The Gadgets Page

This video shows some of the video games from 1972 to 2007.

Which games did you play? Which were your favorite? I LOVE that they included Adventure on the list. It was my favorite game on the Atari and I can still navigate those mazes, even the blind ones, by touch only.

I am surprised that they didn’t include some of the handheld games that were popular in the early years like this football game from Mattel. I played this thing so much that the letters and arrows wore off. I remember handing it to my friend to play and she had never played it before and couldn’t figure it out because all the arrows were gone. This guy and Merlin were my video games that I could take with me. I loved them and to this day I don’t know why the industry doesn’t take them as seriously as the original games from Atari and Intellivision.

Via:

• kev/null – History of Video Games 1972-2007

• Handheld Museum – Mattel Football I

Seventeen years before Thomas Edison, Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville recorded the first human voice. Unfortunately, he had no way to play it back.

• BBC NEWS | Technology | Oldest recorded voices sing again

The device etched representations of sound waves into paper covered in soot from a burning oil lamp.

Lines were scratched into the soot by a needle moved by a diaphragm that responded to sound. The recordings were never intended to be played.

It was retrieved from Paris by Mr Giovanni, working with First Sounds, a group of audio historians, recording engineers and sound archivists who aim to make mankind’s earliest sound recordings available to all.

To retrieve the sounds scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in California made very high-resolution digital scans of the paper and used a “virtual stylus” to read the scrawls.

However, because the phonautograph recordings were made using a hand-cranked device, the speed varied throughout, changing the pitch.

All of this brings to mind patent and copyright. Edison held the patent for audio recordings, yet Edouard-Leon Scott beat him to the process by seventeen years. Since Scott was unable to reproduce the sound and only made a visual representation of it, I can understand why Edison’s machine was better, but in today’s environment of patent law, I could envision Scott suing Edison over this.

Via: Shiny Shiny: Oldest recorded human voice finally played back; Radio 4 newsreader amused

I found this blog entry about misleading advertisements and it made me feel nostalgic.

• As Seen on TV: The 10 Most Laughably Misleading Ads | Cracked.com

I think my first love of gadgets came from watching television commercials like these. For example, the commercials for Miracle Blade have been on since I was a teenager. I love to watch how they cut on television.

I LOVE it when he starts hacking away at the table with the knife, cuts into a solid rock, the aluminum can, and even the sledge hammer. He then immediately goes back to cutting the tomato in thin, beautiful slices. Some of the best salesmanship is on infomercials. They really show their product very quickly and efficiently.

Just like this commercial, they used to cut through aluminum cans with the knives on the commercials they showed when I was a kid. The sight of cutting something that I would NEVER try cutting with a knife burned itself so much into my mind that I can still see it today.

It’s not like these knives are any better than the Henckels knives in my kitchen. They are just demonstrated in such a way that makes them look smooth and amazing.

I truly think that my love of gadgets came from the likes of Ron Popeil and other infomercial greats.

Via: AdFreak: Cracked’s 10 most laughably misleading ads

Here is an old commercial for the Lisa computer from Apple, starring Kevin Costner.

Their prediction didn’t really pan out, however:

Soon, there will be just two kinds of people…

Those who use computers and those use Apples.

Apple has increased in popularity recently and the Windows Vista fiasco has convinced quite a few people to switch (including me), but I don’t think that the world has been polarized. People still consider Apples to be computers, mostly because Windows adopted the mouse and GUI interface quite quickly.

That prediction might have been right if Apple could have protected themselves better, but unfortunately they’re still trying to convince us to use a Mac:

Via: An Apple Lisa commercial featuring Kevin Costner. While you digest… (kottke.org)

I never owned a Sony Walkman. I wanted one really bad, but I was too poor to afford one. I had a Emerson tape player instead and it lasted me years before it finally started eating tapes. Looking at the photos of these old Sony Walkman’s didn’t make me feel nostalgic until I saw this one:

Those boxes were more familiar to me than anything else. I remember looking at the packaging inside the locked glass cases at K-Mart and wishing I could afford one. In junior high, the Walkman was the cool thing to have. Just like the white earbuds now, the Walkman DEFINED cool.

You can see more photos here:

• Pocket Calculator’s Vintage Walkman Museum: Sony

Pocket Calculator makes a point:

We owe much gratitude to Sony, for they were responsible for making the personal stereo cassette player a reality.

As cool as iPod is now, Sony Walkmans were when I was a young teen. What happened, Sony? Why do you hate me now. EVERY product that you have released lately has been “meh…” Reclaim your past and reclaim your territory. Make something that doesn’t suck, please…

Via: Moustache

Here is the original promotional video for iPod. We had this original iPod, but only PCs, so we had to have a special cable to plug the iPod into the computer. Aside from that, the iPod was oceans easier to use than any other MP3 player that we had tried.

Sad thing is, Mike commandeered it and didn’t let me use it until he got a Nano years later.

It still works, although the hard drive wheezes and whines as if it is near death.

I’ve just come home from babysitting my nieces and nephew. We put them to bed and had a couple hours to wait until their parents came home and our iPhones kept us busy. No laptop. No television. Just Mike and I using our iPhones to watch television, listen to music, answer email and read RSS. If you had told me that I would be able to do this much with my phone back then, I would have placed the laurels on Palm, but it was Apple who finally brought back the Newton, rechristened and MUCH more useful.

Thanks, Apple.

If you thought the Smart Car was small, it was only following in the tire treads of its predecessors.

Why are there no one-person cars on the market right now? Considering the number of people who commute alone, there should be some option besides a motorcycle.

Via: A really small car from 1924. “The license plate is… (kottke.org)

I had no idea that the Rocket Belt was real. I sincerely thought it was the product of science fiction. Every time I’ve seen a man flying on television with one of these, I’ve assumed that they were on wires and that something like this couldn’t possibly work because his legs would be burned by heat of jet fuel burning.

They weren’t using jet fuel, though. They were using compressed gas. Apparently, the conversion of a liquid to gas has quite a thrust.

Here is a video from The History Channel about the Bell Rocket Belt and its place in history:

You can find out more technical information here:

• Bell Rocket Belt – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Rocketbelt Convention 2007

• Bell Rocket Belt

I’m kind of angry that my flying cars haven’t shown up, but finding out that jet packs are REAL is almost enough to make me feel better about it. My only question is where can I buy one.

Via: Drink. Drive. Go To Jail. – Jumpin’ Jetpacks

When I watched this video, a wave of nostalgia hit me. It has been about five years since I’ve heard a dial tone or a busy signal. When Mike and I moved to our present house almost five years ago, we never had our phone line connected. We just use our cell phones. At first, I was worried about not having a phone line in the house, but after this long, I realize that I don’t need it.

I kind of miss the dial tone, though.

Via: adfreak: When will we see a PSA for the iPhone?

It’s hard to remember that everything that exists didn’t used to exist. Take spiral bound notebooks, for example. They are everywhere. I remember wanting one when I was about six years old because I wanted to pretend I was Columbo. They have always existed, right? Nope…

This is a link to a Popular Science article about spiral notebooks. They were a new and innovative thing back in 1934:

• Modern Mechanix » First Spiral Notebook

The spiral notebook revolutionized notetaking. With its advent, we were able to tuck paper into our jacket, purse or even pants pocket. It opened easily and folded back on itself. It’s a design that is still popular today. It’s hard for me to believe that it has only existed for 72 years.

Via: Boing Boing: First spiral notebooks, article from 1934