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From TR-1 to iPod mini
karvind writes "BBC is running an interesting scoop on first transistor radio which has fair resemblance to iPod mini. The Regency TR-1 transistor radio, made in 1954, had a decent claim to be a genuine piece of innovation, however. It was, by popular agreement, the world's first commercially sold transistor pocket radio. Incidently technology watcher John Ousby realised the modern day parallels and matched photos of the transistor with photos of the iPod mini. The similarity between the two has 'created quite a stir' particularly in the Mac community."
Seriously, though...is it not possible that the iPod was developed w/o Apple having any knowledge of this? It's not like this is some mega-complicated design... it's a small, sqaure MP3 player.
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They're both small, come in different colours, and have a wheel-driven interface.
So does lipstick.
And radio-controlled toy cars.
Really, if "BUT LOOK AT THE SIMILARITIES!" posts were made for every new product, we'd never get anything done.
He's Jesus, for Christ's sake.
Run for the hills! Jobs' reality distortion field is about to explode!
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
here & here.
All this time I thought iPods were really cool, but now I find out they're unoriginal! Now I hate iPods. I only like things which bear no resemblance at all, accidental or otherwise, to any product previously created in the entire world.
steampunk web design
Ten bucks says someone's already tried to do a retro shoehorn mod to make their iPod look like a TR-1.
First one with a link gets +5 Informative!
I saw this article yesterday and thought it was rather silly. There really isn't much resemblance. They are both rectangular - as are most electronic devices. They both come in multiple colors, but the tr-1 came in many many more colors than the ipod and only the silver really looks similar. That is pretty much where the similarity ends. Nothing on the face of either looks similar at all - The speaker grill on the radio, for instance, the shiny metal dial which looks nothing like the ipod control thingy other than being round.
Isn't the mini just an evolution of the first-generation iPod design? The first-gen looks absolutely nothing like the TR-1 to me.
This is hardly surprising. Design has always been an attempt to define the current cultural atmosphere, but the truth is, there are some colors, shapes, patterns that humans covet, and others they don't -- this subset is constantly re-used and re-invented. "Trendiness" is short-lived, and thus design movements are simply a shift from one family of design to another: the result is something that "feels" new but is not. One can see this trend in every consumer product, from sofas, to automobiles, to dresses, to watches, and yes, even to electronic gadgets.
Just about every "trend" in design today can be found in some form or another existing over the past 100 years (possibly multiple times).
Compare Lisa with this.
I can't afford this, but http://cgi.ebay.com/Beautiful-Regency-TR-1-Transis tor-Radio-w-case-GRAY_W0QQitemZ6564339586QQcategor yZ932QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Now you just need to buy a pair of white headphones to go with it...
'Quite a stir', eh? Blimey - no wonder those guys only get one mouse button. Any more and they'd soil themselves in wonder.
That the tr-1 was featured in BruceBrown's epic surf flick Endless Summer
In various shots throughout the film you can see Surfer Mike Hynson sporting the little radio throughout their surfari in Africa!
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
I really doubt an ipod would be usable after 50 years (with a normal day to day use), it would be interesting to see if some of these radios are still usable.
In some article they stated the radio was like almost US $300 (on today's dollars). But of course I am sure the "Use N' Throw" culture was still not abundant in the USA.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
If I was a hardware designer, I'd do things like that all the time and wait to see who noticed.
"The wheel is still circular."
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
...in this original advert. The comparison pictures hide how deep (front-to-back) this radio was.
For instance, almost every handheld product, including music players, are a rectangle. The short is sized to fit across the hand, while the long end is made form a pleasing proportion. This works, is comfortable, and many people already know how to utilize it.
Second, the wheel is round because that is how many of us know how to control things. This comes from the fact that in pre-digital age many things were controlled by rheostats. Rheostats used rotational motion to control things like radio tuning, volume, and the like. In the case mention, the radio was likely tuned by turning a large gear on the wheel, which turned a rheostat, which adjusted the resistance in a circuit that tuned the radio. Under a piece of clear plastic, which was marked with an indicator line, the frequency numbers were printed so the user might know approximately the tune frequency. This was a great design,as it provided a simple way to make the radio usable, but was probably more a result of expedient. The combination of the need to fit in the hand, and the need to simply and reliably indicate the radio tuning, gave the device in question it's shape and characteristics.
Over time changes were made. Some mechanisms were added so the rotational motion of the rheostat could be converted to linear motion so a linear indicator might be utilized. Digital electronics made the rheostat obsolete, but since people knew how to turn knobs, the knob motif continued to be used. Which leads to the iPod. It fits in the hand, which gives it the shape. People know how to use knobs to select, and the knob provides a more continuous experience than up and down buttons. So the big circle transforms from the display to the selector, while the display becomes a square LED. The colors are added to differentiate the product in the market, but are expensive to stock. Really, there is not similarity between the radio and the iPod, except that both devices fit in the hand, and the transistor radio perhaps taught us how to use knobs.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
This is just further proof that highly complex forms suited to particular functionality don't just happen randomly. It takes a mysterious spark of intelligence to create such an elegant form.
Of course, micro-adaptation might explain the subtle differences between the TR-1 and the iPod, but the genesis of the form is surely supernatural.
Also, have you noticed that the Wheel Interface is actually just perfect for anyone having a Noodly Appendage?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The device went on sale just in time for hip young gadget freaks to hear Elvis Presley singing That's All Right - recognised by many as the moment at which rock'n'roll was born.
It is also "recognized by many" that the earth is flat. That doesn't make it so.
A 1949 song by Little Richard is more commonly and correctly credited with being the first rock song, although it could be argued that John Lee Hooker's 1949 blues song "Shake, Rattle and Run" (later ripped off in tune and most of its lyrics in the late 50s as "Shake, Rattle and Roll") was the first rock and roll song.
However, the term "Rock and Roll" was coined by Ohio disk jockey Alan Freed in September 1952, a full two years before Prestly's song came out and a full three years after Little Richard's and Mr. Hooker's songs were made.
One would think a real journalist could do the tiniest bit of research. But I suppose one would be incorrect about that as well.
If the TR-1 was in fact the first pocket radio EVAR, then it is a technological and cultural milestone worth remembering even if (as many people here point out) it doesn't look nearly as much like an iPod Mini as TFA claims.
where there's fish, there's cats
While the two products may resemble each other, this is analagous to saying the PC is really a duplicate product of the typewriter and that the PC is not really an innovative product because the typewriter came before it. Ok, nobody is denying that the two products have a similar look or are capable of doing the same types of things, but the approach taken is so drastically different that saying that apple is lacking in innovation by producing the iPod is ridiculous. The key difference in the product is that they have taken something that was previously an analog interface and without making any changes to our physical interaction with it, converted it to a digital controller to meet the same end.
You mean, Apple might have copied the aesthetic design of an old Walkman, and the functionality of an ancient transistor radio?? Could this possibly be an image of the long sought after missing link, between the TR-1 and the iPod?!? Oh no! Technological evolution!! Say it isn't so!!
Honestly! If Apple's aesthetic design team hadn't researched successful designs of years gone by, I would be absolutely astonished! The innovation here wasn't in the physical appearances of the iPod, (as shown by these images of the TR-1 and that random Walkman on the link above) or in the functionality of the iPod (MP3 players already existed from other companies) or even in the interface design (as indicated by recent patent issues brought up by Creative Technology). Apple's innovation here was the integration of all these distinct elements into a single elegantly designed device: the iPod -- which as everyone knows by now, caused the fledgling MP3 market to finally take root! Simply put, Apple did what others had already been trying to do... but they did it right.
(Oh yeah... and I guess the iTunes Music Store may have had something to do with it too.)
I've been known to grumble when people gush over their iPods- especially when words like "revolutionary" are thrown around. The iPod is a good implementation, but Apple gets far too much credit considering that the Diamond Rio and Creative Nomad Jukebox had already taken the title of first portable MP3 player, and the first one with a HDD respectively. That being said, claiming that the iPod isn't innovative is a bit harsh. Innovation doesn't come just from being the first to have an idea, but from successfully combining two existing ideas together (come on, who wouldn't call the chocolate and peanut butter guys innovative?). Apple saw a need in the market for a smaller, lighter HDD-based player with better battery life, and they filled that hole. That's innovative. Similarly, they realized that most of the people who own iPods are fashion/trend-conscious (which is part of my problem with the iPod- but that can be saved for another post), so they added colors to the lineup. Once again they took an already successful idea, and added to it. And once again, I'd argue that they've innovated.
By the article's logic, neither the TR-1 nor the iPod are actually innovative. The car industry came up with the concept of a product in multiple colors well before then, and the concept of a smaller lighter radio just builds upon the pre-existing transistor radio. What the author doesn't seem to see is that almost all technology builds upon pre-existing ideas. The automobile is based upon the pre-existing idea of the wheel, and the engine- which in turned is built upon the idea of a steam engine. The CD player is the child of the radio, the laser, and the record player. It isn't so much about coming up with the idea first as it is about improving upon it. To be an innovator you don't have to re-invent the mouse trap, you just have to make it better.
The similarily is noexistant. The TR-1 has seperate wheels for volume and tuning, it's as deep as thirty nanos, and the placement of controls is totaly different. Surely in the past there were radio devices similar in design to the nano given the size and control constraints, but this ain't it.
Some people have an odd obsession to bring down Apple a few notches whenever they can by whatever means possible, this just continues the tradition.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You know I just noticed that my computer monitor looks an awful lot like an aquarium. The monitor has glass on the side...my monitor has glass on the side. The aquarium has black strips on the border, my monitor has black strips on the border. Do you think Dell ripped off the design for my monitor from the aquarium manufacturer? Come on people, this is not news. There is no connection, and we just wasted thousands of Slashdot advertising dollars piping this worthless chunk of bits across the Internet to millions of readers across the world. And yes, we will waste several more thousands pumping my worthless complaint across the Internet as the giddy mindless slashdotters click to read all the comments. Unless of course I get modded down to -1, then we will only send out my subject :-)
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
Okay, I give up, what are the similarities?
The TR-1 has a round metal dial that rotates, mounted on the center shaft of a tuning capacitor.
The iPod has no metal dial does not rotate, and no tuning capacitor.
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The TR-1 has a speaker grille with a plain old voice-coil and permanent magnet speaker behind it.
The iPod has no speaker grille and no speaker.
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The TR-1 came in a very fragile styrene plastic case, which was likely to shatter at the first drop.
The iPod comes in a metal and poly-butyl-acrilate case, very sturdy and hard to break.
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The TR-1 had exactly FOUR transistors, one diode, and a handful of parts, all hand-soldered to a single-layer PC board.
The iPod has, oh, at least 100,000 transistors, many many parts, all automatically placed and soldered onto a four-layer PC board.
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OH I GET it NOW! They both have PC boards! WOw!!!
...and those four records went nowhere. He didn't have his first hit until the mid-50's.
There are many songs from the late 40's that claim to be the first rock and roll song. Those songs include Ike Turner's Rocket 88, Wynonie Harris' Good Rockin' Tonight, and Fats Domino's The Fat Man. None of those cited, however, are Little Richard's.
Check this out, pretty close to the original iPod
Modell T4
Probably more of a coincedence, however.
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
Creative Labs patents TR-1 interface.