My 4 function calculator. I don't know what happened to it. An Apple ][+, which sparked my interest in engineering.
What's the first "Newest Technology" you remember?
- Thread starter 29aholic
- Start date
vigil617
US Veteran
I built a crystal radio from a kit when I was ten or so. Amazed that I could pick up the same stations we listened to on Dad's transistor radio.
Color TV. The big console Magnavox my dad finally sprang for when I was about the same age. Came with a remote -- two buttons, one for volume, one for channels.
Tape recorder. Think I must have been about 12 then. It was about the size of a good-sized tackle box. A family Christmas gift one year. My sister, a year younger, and my little brother, four years younger, and I really enjoyed that machine -- especially recording and then quickly erasing body sounds, after dying laughing at them....
Color TV. The big console Magnavox my dad finally sprang for when I was about the same age. Came with a remote -- two buttons, one for volume, one for channels.
Tape recorder. Think I must have been about 12 then. It was about the size of a good-sized tackle box. A family Christmas gift one year. My sister, a year younger, and my little brother, four years younger, and I really enjoyed that machine -- especially recording and then quickly erasing body sounds, after dying laughing at them....
I had a big tape recorder like that when I was about 16. I remember taping the Apollo 11 moon landing, just about from launch to splashdown off our 19" black and white TV. I had a couple of 7 1/2" tapes full. No VCR's back then that I ever heard of, so a audio recording was the only way. Because I was just using a free standing microphone, it picked up all the conversation in the room. I wish I still had it, especially from the night of the landing to the "first step." It would be interesting to hear what my families reaction was. I remember we were all gathered around the TV.
Last edited:
DWalt
Member
Our first color TV was a 24" Zenith, bought it back in the late 1960s. It had a remote, but it connected to the set with a wire. Color TV technology was still in its infancy then, our set was partially vacuum tubes, partially transistors. We had a lot of problems with that set, cost us a bundle for repairs. Don't remember when home video recorders first came out, but we bought our first VHS VCR sometime in the early 1980s. It was an RCA, it also had a wired remote. I remember it was fairly expensive at the time, maybe close to $300. There was also a competitive videotape system called Betamax. It was supposed to provide better picture quality than VHS, but it was more expensive. It died out fairly quickly. Anyone else remember those laser disc video players which used a large disc (sort of like a 33-1/3 audio record) instead of tape? You had to buy pre-recorded movies, as the player didn't record. I don't think they ever caught on. I just remembered something else - some early computer nerds had converted VCRs for use as data recorders for computers. I guess that was before floppy discs and CDs became popular. I think audio tape cassette recorders could be used the same way.
Last edited:
I had a similar experience maybe a year later. I had an idea to save my company $5-6 million/year buying maintenance parts, but there would be a bunch of data to manipulate to see if I could make it happen, so I told my manager I needed some computer help, thinking we'd get some mainframe time and some knowledgeable assistance from the Information Dept.
Well, a week or two later, a box from his boss's boss arrived at my desk; I opened it and was stunned to find an IBM PC AT.
Stunned because the dozen or so PC's around the office were "only" XT's with 10 Mb hard drives and allocated to some selected elites, and I hadn't a clue how to use one.
The XT's had a 10 Mb hard drive, but this AT (Advanced Technology!!) had a 20 Mb hard drive and a 6 Mhz processor.
Wow!!! Suddenly all kinds of people with mega computer envy dropped by my office, and there it sat, in the box, apparently unloved.
I had a colleague who was really into the early personal computers at home, and I struck a deal - I'd put the thing in his office if he'd run it and build a program to test my idea. He was happy with a new toy, I was happy for the help, and my idea proved valid and was incorporated into SOP for the company.
That 20 MB memory and a 6 MHz processor was a huge deal, the most powerful thing in the company - how far we've come in ~35 years!
Last edited:
OLDSTER
Member
Television. My brother and I would watch the "test pattern" for hours waiting for a flicker of Woody Woodpecker.
My parants first color tv was somewhere in the late 50's, I dont remember when I got my first but it was Motorola with the works in a draw, back then tv's were a piece of furniture.
Sent from my LGL52VL using Tapatalk
Sent from my LGL52VL using Tapatalk
Dont forget Howdy Doody.Television. My brother and I would watch the "test pattern" for hours waiting for a flicker of Woody Woodpecker.
Sent from my LGL52VL using Tapatalk
Growing up I need the 1980's, my first tech introduction was the old VHS Video Recorder. It did not have a normal infra red remote control, instead having a lead between the controller and the Recorder.
The next best tech introduction was the Atari games console.
The next best tech introduction was the Atari games console.
Attachments
My mother that passed away in 2003 at 101 lived through from the horse & carriage to the man on the moon.
That's a lot of "change".
That's a lot of "change".
Gun Powder and sliced bread
carpriver
US Veteran
the can opener with the key on the side of the opener. a transistor radio.
LOL! When I was a kid we got a British Seagull outboard motor. I still remember that on the first page of the little booklet that came with it, it said:
If all else fails, read the manual
Funny how some words of wisdom never wear out.
Sistema1927
US Veteran
My first computer was a Sinclair ZX81, with a whopping 1k of memory. Not the Timex Sinclair that had 2k.
I had it in my barracks room in Korea, hooked up to a small B&W TV. I used a tape recorder to store my programs.
I learned COBOL, FORTRAN IV, and a little RPG in High School. We never saw the computer. We wrote our programs, punched our card decks, and sent them across town. A couple of days later we got back our output on green bar paper. One bug, and you would have to correct, re-punch, and send it back, waiting a few more days. Heaven forbid that you would drop your card deck.
As a result, the transition to BASIC was pretty easy, and I was able to do quite a bit with that Sinclair during my down time. While other guys were drinking in the 'ville, I was working on skills that would pay off well in the future.
After getting out of the service I built my first real PC, with 640k and a 10mb Winchester hard drive. Even building it, I had way over $1k in it. But, once again, an investment that paid dividends later.
I had it in my barracks room in Korea, hooked up to a small B&W TV. I used a tape recorder to store my programs.
I learned COBOL, FORTRAN IV, and a little RPG in High School. We never saw the computer. We wrote our programs, punched our card decks, and sent them across town. A couple of days later we got back our output on green bar paper. One bug, and you would have to correct, re-punch, and send it back, waiting a few more days. Heaven forbid that you would drop your card deck.
As a result, the transition to BASIC was pretty easy, and I was able to do quite a bit with that Sinclair during my down time. While other guys were drinking in the 'ville, I was working on skills that would pay off well in the future.
After getting out of the service I built my first real PC, with 640k and a 10mb Winchester hard drive. Even building it, I had way over $1k in it. But, once again, an investment that paid dividends later.
Last edited:
DWalt
Member
While there was some commercial broadcasting in color occurring during the mid- to late 1950s, there were few color sets in use, due partly to their considerable expense and partly because there was so little color programming to watch, just a few scattered shows. It wasn't until the early to mid 1960s that color TV began to become somewhat practical for home use, and then it took off. The first color TV picture I remember seeing was around 1959-60, as a demonstration in a department store window back in my old home town in Ohio. A guy I worked with in Cleveland around 1965 had a color TV set in his home, the first person I knew who actually had one. We didn't buy our first color set until around 1969 (which I mentioned earlier).
DWalt
Member
Much the same for me when I was at Ohio State. We used an OSU proprietary language called SCATRAN which was a modified FORTRAN. You had to create a stack of punch cards representing your programming, and they had to be in order, with no mistakes. Then you put a rubber band around your card deck with your name on it and dropped it into a slot in the wall. Never did see the computer, didn't even know where it was. You came back the next day to get your card deck and printout. More likely than not, it didn't run, usually because of some logic or syntax error. You had to resolve the problem and go through the same thing again, sometimes three or four times until you were successful, a very frustrating experience. But it turned out to be useful in the end as one learns to develop logical analytic thinking processes in order to perform programming. Some time later, I did a lot of engineering programming in BASIC, but it has been too long ago for me to remember much about how I did it. Happily I don't need to know any more.
Last edited:
I remember a black and white TV and don't remember first color TV. The other was a Transistor radio with ear phone. We lived highest point in Memphis area, I remember WHBQ ,WDIA and late night could tune in Chicago and others
RudyN
Member
The first one was a TV with THREE channels! Then we went from a party line to one line and I still remember the phone number. The big thing is my first computer TI-99-wow.
Then we went from a party line to one line and I still remember the phone number. The big thing is my first computer TI-99-wow.HOUSTON RICK
Member
I will never forget walking out of the cave and seeing fire for the first time.
