Slashdot Mirror
15 Vintage Tech Ads
JimLynch writes "Tech ads just aren't what they used to be. Sure, you have your robot phone wars and naked spokeswomen in bathtubs (what was she selling, again?). But missing are the cheesy songs, silly slogans, and giant gadgets that made the tech ads of yesteryear so wonderful to watch. Check out these 15 vintage tech commercials for yourself. If all the obsolete technology doesn't put a smile on your face, surely the cameo by a young William Shatner will." Apple's "1984" is included, and it has a strange and unanticipated resonance these days.
I can't help but look at the old tech ads and see how they were catered to a tech-illiterate population. Compare the iPhone and the 1984 commercials. For being a revolutionary product the Mac ads didn't -say- much about the Mac while the iPhone shows what all it can do.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I don't think that was a vintage advert. I think it was made by MS sales executives to motive sales people and give them a quick overview on whats new - something I've personally seen done in lots of companies.
There's some temporocentrism going on here. A few of these ads are truly goofy compared to any time period (MS DOS 5), but most aren't and are perfectly reasonable commercials given the time they came out. For example, the one about the VideoWriter. Sure, it seems stupid now, but replace that product with another product of today and you have a modern commercial, somewhat.
I've also seen a few comments on how commercials of old seem to be catered towards a more tech illiterate crowd than today's. I find this to be untrue. It's just that the level of tech literacy has risen significantly since then. Back then, there really wasn't much in the way of portable electronic gadgets, there wasn't really much to be tech literate about. Portable electronics were simple, almost featureless. Personal computers were new and completely foreign to most.
These days, electronics are ubiquitous and everyone has had some exposure to them, so the commercials need to scale in accordance. There are a lot more features, and these need to be advertised, because there's also a lot more competition. They're still aimed at a tech illiterate crowd. I find that the common, self proclaimed "tech savvy" people are not savvy at all. They know how to operate a mobile phone and how to download Firefox. That's a spit in the ocean, that's all it is.
Some of them were amazing. I remember one where Woz and others were middle aged (with gray hair) showing off the new tech - The Apple 5000(?) mainframe that replaced IBM, and a disk drive so small it fit into the side of a pair of glasses (which was a computer with screen in teh glasses). In some ways they are not as far fetched today as they were in 1983/84. I wonder if any of them survived?
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I can't believe they didn't include any of the Atari 400 / Atari 800 ads.
You could learn geography, or French. (Always followed by some version of Space Invaders or Missile Command.)
Alan Alda was a spokesman for a period of time.
Yeeesh...
I think in hindsight Atari obviously spent slightly more on TV advertising than product R&D, but I could be wrong.
ad
Because I can! [Brainrub.com]
Apple's "1984" is included, and it has a strange and unanticipated resonance these days.
The "1984" commercial's resonance is neither strange nor unanticipated if one understands the nature of projection .
;-)
Knowing that, it was obvious even 25 years ago what was (unintentionally) being revealed.
And while it's startlingly clear here in the case of Apple, the larger reason I mention projection is so more people learn how it works and how to use it to understand the world. It's both incredibly useful and incredibly beautiful. And if we want to create a world where we can do more than look at the mess and say "how strange and unanticipated," it's essential.
Every day statements are made with just as much future significance as "1984."
We might wanna learn to recognize them.