10 tech gadgets from the ‘90s you totally forgot you owned

If my '90s self knew I would be able to combine my phone calls, text messages, literally all the information in the world, translations of other languages, my banking information, my photographs and my music into one tiny gadget, I’d completely lose my mind. That day has come, which makes all of our older gadgets just seem so prehistoric.

But while '90s nostalgia can sometimes be funny, we’ve got to remember that this was a decade of massive change and epic technological evolution. We launched the International Space Station, we created the World Wide Web, we began using smartphones, and satellite television became a reality.

Here are 10 of the nerdy, fun, and sometimes-useful gadgets you probably forgot all about owning.

1. Tamagotchi

{{ amazon name="Tamagotchi", asin="B00GRRUHUI", align="right" }} Long live the digital pet! I owned about eight of them—all on one ridiculous keychain. In middle school, we were forced to put them into our lockers during the day. So, at lunch, dozens of school kids would pour into the hallways to feed and “clean” our digital monster-alien-babies. They were much simpler, weirder times.

2. The Beeper

Ah, the beeper. If you had one as a teenager, that meant you were really, really cool. One day, I begged my parents for one — and got it! But almost no one beeped me—because I was 14. However, the beeper became obsolete pretty quickly. I soon got a cell phone and the beeper was thrown in the trash.

4. Easy Bake Oven

{{ amazon name="Easy-Bake Oven", asin="B00JMCJH4W", align="right" }} I am 100% positive that the Easy Bake Oven was more decoration than gadget, since everyone I knew who had one (myself included) used it literally once, discovered how lame it was, and never used it again. Maybe it would be pulled out for a sleepover, but with parents who would gladly make you snacks, why would it really be necessary? There was also actually a boy version (the 90s were proudly gendered) called Queasy Bake Cookerator, which made inferior cookies.

5. The Talkboy & Deluxe Talkboy

This little gadget was designed to play cassettes and capture audio, which could be slowed down or sped up. High tech! Fun fact: it was originally designed specifically for the Home Alone 2 movie. However, Hollywood decided to capitalized on the millions of kids who were inspired by Kevin McCallister using it to terrorize his family, and it soon became a real item.

6. Dream Phone Board Game

{{ amazon name="Dream Phone", asin="B003VOOG70", align="right" }} The dream phone isn’t exactly a “gadget,” but it was a pretty high-tech game that most kids had around the house. In 1991, it was released so that little girls could call fake people and find out which boy had crush on them. Do you remember your crush? Mine was Spencer. This game would be considered an assault on mankind nowadays, but back the it was pretty fun—problematic messaging aside.

7. Duck Hunt & Gun

That notorious orange gun was such a loyal friend to me! Whenever friends came over, Duck Hunt was the game of choice. Back in the day whoever could hit the most of those poor pixelated ducks was the coolest kid in town. Nowadays, you’d be hard-pressed to find a kid who’d even understand what they were looking at.

7. Skip It

{{ amazon name="Twister Moves Skip-It", asin="B00NHLA19E", align="right" }} It might be a game, but Skip It was pretty much a '90s version of Fit Bit. It couldn't count calories or measure distance but it did track how many times it went around your ankle. And it came in a bunch of fun colors!

8. Apple eMate 300

This mid-90s Apple gadget was essentially an early attempt at a low-cost laptop. It was designed primarily to be used for educational purposes.

9. Floppy Disks

Long before elegant and safe file storage became a non-issue (thank you, Google), us '90s kids would have to write papers and store them on floppy disks. Just the phrase alone gives you a shutter! You’d pop it in and access your content, which wasn’t a bad idea—but if something happened to that floppy disk, you were done for.

10. Portable Discman

Remember when you listened to all your music on CD? Now remember when you bought your first “anti-shock” portable disc player? Those were good times. The discs usually still skipped, but you felt like such a cool kid walking down the street listening to music in your flying-saucer shaped music contraption.

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