Betamax You don’t hear this brand name anymore, but in the 70’s, Betamax was synonymous with home video. Sony’s first video tape recorder cost $1,275 when it was introduced in 1976. A timer could set the machine to tape upcoming shows was sold separately. Sony’s Beta tapes ruled the $20… Read More »Great Gadgets Part 6

Digital Watch There are people today who have never learned how to tell time via the “when the bog hand is on the 12 . . .” method. The first digital watch was the Pulsar, made by Hamilton in 1970. The stainless steel version costed $275 and the digital display… Read More »Great Gadgets Part 5

Remote Control Who’s responsible for America becoming a nation of couch potatoes? What helped us along was Zenith’s Space Command, a wired TV remote control with 4 buttons (channel up/down, and volume louder/softer). This 1956 feature allowed us to change the TV channel for the first time without leaving our… Read More »Great Gadgets Part 4

Pocket Calculator Desktop electronic calculators starting appearing during the 1960’s, but if you wanted to perform complex mathematical equations when you were away from an electrical outlet, a slide rule was your only alternative (I don’t even know what a slide rule is). Texas Instruments began selling the SR-10 in… Read More »Great Gadgets Part 3

Answering Machine You can tell that a TV Show or movie you’re watching is over 30 years old when a character has to remain beside his/her telephone in order to get an important call. The first automatic answering machine was a 3 foot tall contraption invented in 1935. In 1971,… Read More »Great Gadgets Part 2