had a limited range and were used mostly in on-site situations—for example, when medical workers needed to communicate with each other within a hospital. At this point, Motorola was also producing devices with alphanumeric displays, which allowed users to receive and send a message through a digital network.

A decade later, wide-area paging had been invented, and by 1994, there were over 61 million in use, and pagers became popular for personal communications as well. Now, pager users could send any number of messages, from "I Love You" to "Goodnight," all using a set of numbers and asterisks.

Usage to date:

The rise of smartphones in the early 2000s saw the decline in the use of pagers. However, pagers are still alive today and embraced by the same groups who used the very first versions: public safety and healthcare professionals. Even with the proliferation of smartphones, pagers remain popular in these industries because of the reliability of the paging networks. No matter how sophisticated smartphones become until cellular networks can match the survivable architecture of the paging networks, pagers will remain a staple of critical communications for years to come.

Sources:

https://www.pocket-lint.com/gadgets/news/141336-33-obsolete-technologies-that-will-baffle-modern-generations

https://www.spok.com/blog/throwback-thursday-history-pagers/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pager

https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-pagers-and-beepers-1992315

https://www.elprocus.com/how-gps-system-works/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System

https://powunity.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GPS-Tracking-Definition5.jpg

https://www.mytrendyphone.eu/images/TomTom-Go-Essential-GPS-with-Voice-Control-Europe-5-inch-0636926101318-15032019-01-p.jpg

https://cdn.thexplorion.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/GPS.jpg

https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/9ECD/production/_109035604_mediaitem109035603.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Dme_motorola.jpg

https://c.fils.bbci.co.uk/9ECD/production/_109035604_mediaitem109035603.jpg