Slashdot Mirror
Vintage Toys & Tech Photos
savetz writes "Here's a fun site: Consumer Reports magazine's vintage photo gallery, in which you can see photos from when the magazine reviewed electric toasters in 1956, in-car record players in 1961, radio sunglasses in 1966, and other good stuff. Don't forget about the flaming Nerf ball."
is this just me or do all these new products seem a bit dated?
transmission_err
Anybody remember Capsella? That stuff was the shit! It included mechanics, gears, electronics, even if you were lucky infra-red remote control.
This brings to mind that classic SNL sketch...Consumer Reporter: Well, let's try this one. What about this little foam play ball? I mean, even you, Mr. Mainway, can't find anything dangerous about this. Huh? Irwin Mainway: [ takes ball, bounces it on table, then shoves it in his throat and feigns choking ]
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Good god! It has a 157dB blast. I guess the kids went through two pairs of pants... first from wetting himself with excitement, then from crapping himself after hearing that *boom*.
Maybe it's time to move out of the basement.
The nerf ball failed because it caught fire after being exposed to a lit match?
I guess they also condemned:
1. coloring books
2. jigsaw puzzles
3. the hair on childrens heads
Why didn't they just condemn matches?
Fun Toy Banned Because Of Three Stupid Dead Kids
I love it. My 1954 Maytag A-504 washing machine. It's been cleaning dirty underwear for 48 years, and all it's ever asked for is a drivebelt.
Carrying on the tradition:
The moral?
If you buy good quality stuff once, it will last you your lifetime. And just because something may be old (ie, most of this stuff is older than I am), it doesn't make it irrelevent. What does a new dishwasher do that my old Maytag won't? Nothing. And the old Maytag looks really cool installed in a modern kitchen!
So, when my washing machine's 48-year-old rubber belt finally broke, I went to the local Maytag store and bought a new belt at the parts counter. Spent $10 on the belt, then the manager came running out after me. He rented my washing machine from me - paid me good money, provided me with a new washer while mine was there, and tried to buy it outright - so that he could stick it in the showroom that fall.
Unfortunately, you can only try so long to continue to use your desktop computer...
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Have a look at this. Down near the bottom, there are two successive entries, the first about a car, the second about pens. The car in the picture is described as the cheapest American-made car, and cost $1000. The line below that, dated a year later states that the price of ballpoint pens just fell from $9 to $1. So, at the earlier price point, for the price of just slightly more than 100 pens, you could have yourself a new car! Today, of course, you can't get a new car for less than $8,000, but you can have yourself 100 Bics for, what, $2? It really is a striking illustration of how inflation is merely an average, prices on individual items increase or decrease at vastly different rates.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD