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Must-Have Tech of 1998

Your PDA First Love

In 1998, e-mail in your pocket was reserved for a precious few tech elite. All-in-one smart phones and the CrackBerry epidemic were yet to come. But the Palm Pilot , the coolest electronic address book and calendar we'd ever seen, was in the pocket or purse of every self-respecting geek. In 1996, 3Com 's 5.7-ounce Palm Pilot 1000 boasted 128KB of storage and could hold 500 names and addresses. Later editions added e-mail and Internet connections. Today, RIM's popular BlackBerry Curve model packs 64MB and holds more than 2,000 contacts.

In Living Color
In January, Apple wowed fans with the debut of the MacBook Air , the world's thinnest notebook. But in 1998, Apple fans ate up the first iMac , the Bondi Blue. Marketed as a computer for the Internet age--hence the "i" of iMac--the candy-colored Bondi Blue delivered plenty of style (not boring beige) and newfangled USB ports. What it lacked: storage (just 4GB) and a floppy drive. To complaints on the latter, CEO Steve Jobs simply said: Floppy drives are so last year. Shortly thereafter, broadband Internet access, cheap Ethernet and USB flash drives became the norm--and proved him right.

Tech-Enabled TMI
1998's far-clunkier cell phones didn't enjoy the ubiquity of today's versions, but their increasing popularity created new issues. A major one: Cell phone etiquette. By 1998, some 55 million people in the United States had subscribed and plenty were oversharing: Restaurant diners, moviegoers and train commuters all suffered through strangers shouting intimate details in public places. Today, most of the U.S.'s 243 million wireless subscribers don't answer their phone in the movie theaters, but ignoring your lunch date to text or e-mail? That's so this year.

R.I.P., Pay Phones
In 1998, the sci-fi film The Matrix was in production for its release the following year. The movie boasted groundbreaking visual effects and a software engineer/hacker/savior/action hero consumed by a metaphysical quest. The movie, which would inspire countless imitations and philosophical discussions, gave the pay phone a central role in the future. Not so much in the real world: The year before The Matrix's release, 2.6 million pay phones existed in the United States. Now: Only about 1 million. And with AT&T quitting the pay phone game by the end of this year, pay phones may soon be featured only in the history books.

MP3 in the Age of Napster 1.0
A decade ago, hipster technophiles had found a new toy to love: the MP3 player. One such offering, the Nomad Jukebox (released in 1999), promised 100 hours' worth of listening pleasure. Of course, its rechargeable batteries conked out long before such pleasure could be realized. The Nomad Jukebox was no exercise companion either: Its internal hard drive didn't take kindly to running or bouncing, it was prone to skipping and stalling, and it was heavy and bulky. And no worries of ear damage here; at full volume it was a tinny whisper to an iPod's scream. Still, in a pre-iPod time, many considered it the best MP3 player around.