Tech Fail

Can't stop laughing....

1954 Vision of 2004 Home Computer

Click image to enlarge. This looks nothing like my 2004 home computer. 

What is the big chrome steering wheel for?

My First Calculator

In 1972 I entered college and my goal was an electrical engineering degree. I still had a slide rule from high school and actually took a refresher course in my first quarter at college. By that winter, affordable handheld calculators were coming out and I bought the "Bowmar Brain" for $160 that Radio Shack was selling under there own name. It was heavy to hold with an LED readout and NiCad batteries and you had to charge it each night. It didn't even have scientific notation yet so you had to keep track of that separately! By the time the batteries died in ~1984, I replaced it with an LCD Casio scientific calculator for under $20.

Hiram Percy Maxim Antenna 1915

My kind of ham antenna....

 

Hiram Percy Maxim (1AW) station 1915

He is the founder of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL),

 the largest organized body of ham radio operators. 

Mr. Maxim also invented the gun silencer.

 

Atwater Kent Radio Factory

Here is a great photo tour of the Atwater Kent radio factory. Click on the first photo to get the big views. Back then, these jobs would be considered high tech cush positions - compared to the chicken plucking factories...

Atwater Kent was the largest radio manufacturer in the 1920s. Collectors were actively searching for old sets even back in the 1960s when I was into old radios.

Pictured below is one of the sets being manufactured in the photo collage. The large horn speaker is not shown.