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.
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.
@@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.
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 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 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.
What I learned from this is that thousands were sold in their first year, and although they are no longer produced they are displayed in museums and highly sought after by collectors.
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.
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.
@@Robert08010My parents were married in l948 and divorced in l963. They couldn't have been too mad at each. They had 2 more kids after getting divorced
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.
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)
Parts can show up after time and persistence of search over time, that might point to them being held by their owners and not making it to market. I would revisit every 6 months or so myself.
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 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!
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.
@@RetroCaptain I can only relate Quasar to a television brand. I recall their ads from late 60s and early 70s. I didn't realize they made anything else.
@@Robert08010 Quasar television was a more affordable off brand of Panasonic. From around 1974 to 79-80. I used to be friends with a man who worked in the (I think Mississauga plant). Quasar wristwatch was a different company afaik and in Taiwan where Quasar television was USA and Canada.
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.
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
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 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.
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.
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.)...😁
Add me as Another with Auto Race that still works. I've also got my working Blip and Merlin. Man I loved those things. I enjoy plopping batteries in then and showing them to my grandchildren. Mind you, it's the working Vic20 that cracks them up the most.
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.
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.
@@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.
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
"Woz" of Apple says that they advertised a full working personal computer to HP 5 (yes, five!) times and got rejected. Also remember it is Steve Jobs with his own reality distortion field advertising it. So, they had to start Apple Inc.
19:35 The 610 came out in '58 and was MW broadcast band only with no external antenna. Not sure why this is here. The Regency TR7 was the first shirt-pocket transistor radio and would have been a better choice in the context.
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.
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.
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 modern retail price of the build quality and supply chain requirements of that earlier model Cuisinart coffee maker adjusted for inflation versus the unit made in China would be very telling. I’d estimate most people would not be willing to pay 300 dollars for that level of quality for a comparable coffee maker today, I feel. It’s now a consumable appliance. I’ve noticed a downward trend in durability of clothing and especially belts over the last decade that feels like yours.
The Panasonic bread maker was not introduced in the 70’s. Our family had Panasonic’s first model, in the mid to late 80s. (‘87-‘88). It cost my father close to $500 (Canadian) dollars at the time. That first (and small) loaf was very, very expensive. The machine is still going strong . . .
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.
I was an engineering student at university of Colorado in the early 70s my sliderule was my prized possession It was a superior tool for logarithmic functions. I was reluctant to move onto a TI calculator.
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.
@23:27 While other products were using unknown spokesmen like Mr Whipple (please don't squeeze the charmin) and Mrs Butterworth or the commet woman, the Polaroid Land camera used Dick Van Dyke and James Garner and Mariette Hartley as their spokespersons in their ads. Somehow that impressed me.
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.
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
@@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.
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.
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.
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.
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 😊🎉
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.
@@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.
@@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.
@@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.
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.
In the late 60's maybe early 70's my brother got a crystal radio kit. I remember being about five and absolutely fascinated that he was able to build an actual working radio. I think I enjoyed it more than he did. I swear that moment cemented my career as an engineer. Man, I'd love to have one of those now!
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
Um... Sorry, but you are off again.Instant film has been around since the 1940s, and Polaroids became super popular in the 1960s. I know, I used them as a kid. It is just that Polaroid made newer cameras in the 1970s, like they did in the 1980s, 90s, 2000s, and so on.
Adjusted for inflation, that Atari Pong game was nearly $600 in 2024 dollars. We had one when I was a kid. Knowing my parents, I'm surprised that they splurged for it!
I had the Speak and Spell and that little calculator, in the picture with it. I can't believe how interesting simple tech was, for kids. Calculator watches, ink pens that, also, told the the time. My watch that transformed into a robot. We did have fun!
I remember that our home phone in about the year 1975, was translucent (see-through) with touch-pad dial buttons (almost all phones seemed to be rotary-dial back then!) that had LED lights that turned on when picked up to make calls and that would quickly flash on and off like strobe lights when getting phone calls!!! I was about age 4 and truly felt like a bad-ass!!!
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.
The Citicar was really an electric golf cart with a fully enclosed passenger apartment and maybe a larger bank of batteries and a slightly faster motor than a golf cart would have. But it is definitely a golf cart and hardly innovative.
This video is good companion for watching retro TV shows, like in an episode of Hart to Hart, Max wears an apron that says something like "I can't cut it without my food processor"
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
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.
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!
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 :(
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)
In the 70s, my IBM computer was a 370/155. It took 10 tons of AC to keep it cool and had a whopping 512 KB of memory.. However, its display had row after row of flashing lights, enough to make a 50s sci-fi movie producer drool with envy!
The Walkman wasn’t the first portable cassette player, but was exceptionally small, had fairly good sound, was stereo, and came with lightweight compact headphones, with a respectable bass response, especially considering the size and cost. Earlier portable battery operated cassette players were already available from Sony and Phillips (Under the Norelco brand) in the mid to late ’60s. Private listening was also possible by means of an earphone or big headphones. (Therefore not new with the Walkman either.)
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
The 70s are overlooked and underappreciated.
Man I would give up everything I own today to go back to the 70s & 80s. Truly the best years of my life.
I agree completely!!!!
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.
@@Bukkie661Don’t you mean the 1980’s?
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.
@@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.
I lived in a house with some stoners who had one. Yeah, right product at right time.
Exactly because by the end of the 70's it was hopelessly outdated already...
Pong was a couple years before I was even thought of, but Game Boy was the right product at the right time.
It pissed me off that they kept talking about Atari while showing the exact ColecoVision Pong which I had Christmas 1972!
@@EricCoop Pong was it's Dad. Telegraphs are the grand-dad of the Internet.
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
The video even shows a clip stating this 11 seconds earlier...
@@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...
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🙄
@@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.
@@ordinarykit does seem to highlight a fairly sloppy production. All done from a few minutes on Wikipedia.
What I learned from this is that thousands were sold in their first year, and although they are no longer produced they are displayed in museums and highly sought after by collectors.
Putting the sx-70 in there made my entire week, thank you for showing off the sx-70s beauty and functionality :)
Wow!! I was in High School in the 1970s. Some hilarious stuff.
This brought back so many great memories.
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.
Typical. But you guys never built an interocitor.
@@themagus5906 we built many things that were top secret;-)
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.
I was ahead of my time in the 70s. I always kept next year's calendar on the wall.
Forward thinkers get the raises. Or the layoffs
Were your parents married yet?
@@Robert08010My parents were married in l948 and divorced in l963. They couldn't have been too mad at each. They had 2 more kids after getting divorced
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.
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)
Parts can show up after time and persistence of search over time, that might point to them being held by their owners and not making it to market. I would revisit every 6 months or so myself.
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.
Oh, compact disk drives (still got memory of an IBM 308kB hard disk that had a head crash and filled the entire computer room full of aluminium dust…)
Loved the speak and spell as a kid.
That came too late for me. My toys had the pull cord.
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!
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.
@@RetroCaptain I can only relate Quasar to a television brand. I recall their ads from late 60s and early 70s. I didn't realize they made anything else.
@@Robert08010 Quasar television was a more affordable off brand of Panasonic.
From around 1974 to 79-80.
I used to be friends with a man who worked in the (I think Mississauga plant).
Quasar wristwatch was a different company afaik and in Taiwan where Quasar television was USA and Canada.
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.
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
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".
VCC ( phillips) wayyy better than betamax
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.
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.
@@xxcelr8rs UK and US had television in the 1930s too.
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.)...😁
Me too. I have the Auto race game. Have not turned it on in decades. Kind of afraid to.
I had the football game. Used to drive my wife batty with that tone. Great times, those.
Add me as Another with Auto Race that still works. I've also got my working Blip and Merlin. Man I loved those things. I enjoy plopping batteries in then and showing them to my grandchildren. Mind you, it's the working Vic20 that cracks them up the most.
Speak and spell you should bring it back because there are a lot of people have problems❤😊😮
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.
Don't forget that adult movies were also abundantly available on VHS.
@@HansWHoefnagels: Adult videos were abundantly available on BetaMax, they didn't pick the winner.
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.
@@absalomdraconis VHS was superior as it had longer recording time.
@@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.
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
"Woz" of Apple says that they advertised a full working personal computer to HP 5 (yes, five!) times and got rejected. Also remember it is Steve Jobs with his own reality distortion field advertising it. So, they had to start Apple Inc.
I had the Sinclair Micro-TV in 1979.
It was multiformat used in US, UK,
and Europe. 😅
19:35 The 610 came out in '58 and was MW broadcast band only with no external antenna. Not sure why this is here. The Regency TR7 was the first shirt-pocket transistor radio and would have been a better choice in the context.
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.
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.
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 modern retail price of the build quality and supply chain requirements of that earlier model Cuisinart coffee maker adjusted for inflation versus the unit made in China would be very telling. I’d estimate most people would not be willing to pay 300 dollars for that level of quality for a comparable coffee maker today, I feel. It’s now a consumable appliance. I’ve noticed a downward trend in durability of clothing and especially belts over the last decade that feels like yours.
Clive Sinclair was a great inventor, I still have my ZX81 and it's working great !
The Panasonic bread maker was not introduced in the 70’s. Our family had Panasonic’s first model, in the mid to late 80s. (‘87-‘88). It cost my father close to $500 (Canadian) dollars at the time. That first (and small) loaf was very, very expensive. The machine is still going strong . . .
Awesome times love the 70s and 80s.🎉🎉🎉
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.
And the way it folded up flat was really cool. In Canada it was wickedly expensive, $700 !!!!!
@@munroborisenko7278 Thanks for the reply. Wow, that’s expensive.
I was an engineering student at university of Colorado in the early 70s my sliderule was my prized possession It was a superior tool for logarithmic functions. I was reluctant to move onto a TI calculator.
I still have my T1 81 from early 90s 😂
my all time favorite !! ... the electric knife that cuts cooked turkeys !!
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.
Indianan Bell? But wouldn't the '70s have been before the break up of AT&T?
That bread machine came out in the mid-1980s. My folks had one. They used to impress dinner guests with an array of freshly made breads.
@23:27 While other products were using unknown spokesmen like Mr Whipple (please don't squeeze the charmin) and Mrs Butterworth or the commet woman, the Polaroid Land camera used Dick Van Dyke and James Garner and Mariette Hartley as their spokespersons in their ads. Somehow that impressed me.
My mom bought the Polaroid Land camera that sits on my shelf today because she loved Mariette Hartly so much. 😂
I remember being surprised that James Garner wasn't married to Mariette Hartley!
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.
Betamax was released in Japan in 1975. Maybe you are confusing with some other format like Philips VCR.
@@okaro6595 Yes indeed he is talking about Philips vcr.
@@okaro6595 Probably confusing it with U-Matic, which is also a Sony format and is similar to Betamax, but completely incompatible.
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
@@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.
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.
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 !!!
Bread makers came out in the 80s, not the 70s.
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.
Yeah, something fishy about this. In the clip they show different models. And I don't recall bread makers ! no matter how expensive.
Amazing that these things offer features now found in smartphones
Wow, that bread maker looks like it was made just a few years ago!😮
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.
The telephone displays at the beginning were from the 1962 Seattle World's Fair.
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 😊🎉
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.
@@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.
@@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.
@@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.
The picture phone is really good for now because there are a lot of deaf people you can sign language and that would be great👏
I really miss the chunky buttons keyboard when I started learning computer in 1999 that year.
Amazing a tiny cell phone replaces about all those things all in one
the picture phone would be a ZOOM CALL today
No, because it wasn't mobile.
Leading to the questiion, why is it all done in hardware?
The antediluvian ancestor to Skype.
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.
In the late 60's maybe early 70's my brother got a crystal radio kit. I remember being about five and absolutely fascinated that he was able to build an actual working radio. I think I enjoyed it more than he did. I swear that moment cemented my career as an engineer. Man, I'd love to have one of those now!
The first transistor radio wasn’t released until 1954 and the first “pocket sized” one until 1957…
Most surprising ro me in this line-up?
The Cuisinart. I had NO idea it dates back to the 1970s. Awesome.
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
Also the Panasonic bread maker did not come out until 1986 in Japan, It wasn't available in the US until later.
The TV footage of Pong is the Coleco Pong NOT the Atari Pong And I think Coleco was the first.
Um... Sorry, but you are off again.Instant film has been around since the 1940s, and Polaroids became super popular in the 1960s. I know, I used them as a kid. It is just that Polaroid made newer cameras in the 1970s, like they did in the 1980s, 90s, 2000s, and so on.
Why show a modern era bread maker? That’s clearly not a 70s model
Not the one they show with the big LCD screen, no way. And I don't remember any automatic bread makers at all.
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.
I’m honestly unsure but I assume it has something to do with the lack of data on the actual product .
Your dates are way off...
When I was taking computer courses in 1983, our university had a few IBM 5100's. They were cool.
Love the Picture Phone
I had a Speak N Spell in the 80s. Loved that thing!
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.
Shocked to see a Cybertruck prototype 5:10
I was little kid when pong came out on home consoles and my effing rich friend who had one wouldn't let me play it. Thanks a lot Tommy.
Adjusted for inflation, that Atari Pong game was nearly $600 in 2024 dollars. We had one when I was a kid. Knowing my parents, I'm surprised that they splurged for it!
I had Mattel Auto Race!
Breadmaker was WORTHLESS. It made bread faster than it can be done by hand, but takes LONGER TO CLEAN than whatever time it saved.
Amazing innovation.
I had the Speak and Spell and that little calculator, in the picture with it. I can't believe how interesting simple tech was, for kids. Calculator watches, ink pens that, also, told the the time. My watch that transformed into a robot. We did have fun!
@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.
I remember that our home phone in about the year 1975, was translucent (see-through) with touch-pad dial buttons (almost all phones seemed to be rotary-dial back then!) that had LED lights that turned on when picked up to make calls and that would quickly flash on and off like strobe lights when getting phone calls!!! I was about age 4 and truly felt like a bad-ass!!!
OMG I had the little professor calculator. It is strange when you see something you have completely forgotten and your mind lights up.
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.
I don’t think you need to tell us every time that the item is a collectors item cherished by enthusiasts.
Take a shot every time he says it.
Fuzzy Memories
i love these videos,keep up the good work
That citicar could be a predecessor to the Cybertruck 😂
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)_/¯
Which will spawn the Cantakeroadster! 😄
The Citicar was really an electric golf cart with a fully enclosed passenger apartment and maybe a larger bank of batteries and a slightly faster motor than a golf cart would have. But it is definitely a golf cart and hardly innovative.
Some real "blasts from the past" there!!
I wished for most of the technology that we have now back in the 1970’s.
This video is good companion for watching retro TV shows, like in an episode of Hart to Hart, Max wears an apron that says something like "I can't cut it without my food processor"
Crazy I’m watching this on my phone that has half of these gadgets built into it. It was a different time back then haha
Nice 😊
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
Wow. I still have both my original Pong and my Atari 2600.. 🤣👍
The Panasonic bread maker came out in 1986. Not a 70's product.
I had a "portable" transistor radio in the mid 1960s!
In 1970's vernacular, good job would be a dough making bread. 😅
This was fun!
Sony pocket radio was more like 1960 By 1970 you already had larger better quality but still very portable radios.
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 …
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.
The music was the absolute best, except for disco.
I'm interested on the how they could make the data & bandwidth and the physical connections possible.
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!
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 :(
6:16 an enclosed golf cart 😂
The engineer guy!
I had a Motorola "Brick" in the 1980s. You could use it as a phone or to hammer nails 😅
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)
IBN 5100 was great for figuring out Time Travel
In the 70s, my IBM computer was a 370/155. It took 10 tons of AC to keep it cool and had a whopping 512 KB of memory.. However, its display had row after row of flashing lights, enough to make a 50s sci-fi movie producer drool with envy!
The Walkman wasn’t the first portable cassette player, but was exceptionally small, had fairly good sound, was stereo, and came with lightweight compact headphones, with a respectable bass response, especially considering the size and cost. Earlier portable battery operated cassette players were already available from Sony and Phillips (Under the Norelco brand) in the mid to late ’60s. Private listening was also possible by means of an earphone or big headphones. (Therefore not new with the Walkman either.)