Antiquated or up to date?

We were going through a very old history of Scottish regiments. You know, from the days before UK merged them pretty much out of existence and moved most of the assets to England. The book will have had a limited appeal, mostly to academics, military historians and librarians, so it was financed by a huge number of very local trade adverts.

These heaters were once the last word in modernity. Thanks to our being saddled with the largest heating bills in the developed world, we may well be going back to heating one room at a time.