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CompUSA catalog, summer 1993: The clones have taken over. Almost two decades after the introduction of the “Altair”, personal computers were now ubiquitous, to the point where stores sprang up to sell just but computers and software. CompUSA “the Computer Superstore” was the largest chain, explodingfrom a single Texas warehouse to well over 200 locations across the country at its peak… Continue reading Personal Computers: Attack of the Clones
Another snapshot from a moment in history – 1984 – the end of a “Cambrian explosion” of computers and software. It was a moment when Stewart Brand and his Whole Earth crew out in California could feel an urgent calling to categorize and review what was going on with the Personal Computer revolution… Continue reading Personal Computers, After the Flood
Snapshot from a moment in history – the year before the start of the personal computer revolution and this 1974 Edmund Scientific catalog devoted their back cover to “computers.” […] Continue reading Personal Computers, Just Before the Flood
Now they’re basically a punch line among failed music formats, but in 1971 8 track tapes were a seriously groovy audio source. Most people bought prerecorded music, but your cold roll your own thanks to home recording decks… Continue reading When 8 tracks were better than 1
This Montgomery Wards electronics catalog from 1948 assembles the vital components of a rudimentary home theater system. Just how rudimentary? Continue reading Introducing the Home Theater
The Diagnomoscope: what a great name for, well, whatever this gadget is. Sounds like something out of an early science fiction movie. (Looks like it, too, all streamlined curves like a 1930’s automobile hood.) In fact it’s… Continue reading “Quick, Watson, get me the Supreme Diagnomoscope”
In the 1950s, 60s, and even 70s, lots of men (invariably men) were encouraged to hone their hobbyist “Do It Yourself” skills. Heathkits were the pinnacle of DIY in electronics – everything from test equipment, oscilloscopes, an early analog computer (in the 1950s!)…and television sets. Continue reading Building your own TV…”Not as outrageously impractical as you might suspect”
There’s nothing in this hundred-year-old illustration that anyone today would recognize as a radio, but that is in fact what you are looking at. As we see again and again in catalogs, early technology was often awkward an unrefined. And yet it was also magic… Continue reading “An outfit for the person…who doesn’t believe in wireless”
It’s hard to appreciate how many modern conveniences, particularly of the electronic variety, began their lives so awkwardly. This Sears-Exclusive device brought closed-captioning to your existing TV for the not-insignificant price of $249… Continue reading At least 20 hours a week of captioned programs!
Radio Shack Computer Catalog, 1980. Oh sure, your iPhone or Galaxy is about a million times faster, and stores a several gazillion times more stuff, and has color displays and cameras and wireless connectivity and more apps installed than you can even remember , but you gotta start somewhere. And basically it started with this… Continue reading The Original Pocketable Computer
