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Forgotten Electronics of the 70s and 80s

Posted by michael on from the forgotten-for-a-reason dept.

Ant writes "This is where you can find photos of those unusual items which somehow missed our keen attention in the 70s and 80s. Be it a specialty product, electronic novelty or an utter boondoggle from a major electronics outfit of the day, we'll dig 'em up and talk about 'em."

29 of 531 comments (clear)

  1. N-Gage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    That is the page where Nokia N-Gage will be in about 10 years.

  2. the calculator watch.. by qewl · · Score: 5, Funny

    the epitome of cool..

    especially if worn while carrying a boom box blasting old school Beastie Boys on your shoulder.

    --

    (\_/)
    (O.o) This is Bunny. (> <)
    1. Re:the calculator watch.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      remember those giant boomboxes?

    2. Re:the calculator watch.. by OO7david · · Score: 4, Funny

      I think Marty McFly does. I mean, that was one heck of a power chord.

    3. Re:the calculator watch.. by Dun+Malg · · Score: 4, Funny
      I think Marty McFly does. I mean, that was one heck of a power chord.

      Wow. I think you are the first person on /. to use the phrase "power chord" and not be talking about a wire that plugs into the wall! Your perspicacity is applauded and you may now advance to the next level. (???)

      --
      If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
    4. Re:the calculator watch.. by Simonetta · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I remember when calculators came out; you could get expelled from school if you were caught with one.

      Hello,
      Was this a high school that you are referring to when you say that you could get expelled for having a calculator or even a middle school?
      What was their reason for expelling a student with a portable machine that did arithmetic?

      I'm curious because I wonder about the effect that new advanced technology has on deeply conservative societies and nobody is more conservative than an American public school administrator.

      I wonder what will happen in places like Singapore, (which is deeply politically conservative, moderately conserative in education, and progressive in adoption of new electronic technologies) when the first spoken-Chinese to traditional character writers appear at low cost? Will students there attempt to refuse to spend ten years memorizing Chinese characters? Will the government ban them except for foreigners as being 'disruptive to society'? Or will they accept them a novelity and as just another electonic product to make and sell?

      An even worse dilemma for Singapore will be the camera to speech convertors. This will be (in about 10 years as a guess) a hand-held device that 'speaks' the Chinese characters that the user has in the camera viewfinder.
      With these machines will students refuse to spend ten years memorizing characters now that there would be a cheap machine that 'reads' the characters and speaks them?

      Time will tell...

      thank you,

  3. ThinkGeek by nulltransfer · · Score: 5, Funny

    It won't be too long before much of the stuff sold there will be listed in "Forgotten Electronics of the 90s and 00s" :)

    --

    My dog ate my sig
    1. Re:ThinkGeek by krusadr · · Score: 4, Funny

      Amongst those devices that I hope will be on the list of forgotten electronics of the 20's is the internet aware toaster.

      Will the virus writers be able to set your house on fire I wonder?
      Brings a new legitimacy to the term firewall. I guess without one you're toast?

      --
      while sco {
      wget -O /dev/null http://www.sco.com?sco=litigious%20bastards
      }
  4. My dad? by BitchAss · · Score: 4, Funny

    My dad is a bit of a tool. On his stereo he has the following components hooked up AND WORKING:
    DVD
    VHS
    Beta
    Record Player
    CD Player
    8 Track

    It's all in 5.1 surround sound, so they all sound their best.

    I just wonder if there's room for a player piano and a cannister recording device.

    --
    Like sex? Read and write about it! Indecent Blogging
    1. Re:My dad? by el-spectre · · Score: 5, Funny

      Reminds me of when I worked at Radio Shack... someone got the idea to run a (as it turns out, mono) adult movie in our nice 5.1 surround sound system... we just got the same sound from 5 directions... creepy...

      --
      "Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
    2. Re:My dad? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, your dad's a geek. You're the tool

  5. Nostalgia by Octagon+Most · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It took me a long time to realize that my nostalgia for old electronics is really based on memories of the fun times. The toys and games really were not that fun in retrospect. They were just all that was available. Fortunately I didn't spend too much money on eBay learning that lesson. It is fun to browse them and go down memory lane though.

  6. Digital watch a step backwards by MajorDick · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When I was young (about 7) in say 1976 or so my father bought a NEW digital watch , you know red LED that lit up when you presses a button, we were sitting at my grandfathers kitchen table, my grandfather was a watch maker, not some repairman he actually MADE watches from scratch at a rate of about 3 a year.

    Anyhow my father being very proud of his $800 new invention showed it to my grandfather, who looked very carefully at my fathers watch, he sat back, sipped his coffe and said "How is that progress when now it takes 2 hands to tell time, one for the watch and another to press the button to make it show time ?" My father kinda sank into his seat his bubble being burst instantly, I dont think he ever wore it again.

    1. Re:Digital watch a step backwards by MajorDick · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well I am a little sad, I moved in with my grandparents to help on the farm and take care of my 98 year old great grandmother when I was 15, my grandfather asked If I wanted to learn watchmaking, he said it would take about 4 years of apprenticship. I said no, as did my father taking my fathers route into computers (he started with IBM in 65)

      The family still owns a rather upscale jewlers store, my cousin a few years older than myself learned watchmaking from my great uncle (my grandfathers brother)

      He is one of a VERY few watchmakers in the U.S. he specalizes in repairs on historical timepices. he now makes upward of $200k a year.

      I thought the same thing most everyone else did, in this day and age how could a watchmaker compete in a world of mass manufacturing, the sad part is "Old World" craftmanship is dying, and its progressive, the fewer people even capable of this sort of work are able to teach fewer students.

    2. Re:Digital watch a step backwards by sydsavage · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Bah. My father had what I believe to be the first digital watch, a Pulsar. While indeed, pushing a button would illuminate the digits, it also had a shock sensing mechanism, so you could just flick your wrist, and it would light up for five seconds or so. No need to use your other hand, unless you wanted to check the date, which was displayed by pushing a seperate button.

  7. How appropriate... by malibucreek · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...that this website seems to be hosted on a server with all the power of a TRS-80.

    --

    Why is it called COMMON sense when so few people have it?

  8. The first Diskmen ws the smalest? by starm_ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    kind of ironic that the old diskmen were the smallest. I always tought diskmen were shrinking. In this1988 model the diskmen doesn't even fit an entirer disk.

  9. Reminiscing by saforrest · · Score: 5, Funny

    My dad used to have a huge ancient calculator from the 60's or 70's. I vividly remember it because it had a red alarm-clock style display.

    When you performed an arithmetic operation the whole screen would turn to garbage for a moment, then the answer would be displayed.

    I never saw this for myself, but he claims that if you tried to divide by zero the machine would just keep chugging away forever. :)

  10. Early walkman by Trurl's+Machine · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As a teenager I remember I had an early walkman. I can't recall now the make of it, but it was huge and it had cassette-loading slot, like a car stereo. The funniest thing about it was that it had built-in signal splitter to share the music with your, um, significant other and a built-in microphone - not for recording, as it was unable to record anything, but just for listening to the ambient sound. Obviously, whoever designed this device, considered the whole idea of using a walkman in solitud with no vocal contact with the outside world too freaky. In fact, I think he was partially right - I bought a signal splitter for my iPod so we can sometimes listen together, but I really miss something like a built-in mike for the ambient sound. Now when I see somene looks at me and his jaw is moving, I have to remove the earphones with "whaddidyasay?". Would be nicer (or at least geekier) just to push a button or something.

    1. Re:Early walkman by droopus · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The original Walkman had an ambient sound button and two little mikes at the front. The button was yellow and would allow you to hear whomever was trying to talk to you by simply pressing said yellow button. Usually they were saying "what the hell is that thing?"

      I always wondered why they got rid of that feature.

      --
      "The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
  11. my favorite 80s Gadget: Seiko TV Wrist Watch by i4u · · Score: 4, Informative

    The 80s Cult High Tech Wrist Watch

  12. mirror (if needed) by polished+look+2 · · Score: 5, Informative

    mirror of links off of main page

  13. I remember... by TexVex · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I remember having a pocket calculater in the early 80's that played a very simple and addictive little game. It worked using a numeric LCD display. A string of numbers and the occasional letter "n" would march from the right of the display toward the left. On the left was your number. Your goal was to use one button to increment your number and another to fire when it matched some of the numbers marching towards you. When you fired, all of that number were killed, causing the advancing line to retract. If you scored an "n" then the entire advancing numeric army would be wiped out, giving you a breather. The pace would slowly pick up until you simply couldn't keep up any more. There was elementary strategy involved -- do you shoot off this 8 right now, or save it and roll over to the 3 because you can hit three at once?

    Good times.

    --
    Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
  14. Super 8mm Home Projector by GillBates0 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    My father has an old Super 8mm home projector lying around, with a bunch of home movies, which are lying around catching fungus. For nostalgia's sake, we still sit around once/twice a year and watch the old old movies projected on the 1.5x1.5 meter screen.

    He desperately wants to convert them to digital format, because they're really fragile. Any pointers, one how to go about this in a cost-effective manner?

    We've tried the brute-force method of re-filming the projected video off the wall, but it's *very* lossy. Some of the rare stores that do it charge anything from $5.00 per foot of film and up, which will cost a *lot* of money for the 200 odd reels lying around.

    Not exactly on topic, but any pointers to do it at home (I am willing to shell out upto $1000, if I need to buy a kit or something) will be *most* welcome.

    Thanks!

    --
    An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
    1. Re:Super 8mm Home Projector by foog · · Score: 4, Informative

      Fragile? Properly stored, Kodachrome Super-8 is an archival medium. Ektachrome can fade badly if not stored properly. And Super-8 film still has more "resolution" than current consumer video formats. It's worth preserving if it has important stuff on it.

      Your projector might be at more fault than the film's mechanical fragility: if you're going to project your movies, get the projector cleaned and lubricated by a good camera technician every couple-three years or so. Consider finding a better projector than your dad probably bought back when.

      Or spend the money to get the transfer done by a professional who knows what he or she is doing. Google on "super-8 telecine". And then store the originals carefully. A professional-grade telecine setup would probably run you a lot more than $1000.

    2. Re:Super 8mm Home Projector by thparker · · Score: 4, Informative
      Not exactly on topic, but any pointers to do it at home (I am willing to shell out upto $1000, if I need to buy a kit or something) will be *most* welcome.

      Pointer #1: Don't do it at home.

      It's already been pointed out that your film has excellent resolution and is worth keeping. But I'd disagree that it isn't "fragile", as someone else said. If something has to be stored very carefully in controlled temperature and humidity, that is fragile.

      There are many reasons to do a film to tape transfer. It's hard to find projectors in 8 mm format, difficult to get them serviced if they break (as mine did -- no one could find the parts necessary), and they require a lot of care to make sure they don't damage your film. Also, with today's computers, it's much easier to edit your footage into a nice, watchable set of family memories rather than 200 reels of disorganized family history.

      Here's what I'd suggest:

      1. Stop getting them out and watching them every year. Dust and dirt in the film gate can scratch your film. If your plan is to transfer them, stop running them through a motorized feed.

      2. Get a hand cranked editing station off eBay. Use it to go through your film and organize it for transfer. The transfer house will likely splice together reels and you should try to group them to maintain some timeline.

      3. As someone else said, locate a good super-8 telecine shop. I plan on trying these guys in the near future. Send them one reel and see how they do. There are plenty of other places you can try; I happened to have that one bookmarked.

      If you'd like to edit this stuff down, consider standard or mini-DV which you can then load into a NLE program. Choose the best quality format you can use, and dub from that if you want other copies. Don't have it dumped to mpeg2 on DVD; get some kind of master tape made in DV, Digibeta, BetaSP, whatever you can run. This may require you to do some research into how video formats compare to one another. I'm sure google can help.

      You didn't say how many feet of film you're dealing with. Assuming your 200 odd reels are the 50' cassettes many consumer 8/s8 cameras used, you've got about 10,000 ft, roughly 14 hours or so. That's going to be $1000-$2000 to transfer. Based on a quick google search, transfers look to be $90-$185 per hour -- that's 680' of 8mm and 856' of Super 8mm.

      Bottom line -- this isn't worth doing yourself. The quality won't be as good and if your equipment isn't professionally maintained you're likely to damage the film. My old equipment has already eaten some of my film -- don't risk your footage. Start now and maybe you can edit it all down to a nice family DVD by your Dad's birthday.

      tp

  15. No mention of VideoDisc?! by ikewillis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I was very surprised to find no mention of RCA's VideoDisc Format, which allowed video to be stored on vinyl records and was the first consumer video format.

  16. Hehehe.... I do that.... by lazypenguingirl · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I require music to maintain any semblance of productivity. What is interesting is that people think "Wow, she has headphones on, so I can say whatever and she doesn't know." So, incidentally, people will hold relatively confidential/secret conversations within what would be earshot of me. When I installing and tweaking the ALSA sound drivers on me laptop (Slackware 9.1), I came across this idea and implemented it accordingly. So now I have my system volume set to an appropriate level.... AND have my laptop built-in microphone on too. So, I can listen to music at a good volume, and not be deaf to what people are saying around me (whether TO me, or in spite of me). And boy do I hear the most interesting things...

  17. Mirror by markclong · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://slushdot.org/mirror/forgotten_elec/

    Got it before they took it down.