I was born in the 70's so basically i had all of these gadgets as a kid - first that pong on tv, then the Atari consolle, then the sony walkman ( i think these were from the 80's already ? Atari e and walkman ) this is another travel back in time - great video
I loved the Poloroid Instamatic camera. Take a picture and out it pops, then wait a minute to see the image. The large Getto-Blaster was a favorite for music.
We played Pong endlessly! I do not know how much time we spent on this game, but it was a lot! Atari 2600, I had almost every game. Asteroids was my main go-to. Today, I am in my 50s and I still enjoy playing video games
Every "with it" bar and tavern had a pong game console where for a quarter patrons could demonstrate their skills. People would put their quarter (two bits) on the game box to show their challenge to the winner of the ongoing game as well as their place in line. It was a good icebreaker and people mixer for the bar/tavern that would keep folks in the establishment for longer spans of time.
I am 68 and still play daily. On Wednsdays I play Call Of Duty online with my son who lives 50 miles away. I had the Atari 2600 when it came out. Cost $300 for me then. Was super cool to have back then.
My grandmother bought the atari 2600 for me and my 2 siblings at her house.She was the master of Qbert and breakout and Pacman. It's awesome that my gram is the one who introduced us to video games!❤❤❤❤❤❤ Luv u Mimi!
I’d love what we called a “Music Centre”. The record player, cassette tape recorder and radio contained in one unit. It came with a pair of good speakers. I used to drool at them in department stores because I couldn’t afford one. Another thing was the “RadioGram” It was more furniture like. In a wooden console, a record player and radio with built in speakers. Those were happy family times.
@@sureshmukhi2316 yes, modification for composite output, if your tv has no 'composite' but does have 'component', the Y input in many cases also acts as composite and they'll extract the colour carrier ok,
I was born in 1943. My first radio as a kid was the Crystal Set. I kept stringing a long wire antenna out my bedroom window to a local Utility pole for top reception and the PECO maintenance guy kept taking it down. He eventually got the message when I connected the so called antenna wire to the 2nd Anode of an old TV in my dads shop in the radio shack.
My cousin had pong. We had the Atari. Now we have the “new” retro Atari. My husband still has his Walkman. We still have a VCR and movies on VHS that we still watch sometimes.
Had one and my mom and dad and I enjoyed playing it. I had friends who had one and when I would go to sleep overs then I would play it. My mom and dad had one. Had one and enjoyed it. Love from Marysville, California
All of them because of my age! But the Walkman for me and the Phillips recorder for my dad... Dallas, X-Files, Star Trek (original tv version) and the RAMS football games! RIP🕊❤️👑🙏🏽 dad (43 yrs ago) on this father days in 🎉2023🎉
I still have our Coleco Telstar. It's the Ranger model, because it came with a light-sensing pistol, for the added pong-style game of skeet & target shooting that you point at the TV so that it sensing the electron raster of the CRT. We still also have our Atari 2600/VCS. Both of them were bought within a year of each other in the late 1970's. Since I am basically the electronics & computer guy in the family, I have kept both of these machines, not only because of the tech, but also because of the sentimentality & nostalgia, as they both represent a part of my family's history in my frame of reference. I do not have a Walkman, but I have a no-name basic portable cassette player, but it's been broken for decades so I have yet to fix it. I also still have many VCR's, which includes large piles of VHS tapes. Most of the tapes are just recordings from television, but there are a big handful of tapes of home videos, from our VHS camera, that recorded some of our everyday life & celebrations (birthdays etc), as recorded by my Dad (RIP), as far back as the late 1980's, so those tapes are very priceless & precious. I still also have the VHS camera (camcorder), plus another more compact camcorder for the smaller tape size (VHS-C). I am planning to back up those tapes to digital & so I will need an analog-to-digital A/V converter. We still have plenty of instamatic-type photo camera's, because my Dad was a photo-buff. But since I never got into analog cameras, I don't know how to work them, nor to understand how to repair them. Plus they do need an outside service you have to pay to get the photos processed. We have hundreds & hundreds of photo prints that my Dad shot over the decades, since the early 1970's. I am not sure what to do with them once my life time is up as I am probably the only one who cares about them, since I don't have kids to hand down these "heirlooms" to. And yes, I had also played with the Speak & Spell back in the '70's, but I don't think we have ever owned one. It's now funny to think that all this stuff can all be integrated as apps on one smartphone, as computer games, music, videos, photographs & AI voice speaking & voice recognition, plus enough power to add tons more of other kinds of applications.
I just finally pulled my mom's Cam's and bags out the closet... she passed away 17yrs ago! Plus found some VHS tapes, an old Philips player, with oversize remote control 😅😂❤😂
I had a Coleco Telstar Combat console. It never worked correctly. The picture was always distorted and rolled no matter what channel we used or how we adjusted the fine tuning. Then I had a Coleco Telstar Arcade which had three sides and took triangular metal cartridges. The pack-in cartridge never worked, it just gave random patterns on the screen. My parent had also gotten me a second cartridge, but since it didn't have any racing games on it, I never got to use the steering wheel on the console. After a couple months, the light gun started to malfunction and register hits no matter where it was pointed. In contrast, our Atari Video Pinball console worked perfectly, as did the Atari 2600. For what it's worth, several years ago, I found a bunch of old video games in the trash. There were three Atari 2600 consoles and two of them worked perfectly. There was also a Colecovision. That one did NOT work. The picture had the wrong colors and the games wouldn't play. Strangely, it had the Atari expansion module with it, and that DID work. Yes, I know the expansion module was basically a self-contained Atari 2600, which is kind of the point. Atari seemed to have more reliable designs than Coleco.
Pong consoles also gave video games the stigma of ruining TVs. People would play Pong for hours and since it was strictly B/W, there would be a white "net" line down the center of the screen for hours. The image would get burned into the picture tube such that you'd be able to see it during dark scenes in whatever you were watching. This really wasn't an issue with later game systems that used colors and had more varied game designs, but the idea that video games harm TVs persisted in many people's minds. That's the reason that many Atari 2600 games cycle the colors after a game has ended.
@@MemoryManor 😂😂 I’d be lying if I told ya ……… toooooooo many years ago lol (I was only in 2nd-3rd grade 🤦🏼♀️ & am 56 now 😂). If I had to guess I say my dad ha ha!
Well this was a very nice walk down memory lane. I had a few of the ATARI Video gam consoles and a box full of games (around 30) by the time I was finished getting them. I actually had several of these items and they were a blast to have and use on those rainy days, oh how nice it is to walk down memory lane now and tnen.
Cassette tapes I still use today, even VHS tapes when I can find blank ones. I miss cameras with film, you had to think a whole lot more when taking photos unlike a phone where you take dozens of snapshots just to cheery pick the good ones.
@@sandybruce9092 It has everything to do with age. Fifty years ago Archie and Edith Bunker longed for a simpler time in their show's theme song. And fifty years from now they'll be talking about how much simpler life was back in the 2020's. Nothing ever changes except people getting older.
Gadgets, yes. Forgotten, no, and none of the ones mentioned here are things we really need or want back. That said, I bought a 110 camera in the late 1970s, specifically for situations when I didn't want to lug my SLR. It wasn't a Kodak Instamatic model; it was a Berkey Keystone one with a built-in strobe flash, which was far more convenient than Magicubes. (About 6 years before that, my dad bought me a 126 camera that used 126 film cartridges and Magicubes. The main advantage to Magicubes was that the camera didn't need batteries to use them. The disadvantages were that they were relatively expensive, bulky and sometimes they'd misfire, melt the housing or even burst when used.) I took hundreds, maybe even a few thousand photos with my Keystone 110, and while I certainly appreciated its portability and convenience, I can't say it took great pictures. With the possible exception of specialty cameras like the Minolta 110 Zoom SLR, 110 cameras were not known for taking great pictures. The tiny negative size of the 110 film format doomed them from the start. I think only disc film was worse.
I loved the Speak & Spell -- if I remember, you could get hilarious results by inputting words not in its database or by deliberately misspelling them; e.g., "urinator" and, "dooshes".
I remember a comedian who came on _The Tonighr Show_ (Johnny Carson tenure) carrying a Speak 'n Spell which he disguised with a mustache and sombrero; he'd 'ask' it something and it would reply 'Si' ( he just pressed the 'C' button to make it say that!😉)
Technically, the Atari 2600 was officially named the Atari VCS (Video Computer System). It wasn't re-branded as the "Atari 2600" until the release of the Atari 5200 in 1982.
I was born in the late 60s. I remember them all ! Least favourite out of your list was the Kodak instamatic. Crap pictures on tiny film ! Something like an Olympus Trip on 35mm film was way better, and just as convenient. The Polaroid cameras, whilst even worse pictures than the instamatics, and more expensive running costs, at least had the instant developing of the picture gimick. Otherwise, I I loved them all. I had an Atari VCS 2600 as an xmas present in about 1980. I remember having portable cassette players like the walkman. Pong was a brilliant game, and VCRs, when we finally got one in 1985 (so VHS) was also brilliant.
Can you remember most of these now antiquated cameras that you took the film down to a local chemist to be developed? I’m pretty certain that they sent the film to a remote location, as stories abound of people getting back the wrong photos - pictures of a cruise or a trip to Disneyland or Majorca or the Portuguese Algarve or skiing in the Austrian Alps - which is odd, as you only went on day trips to some of the seaside resorts not far from where you live - wedding photos with people on them you don’t know - even if you did get back the correct photos, most of them were under or over exposed or a double exposure because you forgot to wind on the film - later cameras made sure that double exposures were impossible - some looked like you had taken a picture in a completely darkened room! Today, we have tablets and smartphones that can take good pictures and even videos which are instantly available to view - no need to go to the chemist and wait for a month to get them developed!
@@arthurvasey yeah, I remember having to get film developed and printed, and as you say , check the pictures were actually what you expect ! I always got back the pictures I expected, I'm sure there must have been mishaps !
I remember my parents buying a pong console, and getting bored of it within 15 minutes. I think one of the major differences between video games of then and now is that now the games are so immersive and detailed that you can lose hours and hours playing them, to the point where you fail to pay attention to other important things in life. For me that happened by 1980--I had a C64 and programmed my own games, let alone copying hundreds from my friends who had a C64 too.
I just recently got a used Minolta Maxxum 6000 SLR camera so that I could take film pictures (mainly cosplay ones at science fiction conventions)-I only use it sometimes, as film and film processing is expensive now. I also have a Olympus E-500 DSLR and a Sony camcorder (the model that has infra-red capability which appearently can see through clothing. ) Both of those are now antiques (the Minolta uses XD cards, and the Sony camcorder uses mini-DVD's-camcorders now use memory cards.)
When I develop my pictures I take on my Minolta film SLR, they always come out good, the ones taken at night under low light at 1600 ISO with no flash in particular.
i have the atari 2600 4 switch and 6 switch, i was born in 80 but i remember playing it as i have 3 older brothers, my parents also played it. had that right up till a fire in 99, so the stuff i have now is not the same ones. and i have more games now than we did then. but i remember getting the nes new, i also replaced that since the fire. our school had the speak & spell.
From the mid 1960s through to today, technology has been accelerating every year more than in the past decades. It has reached a few plateaus over time, and then took off again.
For me it was the Walkman all the way. I remember we couldn't afford a stereo or a boombox as referred to popularly so if i wanted to enjoy hi fi sound quality the only affordable option was the Walkman. I used to spend a fortune on quality cassette tapes. Still have the tapes even today. 😊
I was a teen in the 70's. Never had money for any of these things. Parents were cheap and stingy, so we didn't have an Atari, much less a freekin color TV. I think the first thing I was able to buy on my own, when they finally got cheap enough, was an off brand Walkman. Sure miss the 70's. Wish I could go back as an adult now and live through it all.
I'm a little younger, but we didn't have a color TV until late 1977. Still, my parents died with a paid for and well maintained house and well funded retirement accounts. But yeah, my parents really had those depression/WWII values.
There was an extension for the "magic cube" you could use for the hip pocket instamatic, inserted into the portal where the cube itself normally would have gone. By raising the flash cube a couple of inches off of the camera, red eye was reduced. There was a popular Kodak instamatic used in the 1960s, which also used cartridges, but the 120 cartridge had 35mm film in it, and that camera, though also small, was too thick to fit in one's pocket.
I wanted Asteroids when it first hit the home systems. my father was not a fan of the television, he thought I spent too much time in front of it already, so I never got into video games, I had a Vivitar 110 camera, same small silhouette, built in flash, expensive film and processing, and finally a Walkman, ate batteries like they were candy.
@@MemoryManor Tech wasn't frowned upon to that heavy an extent. I mean, people frowned on cars when they started replacing horses, or electric lights over gaslights...every generation sees tech improve. My parents complained about how much time I spent on video games, but they also complained when I stayed in most of one summer vacation and just read books. They wanted me to vary my interests.
I still have my Kodak Ektra 1 110 film camera. Not their first model of course. One difference is that it uses a Flip-Flash flash bar. I got it in 1978. In the mid or late '70s my folks bought a competitor to the Atari, a Telstar game system, which featured Pong, a single play handball game they called 'Jai alai' and the four paddle hockey game. With VCRs being expensive to me, I didn't buy one until 1990. Before that, I had to rent the machine with the movies.
I still have a fleet of N1500 compatible video recorders here, the slightly later N1502 model was superior so I use those. It was followed by a Long Play version, N1700, I have those too.
Video games were never my thing... although I did enjoy playing Angry Birds on my cell phone about 10 years ago. Almost all of this stuff came out after my time--I was born in 1959. I still have a Sony VCR which I use to watch tapes occasionally The only thing I owned from this list was a Walkman or two. In fact, I still have one--it's a Sony WM-FX290W. Still works great!
The "Instamatic" had nothing to do with the ability to quickly take snaps. Quick snaps could be done with a box brownie in 1900. The "instamatic" refered to the quick cartridge film loading that dropped into place without fiddley threading. Cartridge loading appeared in the original Kodak 35mm version Instamatic. Sloppy research guys. Don't make it up. T
And I’ll add, it was not the first ‘affordable’ camera. In fact, circa ‘63-‘64, I sent off 25 cents and several ‘Bazooka Joe’ gum wrappers for a small camera. I used it about a year before it was replaced by a used Kodak ‘Brownie’, a gift from my Grandmother when she visited and saw how much I loved (and used) my BazookaJoe camera.
To me, Instamatic meant the innovative, self contained cartridge of film, rather than having to open a 35 mm and thread film in. It also was compact to fit in your pocket, rather than carrying around a bulky 35 mm camera. Along the same lines of technology, one that was missed, was the tiny Photomat store booth that you could drive through and drop off your film for processing. Additionally, there was the one hour photo that you could drop off while shopping and pick up your prints as you would leave the store.
I'm 34, and I wasn't even thought of in the 70s. I own an atari 2600\vcs and have for around a decade or more at this point. I have multiple games and a few accessories. My favorite is the starpath\Arcadia super charger plus one of the cassette games dragon stomper. I grew up with vhs and I miss watching them.A lot of this stuff carried on into the 80s and 90s, but it's interesting to see how they started.
I had a Walkman cassette player with a battery charger cradle. It was really nice until a guy at work used it, and of course, dropped it... That was the end of that!
I remember them all. Still have a walkman, VHS palyer, had the Atari with many games, had a few Kodak 110 cameras. Remember playing pong. The good old day.
I remember the inflatable electronic turnip! It was incredibly addictive, you could eat vegetables and play with friends over 5 miles away at the same time
I have never seen one of those VCR's with the small Cassettes before, but one of my bother in laws did have a Sony top loader back in the 70's that cost $1500 , back then! which would be a whopping $11,757.49 , in 2023! 😱
Re: Pong: "Everyone knew it would change the way we play video games". LOL. We didn't play video games prior to Pong, as Pong was the FIRST video game. I remember c. 1975 I saw Pong for the first time while visiting some second cousins. How utterly boring it was. No wonder I never got into video games!
Pong wasn't the first video game--not even the first graphic-based videogame--it was just the first massively successful one that could be owned at home. Before that you had to be an engineer or defense contractor to have a computer to even play a game on...but they had games before Pong.
In 72, when I was 9, I got a Panasonic cassette tape player recorder that was powered with D batteries. It was big like a woman's purse. Small battery radio where out, but I could play what I wanted. I would take it to school, push play and grab a girl and dance. After the song I would grab my tape player and walk off. The 70s where fun.
Walmart, Family Dollar and some other stores sell video games systems that play retro 1970's and later games some 40 to 100 different games built into the systems.
@@MemoryManor IKR. I'm 50yrs old & still 🎮 to this day. I had my hands on the Atari 2600 & 5200...the 2600 has since been revived as a self contained plug n play complete with most of the games of the time.
the atari 2600 came out 1 year before i was born. but one of my favorite gadget's from back when i still use today is my cb radio. i always have one in my car's no matter what. sadly tho the use of the cb radio is not what it once was now days to many people just eat up channels running thier mouths about things no one really cares to hear about.
I still have 140 of these games in the form of Shockwave Flash Player games on PC & also have a Commodore 64 emulator for Windows. I never had a Walkman, but todays to go music is way better in that my phone has a 1Tb. storage card and Bluetooth to my 3,000 watt home theater when I need some umph.
Thinking of these things, being 69, I loved my Betamax video tape recorder. it had such incredibly crisp resolution, making VHS look like doggy-doo (much like comparing VHS to Blu-ray today). But with VHS consoles selling "as low as" $500 and Betamax selling for $1200 (and these were in 1970's dollars, so multiply that times 3.75 to compute for today's dollars), the general buyer's choice was inevitable. That, and Beta used 1-hour cassettes, but VHS could record 2-6 hours, as long as one could tolerate really lousy video and sound quality.
stuff we need back... eh. 'somewhat more decent than back then' 2 way radios should be installed by default in every car that leaves the factory. basically every chip ever made throughout the 1980s 1970s 1990s 2000s should be for sale in quantities in electronics stores on every street corner, and oh eh those electronic component shops themselves should make a comeback as aliexpress simply is too much work. lol. waiting for the mailman and all that.
They'll eventually be back. The internet is becoming *SO* loaded with crap, spam, malware, walled gardens and unsearchable search engines (looking at you, Google and Amazon) that it will eventually collapse on itself. Then we'll have to go back to physical stores and hard-copy.
Wait, you think that $1,000 is too expensive in today's money? I think you meant that the original 1972 price of the Philips video tape recorder at $1,000 is about $7,250 in today's dollars. Yeah, that's a lot of money for a VCR. Also, most of the pictures you showed of the Atari 2600 were of the LEGO model recently released, not the actual original Atari from 1978.
Yup. I bought the first RCA model VCR that came out in 1977. I think it was around $800, and the 4 hour tapes were $25 apiece. Still have the VCR but haven't powered it up in years. It still worked when I put it back in the box though, that thing was a beast. Only VCR I ever owned.
It's Atari 2600 = two sixhundred, not twenty sixhundred. The Philips VCR 1500 was never on the market in the USA, but Betamax didn't come much later in the 1970s, followed by VHS. The Philips and Grundig VCR system was quite popular in Germany and the Netherlands and were at use in schools until the late 1980s.
I had a Speak & Spell when I was a kid... totally forgot about it until this video!
I was born in the 70's so basically i had all of these gadgets as a kid - first that pong on tv, then the Atari consolle, then the sony walkman ( i think these were from the 80's already ? Atari e and walkman )
this is another travel back in time - great video
I'm 66 years old and you really take me back my favorite was the Atari 2600.
Glad to be of help. What was your favorite game?
I always wanted an Amiga 500 in the 70s. It took me till 1995 to get one though.
The Amiga 500 did not come out until April 1987
@@deanhayes2977 Pretty sure that's his point Einstein.
I used to have a Codar cr 70a valve communications receiver.
@KC9UDX I like your C64 in your radio shack. Me I used to have Amiga 600 and 1200s. 73s.
I had one, but traded it for an Amiga A1500.
I loved the Poloroid Instamatic camera. Take a picture and out it pops, then wait a minute to see the image. The large Getto-Blaster was a favorite for music.
We played Pong endlessly! I do not know how much time we spent on this game, but it was a lot! Atari 2600, I had almost every game. Asteroids was my main go-to. Today, I am in my 50s and I still enjoy playing video games
I wanted the high power stereos but it took me til the 2000s to even exist
Every "with it" bar and tavern had a pong game console where for a quarter patrons could demonstrate their skills. People would put their quarter (two bits) on the game box to show their challenge to the winner of the ongoing game as well as their place in line.
It was a good icebreaker and people mixer for the bar/tavern that would keep folks in the establishment for longer spans of time.
I am 68 and still play daily. On Wednsdays I play Call Of Duty online with my son who lives 50 miles away. I had the Atari 2600 when it came out. Cost $300 for me then. Was super cool to have back then.
I was already a teenager when Pong came into the market. I also remember my first camera, a Kodak Ista-matic 104.
Same here. Was past video games, but always liked cameras.
My grandmother bought the atari 2600 for me and my 2 siblings at her house.She was the master of Qbert and breakout and Pacman. It's awesome that my gram is the one who introduced us to video games!❤❤❤❤❤❤
Luv u Mimi!
I’d love what we called a “Music Centre”. The record player, cassette tape recorder and radio contained in one unit. It came with a pair of good speakers. I used to drool at them in department stores because I couldn’t afford one. Another thing was the “RadioGram” It was more furniture like. In a wooden console, a record player and radio with built in speakers. Those were happy family times.
Back in the 80s, I had a Walkman. Liked a lot!
I have the Atari 2600 full consul and addons plus 10 games, I also have cassettes that are 50 years old and still work fine.
Great video, Cheers.
VIntage stuff was really made to last! Appreciate the kind words :)
@@MemoryManor yep , i have a 2600 'junior', loads of audio and video cassettes, open reel and 8 track tapes, all work nicely,
i have Intellivision with about 60 games.
everything still working perfectly but I'm missing some overlays for the controllers.
Those Atari 2600 would only work on old TVs. Is there a way you can make them work on LED TVs ?
@@sureshmukhi2316 yes, modification for composite output, if your tv has no 'composite' but does have 'component', the Y input in many cases also acts as composite and they'll extract the colour carrier ok,
Atari 2600 - my most memorable Christmas gift ever. Many thanks to Nolan Bushnell and the resourceful Atari and Activision game programmers!
indeed! gamers today should thank atari for paving the way
I definitely miss having it and playing it for hours on end
I was born in 1943. My first radio as a kid was the Crystal Set. I kept stringing a long wire antenna out my bedroom window to a local Utility pole for top reception and the PECO maintenance guy kept taking it down. He eventually got the message when I connected the so called antenna wire to the 2nd Anode of an old TV in my dads shop in the radio shack.
My cousin had pong. We had the Atari. Now we have the “new” retro Atari. My husband still has his Walkman. We still have a VCR and movies on VHS that we still watch sometimes.
Had one and my mom and dad and I enjoyed playing it. I had friends who had one and when I would go to sleep overs then I would play it. My mom and dad had one. Had one and enjoyed it. Love from Marysville, California
Absolutely none of those things do I miss.
All of them because of my age! But the Walkman for me and the Phillips recorder for my dad... Dallas, X-Files, Star Trek (original tv version) and the RAMS football games! RIP🕊❤️👑🙏🏽 dad (43 yrs ago) on this father days in
🎉2023🎉
I still have our Coleco Telstar. It's the Ranger model, because it came with a light-sensing pistol, for the added pong-style game of skeet & target shooting that you point at the TV so that it sensing the electron raster of the CRT. We still also have our Atari 2600/VCS. Both of them were bought within a year of each other in the late 1970's. Since I am basically the electronics & computer guy in the family, I have kept both of these machines, not only because of the tech, but also because of the sentimentality & nostalgia, as they both represent a part of my family's history in my frame of reference. I do not have a Walkman, but I have a no-name basic portable cassette player, but it's been broken for decades so I have yet to fix it. I also still have many VCR's, which includes large piles of VHS tapes. Most of the tapes are just recordings from television, but there are a big handful of tapes of home videos, from our VHS camera, that recorded some of our everyday life & celebrations (birthdays etc), as recorded by my Dad (RIP), as far back as the late 1980's, so those tapes are very priceless & precious. I still also have the VHS camera (camcorder), plus another more compact camcorder for the smaller tape size (VHS-C). I am planning to back up those tapes to digital & so I will need an analog-to-digital A/V converter. We still have plenty of instamatic-type photo camera's, because my Dad was a photo-buff. But since I never got into analog cameras, I don't know how to work them, nor to understand how to repair them. Plus they do need an outside service you have to pay to get the photos processed. We have hundreds & hundreds of photo prints that my Dad shot over the decades, since the early 1970's. I am not sure what to do with them once my life time is up as I am probably the only one who cares about them, since I don't have kids to hand down these "heirlooms" to. And yes, I had also played with the Speak & Spell back in the '70's, but I don't think we have ever owned one. It's now funny to think that all this stuff can all be integrated as apps on one smartphone, as computer games, music, videos, photographs & AI voice speaking & voice recognition, plus enough power to add tons more of other kinds of applications.
I just finally pulled my mom's Cam's and bags out the closet... she passed away 17yrs ago!
Plus found some VHS tapes, an old Philips player, with oversize remote control 😅😂❤😂
I had a Coleco Telstar Combat console. It never worked correctly. The picture was always distorted and rolled no matter what channel we used or how we adjusted the fine tuning. Then I had a Coleco Telstar Arcade which had three sides and took triangular metal cartridges. The pack-in cartridge never worked, it just gave random patterns on the screen. My parent had also gotten me a second cartridge, but since it didn't have any racing games on it, I never got to use the steering wheel on the console. After a couple months, the light gun started to malfunction and register hits no matter where it was pointed.
In contrast, our Atari Video Pinball console worked perfectly, as did the Atari 2600.
For what it's worth, several years ago, I found a bunch of old video games in the trash. There were three Atari 2600 consoles and two of them worked perfectly. There was also a Colecovision. That one did NOT work. The picture had the wrong colors and the games wouldn't play. Strangely, it had the Atari expansion module with it, and that DID work. Yes, I know the expansion module was basically a self-contained Atari 2600, which is kind of the point. Atari seemed to have more reliable designs than Coleco.
I’m 60. My most memorable gadget was the Pong game. My brother and I got it for Christmas. We had so much fun with it.
What was your favorite game?
Remember the Polaroid camera? I'm 85 and I just couldn't believe that I could snap a picture and have it developed in less than 5 minutes.
45 rpm records with good music
Agreed.
Subscribed. I was born in '79 but I appreciate all the changes and technology before my time.
Pong consoles also gave video games the stigma of ruining TVs. People would play Pong for hours and since it was strictly B/W, there would be a white "net" line down the center of the screen for hours. The image would get burned into the picture tube such that you'd be able to see it during dark scenes in whatever you were watching. This really wasn't an issue with later game systems that used colors and had more varied game designs, but the idea that video games harm TVs persisted in many people's minds. That's the reason that many Atari 2600 games cycle the colors after a game has ended.
God I remember when my dad brought PONG home 😂😂. Boy I thought we were the 💩. We were entertained for hours lol.
Who won the most between you and your dad/friends/siblings?
@@MemoryManor 😂😂 I’d be lying if I told ya ……… toooooooo many years ago lol (I was only in 2nd-3rd grade 🤦🏼♀️ & am 56 now 😂). If I had to guess I say my dad ha ha!
At that time, you WERE the 💩!
I had a Kodak Pocket Instamatic. I have an album of photos I took at Disney World. You can tell a 4th grader took them.
Well this was a very nice walk down memory lane. I had a few of the ATARI Video gam consoles and a box full of games (around 30) by the time I was finished getting them. I actually had several of these items and they were a blast to have and use on those rainy days, oh how nice it is to walk down memory lane now and tnen.
For me it was a transistor radio back in the 60s.
I loved my pong and atari. We played alot when I was a kid. Still have both and they still work. 😀
Cassette tapes I still use today, even VHS tapes when I can find blank ones.
I miss cameras with film, you had to think a whole lot more when taking photos unlike a phone where you take dozens of snapshots just to cheery pick the good ones.
There's one more console that still deserves consideration... the Mattel's Intellivision. A great jump ahead in matter of gaming consoles!
That one also had an add-on device which allowed you to play video games that had speech-something the Atari 2600 never had.
@@Neville60001 it was named Intellivoice. A great innovation for that era.
I really miss those days, such simpler life, and no cell phones
It was not “simpler”. You were younger is all.
No! It really was simpler - had nothing to do with age!!
@@sandybruce9092 It has everything to do with age. Fifty years ago Archie and Edith Bunker longed for a simpler time in their show's theme song. And fifty years from now they'll be talking about how much simpler life was back in the 2020's. Nothing ever changes except people getting older.
Gadgets, yes. Forgotten, no, and none of the ones mentioned here are things we really need or want back.
That said, I bought a 110 camera in the late 1970s, specifically for situations when I didn't want to lug my SLR. It wasn't a Kodak Instamatic model; it was a Berkey Keystone one with a built-in strobe flash, which was far more convenient than Magicubes. (About 6 years before that, my dad bought me a 126 camera that used 126 film cartridges and Magicubes. The main advantage to Magicubes was that the camera didn't need batteries to use them. The disadvantages were that they were relatively expensive, bulky and sometimes they'd misfire, melt the housing or even burst when used.) I took hundreds, maybe even a few thousand photos with my Keystone 110, and while I certainly appreciated its portability and convenience, I can't say it took great pictures. With the possible exception of specialty cameras like the Minolta 110 Zoom SLR, 110 cameras were not known for taking great pictures. The tiny negative size of the 110 film format doomed them from the start. I think only disc film was worse.
I don't care what anyone says real film cant be beaten.
I loved the Speak & Spell -- if I remember, you could get hilarious results by inputting words not in its database or by deliberately misspelling them; e.g., "urinator" and, "dooshes".
I remember a comedian who came on _The Tonighr Show_ (Johnny Carson tenure) carrying a Speak 'n Spell which he disguised with a mustache and sombrero; he'd 'ask' it something and it would reply 'Si' ( he just pressed the 'C' button to make it say that!😉)
Technically, the Atari 2600 was officially named the Atari VCS (Video Computer System). It wasn't re-branded as the "Atari 2600" until the release of the Atari 5200 in 1982.
Used to take magic cubes apart because the bulbs would light up if thrown against a wall
that sounds fun!
I actually think I remember doing that, too...
I was born in the late 60s. I remember them all ! Least favourite out of your list was the Kodak instamatic. Crap pictures on tiny film ! Something like an Olympus Trip on 35mm film was way better, and just as convenient. The Polaroid cameras, whilst even worse pictures than the instamatics, and more expensive running costs, at least had the instant developing of the picture gimick.
Otherwise, I I loved them all. I had an Atari VCS 2600 as an xmas present in about 1980. I remember having portable cassette players like the walkman. Pong was a brilliant game, and VCRs, when we finally got one in 1985 (so VHS) was also brilliant.
Can you remember most of these now antiquated cameras that you took the film down to a local chemist to be developed? I’m pretty certain that they sent the film to a remote location, as stories abound of people getting back the wrong photos - pictures of a cruise or a trip to Disneyland or Majorca or the Portuguese Algarve or skiing in the Austrian Alps - which is odd, as you only went on day trips to some of the seaside resorts not far from where you live - wedding photos with people on them you don’t know - even if you did get back the correct photos, most of them were under or over exposed or a double exposure because you forgot to wind on the film - later cameras made sure that double exposures were impossible - some looked like you had taken a picture in a completely darkened room!
Today, we have tablets and smartphones that can take good pictures and even videos which are instantly available to view - no need to go to the chemist and wait for a month to get them developed!
@@arthurvasey yeah, I remember having to get film developed and printed, and as you say , check the pictures were actually what you expect !
I always got back the pictures I expected, I'm sure there must have been mishaps !
I remember my parents buying a pong console, and getting bored of it within 15 minutes. I think one of the major differences between video games of then and now is that now the games are so immersive and detailed that you can lose hours and hours playing them, to the point where you fail to pay attention to other important things in life. For me that happened by 1980--I had a C64 and programmed my own games, let alone copying hundreds from my friends who had a C64 too.
I just recently got a used Minolta Maxxum 6000 SLR camera so that I could take film pictures (mainly cosplay ones at science fiction conventions)-I only use it sometimes, as film and film processing is expensive now. I also have a Olympus E-500 DSLR and a Sony camcorder (the model that has infra-red capability which appearently can see through clothing. ) Both of those are now antiques (the Minolta uses XD cards, and the Sony camcorder uses mini-DVD's-camcorders now use memory cards.)
When I develop my pictures I take on my Minolta film SLR, they always come out good, the ones taken at night under low light at 1600 ISO with no flash in particular.
I feel like I had the Kodak Pocket Instamatic in toy form it was red.
Love this kind of content. Subbed.
Welcome aboard! Appreciate the support
I _might_ also subscribe to this channel as well.
i have the atari 2600 4 switch and 6 switch, i was born in 80 but i remember playing it as i have 3 older brothers, my parents also played it. had that right up till a fire in 99, so the stuff i have now is not the same ones. and i have more games now than we did then. but i remember getting the nes new, i also replaced that since the fire. our school had the speak & spell.
I had a 110 camera in the 1990s, yes you could still buy that film then. I miss using it despite not being the greatest picture quality.
I love how everything from the 1960s\70s looks *wayz more futuristic than anything now.
They _may_ *_look_* 'futuristic, but they're still old.
I remember all of these. 🙂
Huge pocket calculators that were carried in a belt holster.
Actually, in 1977 the Atari was the VCS, it was renamed the 2600 in 1980.
From the mid 1960s through to today, technology has been accelerating every year more than in the past decades. It has reached a few plateaus over time, and then took off again.
in 1977 I received a LAFEYETTE TELSTAL 140 CB RADIO and still use it at home. Since then I bought a GALAXY 2547 to use at my leiser while at work.
Great 😊
I had that 110mm camera. I took some important life milestones photos with that - including some I never got to see when it was stolen 😕
oh man that's rough! glad we have our memories to make up for it am i right?
For me it was the Walkman all the way. I remember we couldn't afford a stereo or a boombox as referred to popularly so if i wanted to enjoy hi fi sound quality the only affordable option was the Walkman. I used to spend a fortune on quality cassette tapes. Still have the tapes even today. 😊
GREAT VIDEO
I was a teen in the 70's. Never had money for any of these things. Parents were cheap and stingy, so we didn't have an Atari, much less a freekin color TV.
I think the first thing I was able to buy on my own, when they finally got cheap enough, was an off brand Walkman.
Sure miss the 70's. Wish I could go back as an adult now and live through it all.
I'm a little younger, but we didn't have a color TV until late 1977. Still, my parents died with a paid for and well maintained house and well funded retirement accounts. But yeah, my parents really had those depression/WWII values.
There was an extension for the "magic cube" you could use for the hip pocket instamatic, inserted into the portal where the cube itself normally would have gone.
By raising the flash cube a couple of inches off of the camera, red eye was reduced.
There was a popular Kodak instamatic used in the 1960s, which also used cartridges, but the 120 cartridge had 35mm film in it, and that camera, though also small, was too thick to fit in one's pocket.
actually, the earlier Instamatic used type 126 film cartridges.
120 was roll film.
@@m.k.8158 Oh, that's right! Thanks!
The flashcube was the most unreliable part on my Instamatic. It would often fail to fire, thus wasting a picture.
I wanted Asteroids when it first hit the home systems. my father was not a fan of the television, he thought I spent too much time in front of it already, so I never got into video games, I had a Vivitar 110 camera, same small silhouette, built in flash, expensive film and processing, and finally a Walkman, ate batteries like they were candy.
tech was really frowned upon then compared to how it is nowadays isn't it?
@@MemoryManor Tech wasn't frowned upon to that heavy an extent. I mean, people frowned on cars when they started replacing horses, or electric lights over gaslights...every generation sees tech improve. My parents complained about how much time I spent on video games, but they also complained when I stayed in most of one summer vacation and just read books. They wanted me to vary my interests.
Thank goodness my folks understood I needed books, my dad was an outdoors type but he was proud of how I developed my mind.
These have to be the least obscure items you could have selected. Even the youngest millenials know about VCRs, Walkmans and such.
We don't need a single one of those "gadgets" back - they had their time, but is now completely obsolete.
I built the first VHS machine in my lab at RCA LABS back in 1977 as part of a research team improving VHS recording techniques.
People still remember most of these things. I have earlier slider projector that still works last time I tried it.
I still have my Kodak Ektra 1 110 film camera. Not their first model of course. One difference is that it uses a Flip-Flash flash bar. I got it in 1978.
In the mid or late '70s my folks bought a competitor to the Atari, a Telstar game system, which featured Pong, a single play handball game they called 'Jai alai' and the four paddle hockey game.
With VCRs being expensive to me, I didn't buy one until 1990. Before that, I had to rent the machine with the movies.
I still have a fleet of N1500 compatible video recorders here, the slightly later N1502 model was superior so I use those. It was followed by a Long Play version, N1700, I have those too.
Video games were never my thing... although I did enjoy playing Angry Birds on my cell phone about 10 years ago.
Almost all of this stuff came out after my time--I was born in 1959. I still have a Sony VCR which I use to watch tapes occasionally The only thing I owned from this list was a Walkman or two. In fact, I still have one--it's a Sony WM-FX290W. Still works great!
The "Instamatic" had nothing to do with the ability to quickly take snaps. Quick snaps could be done with a box brownie in 1900. The "instamatic" refered to the quick cartridge film loading that dropped into place without fiddley threading. Cartridge loading appeared in the original Kodak 35mm version Instamatic. Sloppy research guys. Don't make it up. T
what i meant when i said that, need to work on being more precise but thanks for pointing that out!
And I’ll add, it was not the first ‘affordable’ camera.
In fact, circa ‘63-‘64, I sent off 25 cents and several ‘Bazooka Joe’ gum wrappers for a small camera.
I used it about a year before it was replaced by a used Kodak ‘Brownie’, a gift from my Grandmother when she visited and saw how much I loved (and used) my BazookaJoe camera.
Interesting! Cameras have come a long way from then don't you think?
@terrylast7034 I researched your mom and she was sloppy, too.
To me, Instamatic meant the innovative, self contained cartridge of film, rather than having to open a 35 mm and thread film in.
It also was compact to fit in your pocket, rather than carrying around a bulky 35 mm camera.
Along the same lines of technology, one that was missed, was the tiny Photomat store booth that you could drive through and drop off your film for processing.
Additionally, there was the one hour photo that you could drop off while shopping and pick up your prints as you would leave the store.
Great video, I subbed, looking forward to more awesome content!
Appreciate it!
I'm 34, and I wasn't even thought of in the 70s. I own an atari 2600\vcs and have for around a decade or more at this point. I have multiple games and a few accessories. My favorite is the starpath\Arcadia super charger plus one of the cassette games dragon stomper. I grew up with vhs and I miss watching them.A lot of this stuff carried on into the 80s and 90s, but it's interesting to see how they started.
The 70s really was a timeless decade
Dragonstomper was one of the first serious RPG games. Escape from the Mindmaster was fun on the Supercharger, too.
I loved the Atari 2600👍🏻, the 70's were great.
I had a Walkman cassette player with a battery charger cradle. It was really nice until a guy at work used it, and of course, dropped it...
That was the end of that!
Did you make him replace/pay for it?
@@MemoryManor No. He was a goof, and it just wasn't worth it. I do remember it was about $30-35.
I remember them all. Still have a walkman, VHS palyer, had the Atari with many games, had a few Kodak 110 cameras. Remember playing pong. The good old day.
Pong was the greatest game ever 😅
If we're going back to the 70's I want a PK ripper and a Evil Knievel stunt cycle.
I remember the inflatable electronic turnip! It was incredibly addictive, you could eat vegetables and play with friends over 5 miles away at the same time
Nineteen seventies,my goodness ,how it was been so long time ago!
its scary how time flies doesn't it?
@@MemoryManor yeah, you right,my mom was been more younger than now!
LOL, caught the recent "Lego Version" of the Atari 2600 in several of those shots.
my eyes have deceived me!
I had a Walkman, I loved it.
yeah me too!
My dad had one. I was a little tyke but I can remember listening to LK songs on my cassette tape every night. My mom still has a shitton of them.
I remember the Polaroid instant camera. I actually saw them for sale at Target recentlt, don't know why as they don't make film for it anymore.
You, sir, got yourself new subscriber. Keep rocking!
Welcome aboard!
I have never seen one of those VCR's with the small Cassettes before, but one of my bother in laws did have a Sony top loader back in the 70's that cost $1500 , back then!
which would be a whopping $11,757.49 , in 2023! 😱
You had me at "bother-in-law"! 🤣🤣 I may borrow that at some point...
@@mar4kl All Righty then! 😀
Re: Pong: "Everyone knew it would change the way we play video games". LOL. We didn't play video games prior to Pong, as Pong was the FIRST video game. I remember c. 1975 I saw Pong for the first time while visiting some second cousins. How utterly boring it was. No wonder I never got into video games!
poor choice of words on my end but hopefully you still enjoyed the video!
Pong wasn't the first video game--not even the first graphic-based videogame--it was just the first massively successful one that could be owned at home. Before that you had to be an engineer or defense contractor to have a computer to even play a game on...but they had games before Pong.
The first video game ever was made in the early '60's and was called _Spacewar_ ; it was mad by somebody at MIT, IIRC.
In 72, when I was 9, I got a Panasonic cassette tape player recorder that was powered with D batteries.
It was big like a woman's purse. Small battery radio where out, but I could play what I wanted.
I would take it to school, push play and grab a girl and dance. After the song I would grab my tape player and walk off. The 70s where fun.
I had the Atari 2600 with about 8 cartridges. Space Invaders and Asteroids were my favorite. I had pacman too but it was nothing like the arcade game.
I remember Atari 2600 & 5200 also. Cassette Walkman? Been there done that, worth it before CD'S.
transformative technology during their time am i right?
Walmart, Family Dollar and some other stores sell video games systems that play retro 1970's and later games some 40 to 100 different games built into the systems.
My parents used to stay up till 4 am in the morning and play their 2600.
gaming is the ultimate escape no matter what generation!
When I was a teen in the early 90s, I had all night Nintendo marathons. They were so much fun.
Back in the 80s when I got my 2600jr, on a Sunday afternoon I didnt ever get a chance to play with it because my GRAN was on it.
@@MemoryManor IKR. I'm 50yrs old & still 🎮 to this day.
I had my hands on the Atari 2600 & 5200...the 2600 has since been revived as a self contained plug n play complete with most of the games of the time.
I cannot, in any reality, think of any reason we would NEED any of these back.
Quite true. I was a teenager in the 70's. It wasn't as great as it looks in retrospect.
not only do i remember them, i owned all of them, i was a bit (and still are) a bit of a tech geek 😎
i remember the times i used to be the remote controll for my parents🤦♂😂😂😂😂
That takes me back, I was always on antenna duty!
@@MemoryManor 😂😂😂😂
the atari 2600 came out 1 year before i was born. but one of my favorite gadget's from back when i still use today is my cb radio. i always have one in my car's no matter what. sadly tho the use of the cb radio is not what it once was now days to many people just eat up channels running thier mouths about things no one really cares to hear about.
My friend had pong and i got the 2600 in '82. Had fun & my parents played alot of Pac Man, too.
Don't forget the Viewmaster.
shame i did! probably on the next video
Viewmaster was around in the 60's
@@hotpuppy1Might have been the 50’s. As I do remember having one around that time. I was already a teenager when 1960 arrived!
I still have 140 of these games in the form of Shockwave Flash Player games on PC & also have a Commodore 64 emulator for Windows. I never had a Walkman, but todays to go music is way better in that my phone has a 1Tb. storage card and Bluetooth to my 3,000 watt home theater when I need some umph.
I want them all, and my rack stereo that I lost when Pinatubo eruption ate my house.
Pinatubo is a mountain/volcano right? Can't remember where exactly
The rack separate amp, tape deck, tuner and turntable tower stereo, still widely available new.
Why the hell would we want any of these devices back?
Thinking of these things, being 69, I loved my Betamax video tape recorder. it had such incredibly crisp resolution, making VHS look like doggy-doo (much like comparing VHS to Blu-ray today). But with VHS consoles selling "as low as" $500 and Betamax selling for $1200 (and these were in 1970's dollars, so multiply that times 3.75 to compute for today's dollars), the general buyer's choice was inevitable. That, and Beta used 1-hour cassettes, but VHS could record 2-6 hours, as long as one could tolerate really lousy video and sound quality.
I loved speak and spell I had one now I have new one
stuff we need back... eh. 'somewhat more decent than back then' 2 way radios should be installed by default in every car that leaves the factory. basically every chip ever made throughout the 1980s 1970s 1990s 2000s should be for sale in quantities in electronics stores on every street corner, and oh eh those electronic component shops themselves should make a comeback as aliexpress simply is too much work. lol. waiting for the mailman and all that.
They'll eventually be back. The internet is becoming *SO* loaded with crap, spam, malware, walled gardens and unsearchable search engines (looking at you, Google and Amazon) that it will eventually collapse on itself. Then we'll have to go back to physical stores and hard-copy.
The thumbnail image for this video is very much from the 80s, not the 70s.
Hmm...I had ALL of these...but, none of them would I say that "WE NEED BACK"...lol.
Wait, you think that $1,000 is too expensive in today's money? I think you meant that the original 1972 price of the Philips video tape recorder at $1,000 is about $7,250 in today's dollars. Yeah, that's a lot of money for a VCR.
Also, most of the pictures you showed of the Atari 2600 were of the LEGO model recently released, not the actual original Atari from 1978.
Yup. I bought the first RCA model VCR that came out in 1977. I think it was around $800, and the 4 hour tapes were $25 apiece. Still have the VCR but haven't powered it up in years. It still worked when I put it back in the box though, that thing was a beast. Only VCR I ever owned.
All of them.
7:38 where was the Mattel Electronics football game? I must have missed it.
aceste au valoare și astăzi în prezent
the atari 2600 was incredible.
definitely a revolutionary piece of tech am i right?
@@MemoryManor absolutely!
Why would we need these back?
It's Atari 2600 = two sixhundred, not twenty sixhundred. The Philips VCR 1500 was never on the market in the USA, but Betamax didn't come much later in the 1970s, followed by VHS. The Philips and Grundig VCR system was quite popular in Germany and the Netherlands and were at use in schools until the late 1980s.