The Evolution of Storage Mediums

The other day I was reorganizing my closet and came across some old tapes. My son was in the room with me picking up anything and everything that I removed from the closet. He is very curious and likes to play with my tech junk. I started to think of all of the different types of storage mediums I have dealt with through my life and began to realize how different my son's life will be. My son often asks, "whats that?" when he picks up an object. When he picked up an audio cassette and asked what it was, I thought, should I tell him what it is? My mind then began compiling a list of all the various formats that he will never use. So in no particular order, here's a trip down memory lane of audio, video, and data formats that I have used but no longer do:

1. Records - I always hated this format because it wasn't portable and you had to do tricks like putting a penny on the needle to keep a scratched record from skipping.
2. 8 track tapes - I remember listening to John Denver and Olivia Newton John in our motor home on family trips. I just could never find the rewind button on the player.
3. Cassette Tapes - I went through at least 3 Walkmans. This format introduced me to the dark side of boot legging. Too bad I no longer have a player to listen to noisy recordings made from the radio.
4. CD's - Ahh digital music. Actually I'm old fashioned and still buy CD's and then rip them to my ipod. I like to have a hard copy.
5. DAT (digital audio tape) - I mainly used this in the studio.
6. DCC - A rival to DAT that quickly died.
7. Mini Disc - A smaller recordable low quality CD in a case developed by Sony. Why? The world may never know.
8. DVD Audio - Surround sound music. I was hoping this format would take off and replace CD's. But instead the world decided they wanted portability at the sacrifice of quality.
9. SACD - Sony's attempt once again to create their own format to compete with DVD Audio.
10. Beta max - A higher quality than VHS but more bulky.
11. VHS - My wife and I have purged most of our video tapes. I still keep a tape for testing. Man these are hard to watch compared to DVD's.
12. S-VHS - A better version of VHS. I still have a player collecting dust in my closet.
13. Laser Disc - Imagine having to turn you DVD over half way through the movie.
14. 5.25 floppy disc - I have no words.
15. 3.5 floppy disc - Ahh so much better than 5.25. I can even put them in my pocked and not damage it.
16. ZIP disc - So much storage, yet still a bit bulky.

Now I know I've missed some formats, but this is just off the top of my head. Feel free to add any that I may have missed in the comments link. I hope this has been an entertaining walk down memory lane. I also look forward to future storage mediums and how it will affect our daily lives.