"There are countless horrible things happening all over the world and horrible people prospering, but we must never allow them to disturb our equanimity or deflect us from our sacred duty to sabotage and annoy them whenever possible." -Auberon Waugh
I wondered where the power came from, until he took the headset off, and I saw the cable.
Further, the headset was way too small to hold all of the guts that TVs had then; "miniaturization" at that time meant things didn't need an entire room to function. That cable was thick, so probably all of the receiver components were in a separate container, with video and audio relayed to the cathode ray tube/speaker in the headset.
And that was a pretty spendy gadget, back when; $1000 in 1962, adjusted for inflation, is about $10,300 today.
But it's interesting to note that "multi-tasking" was a thing that far back ... ...
I think it would be fun to collect odd, obsolete pieces of equipment like this. Not an option for me, though; not enough room. Plus, I think that would be a hobby for somebody who's mechanically inclined.
The Smithsonian is probably the best repository for the thing, but it's quite a job keeping so much old technology working;
so much old technology makes archived records so volatile;
decades of film negatives and microfiche are much more reliable than today's digital records, but nobody saves records that way anymore; one EMP caused by solar flares or atomic bomb detonation could wipe all magnetic digital records out.
OK, time for some pure geekery .... ....
ReplyDeleteI wondered where the power came from, until he took the headset off, and I saw the cable.
Further, the headset was way too small to hold all of the guts that TVs had then; "miniaturization" at that time meant things didn't need an entire room to function. That cable was thick, so probably all of the receiver components were in a separate container, with video and audio relayed to the cathode ray tube/speaker in the headset.
And that was a pretty spendy gadget, back when; $1000 in 1962, adjusted for inflation, is about $10,300 today.
But it's interesting to note that "multi-tasking" was a thing that far back ... ...
I think it would be fun to collect odd, obsolete pieces of equipment like this. Not an option for me, though; not enough room. Plus, I think that would be a hobby for somebody who's mechanically inclined.
ReplyDeleteThe Smithsonian is probably the best repository for the thing, but it's quite a job keeping so much old technology working;
ReplyDeleteso much old technology makes archived records so volatile;
decades of film negatives and microfiche are much more reliable than today's digital records, but nobody saves records that way anymore; one EMP caused by solar flares or atomic bomb detonation could wipe all magnetic digital records out.