20 Gadgets From The 1970s That Were AHEAD of Their Time!
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20 Gadgets From The 1970s That Were AHEAD of Their Time!
Discover the innovations in "20 Gadgets From The 1970s That Were AHEAD of Their Time!" This video explores tech gadgets and items from 1970s USA that were incredibly advanced for their era. See how these pioneering inventions paved the way for modern technology. Keywords: 1970s gadgets, advanced tech, pioneering inventions, retro technology, innovative 70s items, tech history.
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Man I would give up everything I own today to go back to the 70s & 80s. Truly the best years of my life.
@michellelogreco3351
28 күн бұрын
I agree completely!!!!
@Bukkie661
25 күн бұрын
I miss the 70's. Women still had class in those days. The only downside of those years is that we all thought that money was endless and we seriously burnt money like there was no tomorrow. We're coming up to 50years of paying for our hubris in the 70s.
@barryFLASHallen
23 күн бұрын
@@Bukkie661Don’t you mean the 1980’s?
@wtmayhew
22 күн бұрын
I won’t miss the nuclear hair trigger under which we were living back then. We’re still just minutes away from doom, but several technical failures in the 1970s and again in the 1980s brought us to within seconds of accidental Armageddon.
@wtmayhew
22 күн бұрын
@@barryFLASHallen I don’t know about classiness of people of either sex in the 1970s and 1980s. I seem to have run across plenty of rather coarse people back then - probably about the same number as there are in the 2020s. You could always put on your Walkman headset and block it out, well at least after 1979 you could. Bell bottom jeans seemed kind of unclassy, I won’t miss those.
Pong wasn’t ahead of its time. It was exactly the right product at the right time.
@UncleKennysPlace
12 күн бұрын
I lived in a house with some stoners who had one. Yeah, right product at right time.
@montana01971
6 күн бұрын
Exactly because by the end of the 70's it was hopelessly outdated already...
The Sony TR-610 came out on the market back in 1958,not 1970. The very first transistor radios on the market were TI's TR1 from October 1954 sold under the name of Regency
@mfversluis
23 күн бұрын
The video even shows a clip stating this 11 seconds earlier...
@fredbear3915
19 күн бұрын
@@mfversluis Yes, utterly sloppy production values. Even Wikipedia has a better page on all this than these people... Like the Motorola phone, this is NOT a "1970s gadget" at all...
@Bob-1802
17 күн бұрын
And at 20:00: the TR-610 is AM radio "only" (just 6 transistors) and... no telescopic antenna. What can we say about the rest of this video🙄
@ordinaryk
17 күн бұрын
@@Bob-1802 Personally, I was annoyed by the video talking about "Atari Pong" while it was showing a commercial for the Coleco Telstar, one of the dozens of Pong clones.
@danpreston564
13 күн бұрын
@@ordinarykit does seem to highlight a fairly sloppy production. All done from a few minutes on Wikipedia.
I started at Bell Labs in 1973 as an analog circuit designer. The in-house IC catalog was filled with custom devices that could only be used in the Picture Phone. It was a massive project. The running joke at the labs was that we were so smart, we could make a bad idea work.
My mom bought me a led digital watch for christmas in 1975, I don't remember the brand but it was stainless steel with a red crystal, I was the coolest freshman in High School for a while!
@RetroCaptain
6 күн бұрын
Quasar was a popular brand then. Texas instruments also had early digital wristwatch. I have example of both. The TI were smaller than the klunky Quasar but if I remember correctly the price was very affordable for the Quasar.
I was ahead of my time in the 70s. I always kept next year's calendar on the wall.
I never got the Mattel Auto Racer handheld but, as a wee lad, I did play with the Football, Hockey, and Baseball versions that came out a bit later. Still have them and they all still work (I actually took care of my stuff back then. Still do.)...😁
@munroborisenko7278
10 күн бұрын
Me too. I have the Auto race game. Have not turned it on in decades. Kind of afraid to.
The first 2-way videophone service was launched on March 1, 1936 - 78 years ago. It was provided in Germany by the national post office and connected Berlin with Leipzig. Some 100 miles (160 kilometers) of broadband coaxial cable were used to deliver video calls between the two cities. Later on, the service was opened to the public, and additional lines connecting other major cities were added.
@xxcelr8rs
26 күн бұрын
Germany had TVs in the 30s. Magnetic tape for recording. eel to reel. Les Paul got his from Bing Crosby, who got it from Germany US had spools and vinyl records.
@xaverlustig3581
17 күн бұрын
@@xxcelr8rs UK and US had television in the 1930s too.
Wow!! I was in High School in the 1970s. Some hilarious stuff.
In 1975-76 I was assigned to maintenance on one of the first computer aided instruction systems. Our digitizer camera took the capacity of a Data General 900, and still had such large pixels that very detailed pictures looked like fruit cocktail after being scanned. Our monitors were 3 dozen Sony Tritrons with special digital interface circuit boards that failed often. And we had a bank of 3/4" Sony video tape units. The moving head disc drives were the size of clothes dryers.
my all time favorite !! ... the electric knife that cuts cooked turkeys !!
The Betamax was actually sold as early as 1972, but it wasn't really mainstream until the mid-1970s. And then there were two different Beta players in the market at the same time ... one of which had longer play times than the first Betamax players. The longer-playing Betamaxes weren't compatible with the shorter-playing tapes, so this made the consumer confused as well as frustrated. VHS enabled longer-playing tapes in a much less disorienting fashion, and it paid off. It led to the "format wars" that went on to the late 1980s. By the end of the 1980s, it was quietly official that VHS had won the Format Wars.
@okaro6595
19 күн бұрын
Betamax was released in Japan in 1975. Maybe you are confusing with some other format like Philips VCR.
@montana01971
11 күн бұрын
@@okaro6595 Yes indeed he is talking about Philips vcr.
@ki5aok
6 күн бұрын
@@okaro6595 Probably confusing it with U-Matic, which is also a Sony format and is similar to Betamax, but completely incompatible.
@adrinathegreat3095
6 күн бұрын
And before the common betamax that everyone knows, was the Phillips 1500 and 1700 systems, the first home video recorders. Before that the video recorder was a device for big buissness making their own promos and TV companies
@montana01971
6 күн бұрын
@@adrinathegreat3095 The Philips VCR system predated Betamax and VHS, but only in mainland western Europe and Australia as it was incompatible with the Ntsc standard.
I worked @ Motorola in Germany, and we build those phones. I started 1989, so the analogue Joan2B (8W Car-phone but also mobile pack) was redesigned to be digital, what increased both the Audio and the Reception quality. The 'Brick' switched also, but were obsolete when the StarTac came up. This was, when the sending power was reduced to 0.8W on handholdes.
Why show a modern era bread maker? That’s clearly not a 70s model
@munroborisenko7278
10 күн бұрын
Not the one they show with the big LCD screen, no way. And I don't remember any automatic bread makers at all.
@jasonwinters101
9 күн бұрын
There were no automatic bread makers in the 70’s. This was an error in the video. The first consumer bread maker was introduced in 1986.
Loved the speak and spell as a kid.
This brought back so many great memories.
The best 70s kitchen gadget had to be the Oster Kitchen Center: a motorized base that operated a blender, mixing bowl, salad shooter, food processor, ice crusher, ice cream maker, pasta maker, meat grinder, juicer, and possibly more. Best part of the blender function is that any regular mouth Ball canning jar could replace the blender jug, even though you could buy special Oster brand jars that mimicked the typical blender jar shape. I have my grandmothers, and it is a BEAST when it comes to kitchen work. If you do a lot of food preservation, like canning pickles or freezing squash, using the salad shooter to slice everything into a 5 gallon bucket saves so much time. I originally tried to collect every part my grandma was missing, but gave up after a while. These and built in units seem like they should make a comeback, but the fact is, stuff is so shoddily made and no one wants to repair stuff, so they can't.
@RetroCaptain
6 күн бұрын
The first model I overhauled in the 1980s was introduced in 1947. By the 70s they were a cheaper alternative to the Kenwood Kitchen Centre (a professional grade machine also around in the 70s)
the picture phone would be a ZOOM CALL today
@LE64SAM-IAM
29 күн бұрын
No, because it wasn't mobile.
@TedSeeber
29 күн бұрын
Leading to the questiion, why is it all done in hardware?
@luisreyes1963
14 күн бұрын
The antediluvian ancestor to Skype.
I have a walkman The first time i saw that device i was enthralled! I had t have one. I thought it was the koolest thing. I still do Although tday i have music streaming off my smartphone i stll stimes use the walkman w my$2.99 headset Works just fine n i have a phone jack on my phone If u use earbuds ur catching some rad I enjoyed going back in time kool stuff thx f the nostalgia 😊🎉
@munroborisenko7278
10 күн бұрын
I take care of my things and this year tried to turn on my original Walkman. Inside the rubber band from the drive motor to the spindle turns to dust over time, very sad. Even thou I had it in a box stored carefully.
@RetroCaptain
6 күн бұрын
@@munroborisenko7278They can definitely be repaired. It's tedious process but definitely has been done. The "rubber" is actually a blend of chemicals which separate back to the original state over time unfortunately. Unless you stored in a temperature controlled vacuum free from light it would go to pieces anyway.
@munroborisenko7278
6 күн бұрын
@@RetroCaptain Thank you for the info. It was stored in original box and inside a cardboard box; stored with stuff. But it was not air tight that's for sure. I checked the value of the original Walkman online from many sources and was surprised that it's not really worth anything ! This tells me that millions were sold in Canada and many people kept them; like me :) I thru it in the garbage. No loss.
@RetroCaptain
6 күн бұрын
@@munroborisenko7278 It's more like the first Sony TV's the first Sony radios etc. I think you're right it's because "everybody has one" that the first Walkman isn't worth much. I used to have the first model Sony radio but a guy lied to me about its actual value and took it. I still have the second or first version of the Discman and it works perfectly or was last I tried it several years ago. This is the problem with the 'value' or electronic things; It's only super collectible if it was never used, still in the package. Once it's been used and...the headphones are damaged...the strap is gone..the battery door.. the tape stopped working..knob missing.. it's a fight for a dollar. The collectors pick you apart over the tiniest details.
That citicar could be a predecessor to the Cybertruck 😂
@233kosta
29 күн бұрын
The low polygon count is clearly a flawed concept. It failed back then and it's failing today 😅 Maybe it's just a cursed shape ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@chrismayer3919
25 күн бұрын
Which will spawn the Cantakeroadster! 😄
Sony's Beta lost the race to VHS by JVC ONLY because Sony refused to play ball with the movie industry and VHS sold way more movies on their format. Were it not for that simple business decision, the superior Betamax would have beaten VHS.
@HansWHoefnagels
22 күн бұрын
Don't forget that adult movies were also abundantly available on VHS.
@absalomdraconis
21 күн бұрын
@@HansWHoefnagels: Adult videos were abundantly available on BetaMax, they didn't pick the winner.
@absalomdraconis
21 күн бұрын
BetaMax was superior to VHS, but only barely. The primary difference was play-time (BetaMax didn't get long-enough times soon enough, even in Japan it was slightly limited), not video quality. The primary ideo quality difference wasn't even related to VHS _or_ BetaMax, but instead was the source of the video, how many times it had been played, and how many "generations" of copies it had been through. And even the player/recorder related quality difference was dominated by copy protection, _not_ the quality of the tape system. There _was_ a _much_ higher quality Beta tape technology, but _it was never meant for home consumers,_ and it is folly to compare it to VHS. It was called BetaCam, had a VHS-based competitor that was similarly superior to VHS, and was _never_ compatible with BetaMax. BetaCam was intended purely for the profesional video industry, used component-video that was almost completely incompatible with any consumer screens of the time, and never had _anything_ produced for the consumer market. Prerecorded BetaCam tapes were meant only for e.g. _TV STATIONS,_ never for the house.
@okaro6595
19 күн бұрын
@@absalomdraconis VHS was superior as it had longer recording time.
@xaverlustig3581
17 күн бұрын
@@absalomdraconisAll consumer videotape formats of the 1970s and early 80s heavily compromised on quality in order to make it affordable at all. The bandwidth of the video signal is only about half of the broadcast signal, thus halving resolution. This is true for Betamax, VHS, the European VCR and Video2000 formats, and even Video8. The quality differences between all these are minor, they're roughly in the same camp. Only the highband variants of the late 1980s like S-VHS and Hi8 did away with this limitation.
Bread makers came out in the 80s, not the 70s.
@richlaue
21 күн бұрын
Yes. invented in Japan because they liked freshly baked bread. However with most of the inside walls being made of paper, the people found the machine too nosey, waking them up. Sales failed in Japan, but was a hit world wide.
@munroborisenko7278
10 күн бұрын
Yeah, something fishy about this. In the clip they show different models. And I don't recall bread makers ! no matter how expensive.
Back in the 1970s my dad was a tech guy for Indiana Bell and his company car had a radio-telephone. We thought that was so futuristic as this was way before cellular phones.
A friend of mine worked at a tape recorder factory, he suggested making a tape player that can be carried in the hand, and played through headphones. His idea was turned down, a couple years later the walkman was released. It would have been interesting if 2 companies released competing products at the same time
Fuzzy Memories
Most surprising ro me in this line-up? The Cuisinart. I had NO idea it dates back to the 1970s. Awesome.
@RetroCaptain
6 күн бұрын
The ORIGINAL original Cuisinart was the Robot Coupe. If you have one it's the genesis of the food processor. They were definitely expensive and all made in France not China
One of the problems with early calculators are that some like the Hewlet Packard and IBM calculators used Reverse Polish Notation which was quite hard for people to understand.
@Datan0de
23 күн бұрын
Engineers loved it, though!
@richardvoogd705
3 күн бұрын
My school had a programmable HP calculator on 1978. I had to make do with a basic four function calculator (not HP), and was one of the first in my class.
Some real "blasts from the past" there!!
12:13 VHS wasn't even out yet when Sony released this. And the image quality difference was marginal at best. Sony's failure to recognise that consumers would happily trade that marginal decrease in image fidelity for significantly linger recording time and reduced overall cost is what ultimately lead to the format's demise. But it was hardly "ahead of its time".
The IBM 5100 supported BASIC and APL... perhaps the most widely used and beginner-friendly language of all time, and one of the most esoteric and weird languages of all time. Its successor, the IBM 5150, otherwise known as the IBM PC opened the floodgates for the IBM-compatible home PC market.
When I was taking computer courses in 1983, our university had a few IBM 5100's. They were cool.
Nice 😊
In the 70s, I worked at a store that sold Texas Instruments pocket calculators. They were displayed in a locked glass case much like a jewelry store. They sold for $300. The same one you can now buy at the dollar store
This was fun!
Sony pocket radio was more like 1960 By 1970 you already had larger better quality but still very portable radios.
I had a Speak N Spell in the 80s. Loved that thing!
Wow, that bread maker looks like it was made just a few years ago!😮
The way the SX-70 camera folded up flat was amazing. It was well made with real leather and brushed steel. I remember I was 16 in 1976 and saw one at K-mart in Kamloops B.C. ! It was $700 in Canadian dollars. Very expensive. Still wish we got one because I like to keep my cool things. I still have my Mattel Auto race game.
The engineer guy!
I had a Motorola "Brick" in the 1980s. You could use it as a phone or to hammer nails 😅
I loved the Speak and Spell. We had one in my 5th and 6th grade classroom and we could use it if we earned points for good behavior.
I really miss the chunky buttons keyboard when I started learning computer in 1999 that year.
Amazing that these things offer features now found in smartphones
You forgot to include the highly revolutionary Hewlett-Packard HP-35 calculator. That scientific calculator was the model that essentially ended the reign of the slide rule for many college students and even engineers.
Heck! At one time they had calculators the size of credit cards, then later on they had scientific calculators that could do algebra, calculus, trigonometry and anything else. I can even remember one made by Casio that had an alarm clock in it, and if you gave it a date it would tell you which day of the week that date was. This was the Casio CQ-1, released in 1975. It was a classy looking calculator.
@munroborisenko7278
10 күн бұрын
In 1979 I got a Sony calculator for X-mas. It was like 2 credit cards thick. I still have it. But is was around $100 !!!
Even more than the instant film, which was evolutionary, the big thing about the SX-70 camera was the ultrasonic sonar distance measuring and the thus the ability to automatically focus. The electronics to accomplish the task were considered rather advanced for their time… especially in a consumer device.
@munroborisenko7278
10 күн бұрын
And the way it folded up flat was really cool. In Canada it was wickedly expensive, $700 !!!!!
@wtmayhew
10 күн бұрын
@@munroborisenko7278 Thanks for the reply. Wow, that’s expensive.
The Regency TR-1 was released in 1954 becoming the first commercial transistor radio. The mass-market success of the smaller and cheaper Sony TR-63, released in 1957, led to the transistor radio becoming the most popular electronic communication device of the 1960s and 1970s. I had a Realistic 3-Transistor radio in 1960.
I bought a used "Pong" and used a metal bandaid can to make one of the two joysticks "portable"
I remember reading a brochure of the Video phone, Bell Canada from 1964. Maybe it was saying it's on the way but had a picture of one being used. The small oval shaded screen not the square one was the 64 version.
Wow. I still have both my original Pong and my Atari 2600.. 🤣👍
@16:00, freeze frame on the Bomar 901B. In the background, right, I swear it's a TI calculator like one I used to have. The buttons are familiar.
Polavision used the super 8 dimensions for the film. You could open the cartridge and run it through a projector. I happened to be at a hotel where they were demoing it for dealers and was allowed to shot a roll. I took it apart later. Even cooler in my mind was the 35mm still camera version. I was a dinner where part of the event was a slide show of the history of the group. People were surprised that some of the photos were from that day and even at the dinner. The person doing the show worked at a camera store and had their demo kit along.
The Walkman and ear buds were pioneered by me (sales) and my company in late 70s. Small disc less than dime sizes magnets made of rare earth alloys.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but portable transistor radios have been around since the 1950s, with the first prototype demonstrated in 1948. I had my favorite transistor radio as a kid in the 1960s.
Wrong, Magavox Odyssey was the first home video game cancel that came out in 1972.
My grandfather had Polavision. Cool, but needed a little more time in development. He had to send many cartridges back to Polaroid for one issue or the other. Funny that the photo showing the camera had a Kodak film cartridge.
The telephone displays at the beginning were from the 1962 Seattle World's Fair.
Back in 1980, I had a Sperry PC Portable. I thought it was a brute with its dual 30MB HDs
Shocked to see a Cybertruck prototype 5:10
i STILL have a working Poloroid Polavision and the projector box it came with! its an odd device and it still runs despite the battery clip broke and i had to make a ducttape battery pack to make it run, sadly i got no more blank carts for it.
Version 1.0 strikes again. Several clips from this video are actually from the 60's.
Panasonic bread makers did not come out until 1986, and mine still works, but still a cute if not totally accurate video.
Your dates are way off...
You didnt mention rca video disc and 19:44 there where pocket radios from way before in the 50s
Ha! I had no idea the old electronic football game was nothing more than this "auto-race" game featured here, except the screen was sideways instead of up and down! Wonder why it wasn't mentioned? The football game was much more popular. Hell, I hadn't even heard of this "auto-race" game til now!
@munroborisenko7278
10 күн бұрын
I got the Auto race for X-mas in 1976. I still have it. The images in this video show the exact one I have. It's supposed to be the worlds 1st hand held electronic game. But when I Google it, it is not really worth that much :(
I don’t think you need to tell us every time that the item is a collectors item cherished by enthusiasts.
Interesting to find out that IBM PC's ran on a Basic OS...
IBN 5100 was great for figuring out Time Travel
Another problem with the picture phone is that people didnt want to get all dressed up to make or take a call.
By 1974 we had programable pocket calculaters
Can't understand when companies come out with new products with outrageous high prices. Prices so high that ordinary working people can't afford them
@mardus_ee
13 күн бұрын
New technologies need money for research and development, and are protected by patents. There is also the scarcity of new product, whereby demand for the new shiny is greater than supply: the seller _can_ set a high price. Mobile phones need wireless infrastructure, which requires initial investments into building and making it available, which costs the operators must recoup. Eventually, a bunch of patents expire every year, competition gets to use those to create a similar product, and the market gets saturated, which then lowers the price. The market can get saturated even with mostly the same product, whereby earlier variations usually still work, albeit with fewer functions than newer models. - Consider the pocket calculator, portable cassette player, MP3 player, the mobile phone, and the smartphone as examples of this. Z80 the 8-bit CPU was initially much cheaper than CPUs by Intel, and so, it saw wide adoption. Once its patents expired, gadget makers began using it in even more places: mobile phones, MP3 players, even mice.
4:27 Who put a Intel inside logo on that thing……? 😂
I can see where HP got the design idea for their HP-85...
Sebring Car: CyberTruck, I am your father CyberTruck: Nooooooooooo
IBM 5100 I have a box of those backup tapes. Never knew what they were for.
@knightlyjayful
27 күн бұрын
The tapes were an industry standard up until the very early 2000s.
@althunder4269
26 күн бұрын
Those tapes were used on a variety of computers. I used them on an early IBM AS/400.
AT&T came out with a video phone in the 1990s, but it wasn't very popular
Is that Uncle June Soprano at 13:04?
Breadmaker was WORTHLESS. It made bread faster than it can be done by hand, but takes LONGER TO CLEAN than whatever time it saved.
I agree with others here. The Panasonic bread maker seems wrong. They show several different ones in the clip but the one with a big clear LCD is not from any 1970's in this world !!! LCD displays did not exist at all back then. I know, I was there.
Thinking back on the digital watches. Everybody had to have one, it was a a sort of status symbol to have a digital watch. Now we have fully computerized watches with analog displays, go figure.
19:28 - released in 1958.😊 19:40 - introduced in 1970. 😮🤔
What the IBM 5100 is not still in wide spread production I don't believe it! I really need to get one for my Time Machine.
If only our parents had listened to our grandparents warnings and predictions and resisted these technological “advances” far more strongly and robustly, we would not be in our current mess today
The Sony TR610 was an AM radio, not AM/FM ... FFS it was 1958 ... 🙄
12:45 Betamax did not lose to VHS because of playing time or cost. It was PORN.
17:36 - Even though they're obviously showing a later model bread maker before & after this still shot (which I assume is the first model); even the one in the still shot looks about 10-15 years ahead of it's time. 😳 (21/July/2024-5:16pm🇦🇺EST)
Car phone existed in the mid 1950s. Big transmitter in the trunk with vacuum tubes sucking the battery down. The very first Cuisinart model -- The Robot Coupe. Made in France. I have one with the cookbook meant for it. The bowls were unfortunately fragile and cracked at the interlocking tab. Very simple otherwise. Then Moulinex came out with a cheaper alternative and then everyone else got in the food processor game. Hamilton Beach was the flimsiest one imo. Braun was best for price and quality. A lot of people getting 1990s things mixed up with being from the 1970s. The bread maker shown (in grainy black and white) is actually from around 1996.
Memories. But i'd add (fidonet early EMail) and the internet (1969) ...
Speak n Spell and Speak n Math was life!!
What no "Mister Coffee"? This coffee maker completely changed how people made coffee! You've also left out electric knives and portable mixers which made life a lot easier for people who consider their kitchen to be the most important room in the house! Cuisinart used to be an American company with it's factory in Connecticut, but it's coffee makers are now made in China, which is why my first Cuisinart lasted twelve years and my last two, made in China, have lasted just two years each. Why we continue to buy junk made in China is a mystery to me!
The 1970s were when the microwave oven and plastic soda bottles became mainstream.
3:33 So, you managed to edit this whole video and you still failed to notice and fix the sound only playing in the left channel? Some competence …
My Mom had a dynatac; obsolete or no, I wish I’d held on to it…
I had a Speak and Spell and it did help me with my spelling. I wish that I still had it.
18:48 cordless phone no it was a cell phone!
Nowadays everybody has a laptop and cell phone you can work anywhere remotely,,,
Also the Panasonic bread maker did not come out until 1986 in Japan, It wasn't available in the US until later.
Kodak really missed the boat on digital photography. They developed the prototype and disregarded it? What dummies.
The microwave oven or "Radar Range" was kind of a big deal
@spartanwarrior9755
29 күн бұрын
Those came in the 40s.
@Phil-gw9vr
29 күн бұрын
@@spartanwarrior9755 they may have been invented in the 40's but the first home countertop microwave oven was introduced in 1967 by Amana. Per Wikipedia.
“…no longer in production.” Would ya think???