What's the first "Newest Technology" you remember?

[PlaytheAces]

When I was a little kid back in the fifties, they came out with a miracle invention called the transistor radio. You could actually play music anywhere you could dial in a AM radio station. The beach, the mountains or just hanging in the backyard. If you were lucky enough to have mom and dad buy you one, you'd arrived.

 

[Benchrest1]

Color TV. Real stereo not mono.

 

[Krogen]

I would have long expected some of this crew to say “fire” or “the wheel.”

Fire? or the wheel? That's pretty newfangled stuff. Anybody remember the invention of dirt?

Seriously, though. I remember the arrival of color TV. We had a black and white TV. At Christmas time, the folks would rent a color TV to watch all the Christmas specials. This must have been 1966 or 1967. Not only were the Christmas specials vivid, the game shows were dazzling.

 

[Krogen]

The color wheel for the Christmas tree.

Hah! Good one! I forgot about that. We had a color wheel and an aluminium Christmas tree! Looked cool to a kid. But it would zap the daylights out of you. Walk across the carpet on a cold, dry winter day and touch the tree. Kerthwap! You could draw an arc from here to eternity.

 

[Krogen]

Color TV and remote (clicker) control.

I remember the first remote TV control I saw. My just married older sister and her husband had one. It used a tuning fork "clanger" to change channels. Push a button and the mechanism would hit the "clanger." Problem was that the dog would run in front of the TV and jingle his dog tags; and change the channel!

 

[BigBoy99]

The vacuum thermos jug. It would keep hot things hot and cold things cold, but how did it know what to do when?

 

[rwsmith]

It was......

The vacuum thermos jug. It would keep hot things hot and cold things cold, but how did it know what to do when?

It was 'Smart' technology. Kind of an ijug.

 

[s&wchad]

I’m surprised no one has mentioned radial tires. They perform better and last a lot longer than the old bias ply tires.

A number of us have mentioned cell phones. Anyone else think they’re as much a curse as a blessing?

Fire. Then the wheel.

You’re not that old. The musket cap maybe...

Depth finder / fish locator - it made anyone a better fisherman.

Not for me, it just showed how bad a fisherman I really was! Al those fish down there and I can’t hook one.

 

[Hippie44]

For me it was a wood splitter. I was the last child at home, my father was planning for the future.

 

[Gamecock]

Microwave oven.

Paid $400 in early 1980s money. Worth every penny.

 

[Bugkiller99]

Residential central air conditioning. Been in Florida all my life, that’s an important advancement!
Buddy down the street got it. All the cool kids starting hanging out there.
Obviously ac has been around, but getting it to an affordable cost and size was the key.

 

[Salty RI]

I can remember comming home from school with my friends and turning on the TV and watching the test pattern.[emoji1]

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[CajunBass]

Sputnik. I remember as a little kid, going outside at night with the adults, and watching a tiny point of light move across the sky. I don't remember the adults reactions, but I remember doing it.

I do remember when we didn't have indoor plumbing. Not sure how old I was though.

Electric lights. I don't really remember not having them, but I have memories of NOT having them one time. I remember it as being Hurricane Hazel, but that was in 1954, when I was two, so I doubt it was that. I remember all of us, probably some uncles and aunts too, huddled in one room, with a couple of "hurricane lights" flickering on the table, listening to the wind howl. I'm not even sure it's a memory, or just something I heard about over and over.

 

[llowry61]

These may sound strange, but when I was a little kid all we had were bathtubs. We moved into a new house when I was about 10 and it had showers, a laundry chute and we got off the party line. I remember my dad was an engineer and he got the TI handheld calculator which was really cool and his water cooled slide rule was relegated to storage.

 

[CajunBass]

We HAD a shower, but I don't remember anyone ever using it. We had a shallow well that would dry whenever it felt the urge. We kids just took baths in the same water. Just add some hot as it got cold. I know unheard of today, but back then...things were different.

I also remember taking a bath in a washtub in the kitchen as my father, grandfather, uncles and such worked on the house as they got the time.

I remember using an outhouse too, but I don't know for how long. Even after the plumbing got installed, the kitchen and bathroom sinks just drained out into the woods. The environment hadn't been invented then, and it reduced the load on the septic tank.

We had an old well pump and tank that was outside the well in a "pumphouse." When it got dry, we'd cut the pump off, then as needed, we'd go out and "start the pump." Usually that involved flipping on the electric switch, then taking a stick stored there, and pushing against the pump flywheel to get a prime (I didn't know why when I was a kid. I just did it because that what you had to do.) After a few pushes, the pump would "CLICK", then start, pump until the tank was pressurized, then cut off. Then we'd turn the switch off and wait until the next time my mother called out "go start the pump."

 

[Sistema1927]

I remember Saturday trips to Sears with Mom and Dad. Each and every time, Dad would wander into the TV section, and tell the salesman that he might buy a color TV once the technology improved. This went on for years before he bought his first Philco Color TV.

I used a slide rule all through High School. In my Senior year I purchased one of the first, primitive, hand held LED calculators. My grandparents were visiting soon after that, and I showed them my new device. Grandpa wasn't impressed. He told me that when he ran his General Store that all he needed was a paper bag and a pencil, and neither required batteries.

 

[arjay]

I remember my neighbor and his dad building their first color tv from a Heathkit. Same guy had the first skateboard I’d ever seen,so I asked my sister for her old skates and made one from a scrap of 2x4. Version 2.0 was from a 1x6 [emoji16]. We lived on a hill and the turn into the drive had to be just right,if you overshot,you’d sideswipe the redwood fence lol

 

[SC_Mike]

I was going to say color tv or the remote control but we only had three channels and if the President was on you might as well go read.

I would say A/C in cars. Might not have been "new to the world" but growing up in central Florida it made an impression on me for sure.

 

[DWalt]

Residential central air conditioning. Been in Florida all my life, that’s an important advancement!
Buddy down the street got it. All the cool kid starting hanging out there.
Obviously ac has been around, but getting it to an affordable cost and size was the key.

It is difficult to overstate the impact of air conditioning on the population distribution of modern society. Up until the mid-late 1940s, most of the US population was located in the more temperate northern and mid-western states. It was just too hot in the summer for most people to want to live and work in the southern and southwestern states. The availability of air conditioning changed all that in a big way and resulted in a mass migration to the sun belt.

I remember reading something some years back about a survey taken among a number of the various U. S. professional engineering societies about what was the most significant technology development of the 20th century. The answer - the electrification of America prior to WWII. And I think that is a very logical answer.

 

[Salty RI]

I remember my neighbor and his dad building their first color tv from a Heathkit. Same guy had the first skateboard I’d ever seen,so I asked my sister for her old skates and made one from a scrap of 2x4. Version 2.0 was from a 1x6 [emoji16]. We lived on a hill and the turn into the drive had to be just right,if you overshot,you’d sideswipe the redwood fence lol

When I was a kid we made skateboards 30 yrs before they came out, we used the wheels from skates that had steel wheels.[emoji1]

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