Hasta La Gadget!

For this week’s Photoshop Contest, I asked you to imagine up some kitchen gadgets that have yet to be invented. And if I don’t have a faucet that dispenses hot cheese by the end of the decade, I’ll be pissed.

Drink. Smoke. Fuck. Don’t let the perfect writing, production, and acting fool you. That’s really what Mad Men—one of the best TV series ever—is all about. And wondrous retro tech too, like you can see in these videos.

Ah, Don Draper, how much I wanted to be like you. A creative mind at a top banana, zowielala company in New York, drinking 12-yo single malt scotch at work, going to great restaurants and fancyschmancy clubs, having love affairs left, right, and center, with your perfectly cut 50s suits.

I need to buy one of those suits.

Mad Men Season 3 starts on August 16. If you haven’t seen it yet, you have two days to get up to speed. But if you don’t fell like it, you can watch these shorts showing the retro tech in the series, from the passive exercise thingamajig to the first copier, cameras, and lots of old clickityclack electric typewriters with IBM keyboards. [Mad Men—Video compilation by Spencer Lund based on an idea by Joel Johnson]

The cool thing about Mad Men’s perfect production and attention to detail is that they get all their stuff right. The other is that you get to see a lot of new products that were invented around that age, like the passive exercise machines you now see in endless infomercials. Even better, you can see their genius as they created the need for those products using their black magic powers.

Here you have an IBM Selectric II typewriter. At the time, its optional correction feature was a godsend for office workers all around the country and the world.

I wonder what they would have said about projectors is cameras back then. Although knowing how cool they were, they probably wouldn’t have batted an eyelid, and just came with a cool name for it. And then proceed to use it to record their sex antics.

No solid state flash recording. Just pure, unadulterated, silver-based film goodness with no sound.

Back then, copiers were wonders of technology. They probably invented buttxeroring too.

And finally, a small compilation of various tech objects from the series.

Unlike Silicon Valley’s, San Francisco’s summer is fake, cold and foggy. Every year that goes by away from my beloved New Jersey, I forget what the season is really about: Fun away from the PC. And sweaty pants.

For most of my adult life, I lived up to the modern stereotype of a geek by staying connected and staying inside and equally pale year round. And I regret it. I don’t know why we live like this, when the gadgets are inherently meant to be used outside, capturing photos and videos of the best memories not in front of our Xboxes, and wireless speeds and smartphones are so good at keeping us in touch with work and loved ones while we’re traveling. There’s no excuse, if you love life.

Except, as I said, my excuse has been San Francisco. Because of the consistent climate, I just always tend to forget about any seasonal change. June hits and we have all these Apple keynotes and whatnot, and then July starts and finishes within something like, oh, 30 days and August will inevitably do the same. Then September happens, which is the spiritual death of Summer for everyone, student or not. I thought to myself, here you go again, taking things for granted. So I sought out the sun. Lisa plotted a vacation, to Kauai and Oahu. Hawaii was personal time. I was doing nothing but camping on the beach, jumping into lava formed tide pools and did not check my email or phone for 4 days. The world did not end. I surfed a little and visited friends like Philippe resting after his big race. I brought minimal technology along the way. I can’t say it was good. Apparently, when I ditch the internet, I start binge eating to replace the stimulation of twitter and blogs and email. Once, I ate three meals in a row with major ingredients being SPAM (the meat) before 4pm one day. There was a second, non SPAM dinner after that. And two working days later, 4400 new messages. Christ alive.






I got back last Wednesday and immediately took off with some Gizmodo writers and friends to REAL Watersports at Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, to learn how to kiteboard, surf, drink a lot of sponsored beers (Heineken Light, thanks for the trip) and ultimately, test beach and water gadgets. And in the proper context of being outside, we realized that half of the gadgets we thought were cool were dumb, and half of the ones we thought were useless were totally impressive. You can’t really test out waterproof cameras without spending time with them on the beach or in the ocean. Cases get beat up, lenses get smudged with grime and cam housings cause ridiculous amounts of glare out of the H2O. Nor can you do the same with Jetskis or metal detecting sandals. It’s all more subtle than that, but I’ll save it all for the reviews, which will come.

The reason the trip was sponsored is that we wanted to get some help from our friends. We invited Joel Johnson of Gizmodo/BoingBoingGadgets fame, John Mahoney from Giz and Pop Sci, and Seth Porges from Popular Mechanics, and invited them to bring as much gear as they could haul down. And Cape Hatteras was an incredible place. Basically, the area is a mecca for kiteboarding and surfing, with the outer banks being exposed to a shallow body of water to the west, almost 30 miles wide in some parts, calm but windy for kiteboarding, and the biggest surf breaks on the Atlantic coast on the other side of the island, which was walking distance away. When it came time to kiteboard, we got slaughtered. It’s basically like wakeboarding on a boat while remote controlling a kite that’s pulling you. And really, we’re not the most athletic crowd, so that didn’t help much. Also, it rained a whole bunch. One day, we only got into the water by borrowing some demo skimboards and surfboards from REAL and heading towards the Atlantic. The current was strong, but it was just so satisfying to finally swim in the Atlantic, after all these years. It’s a little darker, but because of the gulfstream, a lot warmer. Can’t say I missed my wetsuit all that much.

It was muggy, and the summer showers as relentless as the mosquitoes, things that I wouldn’t have to deal with in the monotone climate of SF, but nothing compares to the lift of spirits I get spending time with the people who write for this site, eating bbq and testing tech. We all work remotely and generally only see each other when there’s a, like, super-serious liveblog or CES show to cover. And I remembered not only how much I love this feeling of…well, summer, but how much different tech is in the context of the heat, the moisture and really the distraction of the real world.

‘Till school starts we’ll be running more stories about tech and summer. Sometimes involving the ocean sometimes the beach, sometimes just the most tangential of connections. It’s already August, but I’ll be satisfied if we can celebrate what’s left of the most glorious time of the year and what it means to all of the tech nerds here.

Summermodo is a chance for Giz to get outside and test our gear where it belongs.

For this week’s Photoshop Contest, I asked you to make some real-world gadgets a lot less practical. And you know what? I’d try my hand at a five-screened DSi with a five-pronged stylus.

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So your MacBook cost $1500—boo hoo. Thirty years ago, when the average salary was under $18,000, you’d have paid $2638 for an Apple II with 48K of RAM ($7770 in today’s dollars). And a cellphone? Waaaay more.

Cellular technology had been in development since the early ’50s, but cellphones didn’t become commercially available until Motorola’s DynaTAC 8000X gained FCC acceptance in 1983. The DynaTAC had 30 minutes of talk time, 8 hours of standby and memory for 30 numbers. It was also big enough to club that punk kid with the Flock of Seagulls haircut without getting blood on your favorite tweed jacket (you know, the one with the elbow pads). And the worst part is that you would have paid $4,000 for the privilege, $8,589 when you calculate for inflation. Needless to say, spending $200, or even $400, for the latest smartphone doesn’t seem like a bad deal comparatively. [Image via TUAW]

The point is this: We all like to complain about the price of our gadgets, but the truth is that factors like increased competition and better manufacturing technologies have made the gadgets we buy today seem like extreme bargains when put in a historical context. Let’s take a look at some more examples:

VCRs vs Blu-ray Players
In the late ’70s, JVC’s 30-pound HR-3300 VHS player rolled out onto load-bearing retail shelves with a price tag of about $1400 ($4,124 in 2009 dollars). The rival Sony SL-5400 Betamax player with its new fangled fast forward and rewind capability wasn’t much better at $1250 ($3682 in 2009 dollars).

In contrast, the Samsung BD-P1000 was one of the first Blu-ray players to hit the US in 2006—and it debuted for around $1000. That same year you could buy a Blu-ray player in a PS3 for under $500. Today, basic Blu-ray players can be had for less than $100. That’s a 90% drop in just three years.

Computers Then and Now
If the Apple II was too rich for your blood, you could have gone out and purchased the base model Atari 800 with up to 48K RAM and a 1.8MHz MOS 6502 processor for $1000 ($2,946). Want a floppy drive with that? No problem, that will be $600 ($1,767) extra. I’ll even throw in a black-on-white dot-matrix printer for $450 ($1,326). If you are looking for something in the budget range, the original Radio Shack Tandy TRS-80 with 4-16K RAM and a 1.77 MHz Zilog Z-80A processor starts at $600 ($1,767).

If you have a little more money to burn I could hook you up with the TRS-80 Model II with 64K RAM, 12″ monochrome monitor (40×24 or 80×24 text), and a built-in 500K 8-inch floppy drive for $3899 ($11,485). To put things into perspective, $11,000 is about what some silly gamer would pay for a top-of-the-line Alienware ALX X58 desktop with all the bells and whistles—including an overclocked Core i7-975 Extreme processor, dual 1.792MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 GPUs, 24GB of RAM, and 2 x 256GB SSDs (with 2TB of additional storage), not to mention a 30-inch high-def LCD monitor.

As you’ll see later on, in the late 1970s, many computers cost the same as new cars.

Gaming Consoles Then and Now
If you were gaming at home in the late ’70s, chances are you had the Atari 2600. It was the first console to feature plug-in cartridges and it cost $200 ($589) at launch. All in all, that figure is comparable to some configurations of the Xbox 360 and PS3 at launch, but it is important to consider that the latter consoles do more than just play games, acting as movie players, music decks, telecommunications hubs, all of which would have meant buying separate, expensive, primitive components back then.

Cassette Walkman vs MP3 Players
The cassette tape reigned supreme 30 years ago; for most music lovers today, it’s all about the download. Difference is, you can get an iPod shuffle that holds about 1000 songs for $79 (and many other MP3 players cost far less). In 1979, a cassette Walkman that could only play one Supertramp album at a time cost $200 ($589).

Televisions Then and Now
Television price records from the period around the late ’70s are spotty at best, because then, as now, pricing was ultracompetitive. But it is clear that most people would have to be content with a 25-inch set (and it was probably encased in a 2-ton ornate wooden shell). According to tvhistory.tv, color console models like a 25-inch Sylvania cost $530 to $850 ($1,561 to $2,503), and a 19-inch JVC “tabletop” model at $560 ($1,650). On the other hand, black-and-white models like a 22-inch Motorola console ran about $260 ($766).

Today, you can randomly walk into just about any electronics store and get a 40- to 50-inch 1080p HDTV for around $1000. If you settle for 720p you could be talking $500 or less depending on the size, and those would all be in full color, too. Old fashioned tube TVs, (the B&W sets of 2009) cost $100 to $300 new—if you can even find one.

Other Popular Gadgets
How much did other gadgets cost in the late ’70s?

• Clothes Washer/Dryer: From $199 and $219 respectively ($586 to $645)—that’s fairly comparable to today’s lower-end models. Although, if you are on a budget you can easily find models that are significantly cheaper.

• Microwave: From $169 ($498)—today many standard microwaves can be had for $60 or less.

• Dishwasher: From $259 ($763)—today you can easily find basic dishwashers for $300 or less.

• Stereo System: $299 ($884)—options vary of course, but that’s what a typical AM/FM/8-Track/record stereo system cost. Today there are a ridiculous number of devices available to play and stream music in the house—many with their own included speakers and amplifier, not to mention wireless connectivity and vast internal music and video storage—that cost less than half that.

• Calculator: $25 ($73)—Calculators come attached to everything these days but in the late ’70s, if you wanted to score an original TI-30, it would have set you back a few bucks. Today’s TI-30 models cost $20 or less. [The People History]

Cars Then and Now
Cars exist on a different plane than consumer electronics. Due to a different system of manufacturing, R&D and labor, prices have not steadily trended downward—in fact, quite the contrary. For example, The People History gives us a good idea about the price of specific cars 30 years ago—including models that are still in production today. One of those cars, the Toyota Corolla, is listed at $3,698 ($10,893). Today, a Toyota Corolla starts at around $15,350. On the higher end, the Chevy Corvette ran about $12,313 ($36,270) in 1979. Today, a base model Corvette sells for around $45,515.

Still, if you have been thinking about getting a new vehicle, this might be the best time in 30 years to do so. According to Comerica’s annual Auto Affordability Index, cars are actually more affordable now than they were in 1979. Plus, the economy is forcing automakers and the government to offer all kinds of incentives which are pushing prices even lower. [Image via Free By 50]

By now you are probably getting the idea—being a tech nerd is cheaper than ever. Sure, new technology is going to be expensive, but that is a consequence that most early adopters are willing to accept. The good news is that, for the most part, manufacturers are charging much lower early adopter premiums when compared to 30 years ago (and charging them for a shorter period of time). With fierce competition and advanced manufacturing driving down the price of new technology at a blistering rate, it takes less patience than ever to reap greater and greater rewards. So quit yer bitchin’! [Top Image via RetroWow]

Gizmodo ’79 is a week-long celebration of gadgets and geekdom 30 years ago, as the analog age gave way to the digital, and most of our favorite toys were just being born.