The Gadgets Page

I love this ad for the Admiral Triple Thrill:

It reads:

Home Entertainment all in One Luxurious Console $499.95

From Admiral comes complete home entertainment to charm your family and guests. Magic Mirror Television brings you bright, steady, mirror-like pictures on a big 10″ direct view screen… the clearest pictures of them all! Super-powered by 29 tubes to assure dependable performance even in outlying areas. Receives all channels. New two-speed automatic phonograph plays standard as well as new LP (long play) 45 minute microgroove records. Here, too, is a powerful radio with the finest features in FM-AM as developed by Admiral. Truly a triple thrill… all combined in a breathtakingly beautiful cabinet that measures only 48 inches wide! See it! Hear it! Today!

It’s such a strange juxtaposition to compare this Admiral TV/Record Player/Radio with the E-matic Video/MP3 Player/Camera that I just reviewed last week. We now have the power to carry hundreds of songs, TV shows and photos in our pockets for a mere fifty bucks! When you account for inflation, our $50 now would have been worth $5.68 back in 1948 when that ad was made.

To all the gadget haters out there, we live in a WONDEROUS time!

Ad via: Found in Mom’s Basement: Two vintage ads for home electronics

A friend of mine referred me to this Steampunk version of a Segway. He’s calling it the Legway:

• Steampunk Segway: Legway

A self balancing, human powered, steampunk styled, Segway. All you need is a brave self balancing human. This is the ultimate green vehicle for all you eco conscious steampunkers. Is that an oxymoron? I made this out of mostly found materials. This was my first steampunk styled build. Any good suggestions on making it look better will be incorporated as long as the materials are cheap and easy to find. I have been calling it the Legway in reference to the propulsion method. Yes, I know about those Lego self balancers of the same name.

Here is a video of it in action:

I know that using this gadget is MORE difficult than walking or running the same speed, but it looks so very AWESOME! I begged Mike to make me one for our Halloween party, but he said that I wasn’t allowed to ride it around the house.

I guess I’ll just have to admire it from afar.

Via: Twitter / Jason Alderman: @lauramoncur @mgm Steampun …

Check out this awesome demonstration of an old Mikiphone Pocket Phonograph:

There is a detailed photograph of the Mikiphone here:

• “Pocket” Gramophones from the ’20s :: Street Tech :: hardware beyond the hype

You can find photos from a bunch of grammophones (including a photo of a Mikiphone) here:

• Herzlich Willkommen in Andre’s Phonographen-Kabinett

I remember playing records on my Bee-Gee’s record player when I was a kid and I still see vinyl at some of the stores, but digital has been so much better for me. After losing precious records to the heat of the summer sun, I am so grateful for the almighty iPod.

Via: Brass Goggles » Blog Archive » The Mikiphone: Precursor to the i-pod?

One of my favorite video games of the 1990’s was 7th Guest. I loved the spooky music and the puzzle games. There is more than I ever knew about it on Wikipedia:

• The 7th Guest – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The game is played by wandering the mansion, solving logic puzzles and watching videos that further the story. The main antagonist, Henry Stauf, is an ever-present menace, taunting the player with clues, mocking the player as they fail his puzzles (“We’ll all be dead by the time you solve this!”), and expressing displeasure when the player succeeds (“Don’t think you’ll be so lucky next time!”).

This video explains the story of Henry Stauf, the creepy toymaker. You’re introduced to the six guests and left to wonder who the seventh guest is.

Watching this video brought back so many memories for me. Truly, one of the best parts of the game was the music. Fat Man did an amazing job of creating new creepy music that seemed to fit right into an old Victorian house.

They recently released a version of Myst for the Nintendo DS. I personally can’t wait for the DS version of 7th Guest. THAT would be a game I would LOVE to play all over again!

Update 02-13-13

To my joy, I’ve found that they have released 7th Guest for iOS, meaning iPads and iPhones:

• The 7th Guest – Trilobyte Games, LLC.

I am so happy that this game hasn’t been lost to the annuals of time!

“You kids use the Internet, doncha?”

It was 1999. Mike and I were visiting my grandfather in Billings, Montana. He handed us a white plastic cat with a PS/2 connector at the end of its tail.

“What is it?” I held the plastic barcode scanner in my hand. My grandpa seemed proud to produce something that we computer kids had never seen. Mike piped up, “Is that a CueCat?” He took it out of my hand and turned it over.

My grandpa smirked. “They sent it to me because I have IBM stock.” Mike immediately explained that we were supposed to connect it to our computer so we could scan in magazine ads and it would automatically load up the URL.

“Why wouldn’t I just type the URL into the computer?” I asked. Mike shrugged and smiled. “I KNOW it’s the most useless thing! I heard some people are taking them apart and using them for normal barcode scanners, though.” Visions of kids playing grocery store at home ran through my head. I looked at my grandfather’s eyes. He was so proud to be able to produce such a strange treasure.

You can find out more about it here:

• CueCat – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The CueCat (trademarked :CueCat) is a cat-shaped handheld barcode reader developed in the late 1990s by the now-defunct Digital Convergence Corporation, which connected to computers using the PS/2 keyboard port and later USB. The CueCat enabled a user to open a link to an Internet URL by scanning a barcode – called a “cue” by Digital Convergence – appearing in an article or catalog or on some other printed matter. In this way a user could be directed to a web page containing related information without having to enter a URL. The system that supported this is no longer in operation.

Because we never throw anything away, we still have our CueCat…

Somewhere…

The folks at Cinemassacre.com share a video of their NES collection. Warning, there is some explicit language making fun of the games, so if these are sacred games from your childhood, then you might want to skip this one.

I was an Atari girl, but seeing all these old cartridges reminded me of those old 8 bit games. I played Adventure for so long that I can STILL negotiate those mazes. Here’s an excellent review explaining everything you need to know about Adventure and showing exactly HOW frustrating a game it could be.

I love this advertisement for the 1956 Flash-Matic Tuning television from Zenith.

It reads:

You have to see it to believe it!
Flash-Matic Tuning by Zenith
Only Zenith has it!

A flash of magic light from across the room (no wires, no cords) turns set on, off or changes channels… and you remain in your easy chair!
You can also shut off long, annoying commercials while picture remains on the screen!

Here is a truly amazing new television development – and only Zenith has it! Just think! Without budging from your easy chair you can turn your new Zenith Flash-Matic TV set on, off or change channels. You can even shut off annoying commercials while the picture remains on the screen. Just a flash of light does it. There are no wires or cords. This is not an accessory. It is a built-in part of several new 1956 Zenith television receivers. Stop at your Zenith dealer’s soon. Zenith-quality television start as low as $149.95.

It was a remote control television that used light signals to change the channels. Additionally, it had a mute button, a feature so new, it didn’t have a name yet. When you take into account inflation, that $150 television in 1956, would cost about $1133 now. For about the same price you can get a Zenith 42-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV at Amazon.com. Isn’t it funny how quickly things change?

Ad via: Where’s My Jetpack?: We’ve Always Hated Advertising

My parents bought a Fun Fountain for Stacey and I when I was in fifth grade. We LOVED that toy!

What this print ad doesn’t show in enough detail is the clown hat. It was made out of a HEAVY plastic and was completely unattached to the fountain. If you interrupted the water flow, it would fall and painfully knock you on the head. I remember trying to catch the hat on my head so many times and just ending up with bump after bump on my noggin.

The object of the game was to run through the fountain WITHOUT making the hat fall. If you were quick enough, you could do it. Seeing this ad, however, makes me understand just how little water pressure we had. We could have never gotten that hat to go that high at our house in West Valley.

The Wham-O Fun Fountain was truly a toy for all seasons. From late spring until early fall, the Fun Fountain could be used as a water toy. In the colder months, the hat was the perfect dress-up toy. Somewhere, we have a photo of Stacey wearing that clown hat. Long after we stopped enjoying playing in the fountain, we held onto the hat.

Here is a commercial from Wham-O for the Fun Fountain:

Watching this commercial doesn’t really show you how fun it was to play with the Fun Fountain. I was WAY better than that. Firstly, it was usually just me and Stacey, so we didn’t have to wait very long four our chance to run through the fountain. Secondly, there was always the risk of that hat falling on our heads, so it was more exciting than the commercial showed. Finally, the hat also sprayed water out the top while it turned, so even when it wasn’t your turn, you were usually getting splashed anyway.

Thanks, Wham-O for making one of the funnest water toys of my childhood!

Photo Via: Plaid Stallions : Rambling and Reflections on 70’s pop culture: Wham-O Fun Fountain!

Flickr member, spudz64, brought an old Philco Predicta Princess TV back to life.

It’s a gorgeous television and makes me think of cocktails and cigarettes while watching JFK give speeches on the nightly news. You can learn more about Philco and their televisions here:

• Philco Predicta Princess Swivel Television in 1959

As cool as this television was, it wasn’t innovative enough to rescue Philco from bankruptcy. It makes me wonder what our televisions would look like today if it had.

In 1948, General Electric came out with this refrigerator/freezer with revolving shelves. You can see the full advertisement here:

I am continually surprised at products that DON’T survive. This fridge seems like the PERFECT solution to that bowl of moldy leftovers that got shoved into the back. Why don’t all of our refrigerators have revolving shelves?! The revolving shelf seems like the killer app for the refrigerator world. Why didn’t this feature survive?

Also notice that not one of those bowls of food have plastic wrap or lids on them. Is that just for aesthetics or did no one cover their food in the fridge back in the Forties? Nice to know that potato salad with boiled eggs looked EXACTLY the same as it does now.

Another difference between this fridge and the current ones is the size of the freezer. It’s TINY! The frozen TV dinner was invented in 1945, but it didn’t really catch on and become a fad until the mid-Fifties, so maybe they didn’t need big freezers back then. Or maybe everyone had a separate huge freezer appliance and this one was just for more immediate frozen food needs.

In the end, this refrigerator would fail miserably in present day with no can dispensers for sodas and a freezer that can’t hold even one frozen pizza. Still, I’d love to see a present day refrigerator include revolving shelves. It’s a feature that should have thrived.

Via: Found in Mom’s Basement: 1948 ad for General Electric refrigerators